AllFreeNovel
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“I like wearing the jerseys you played in, but this is so special. One of a kind, I bet. Will you sign it so it has the full effect?” I ask.
“Of course I will. Right across your chest. Maybe I’ll writeShawn was hereon the left boob.”
“You will do no such thing,” I say, and I fold the jersey back into its box. “This is the best present ever.”
“I’ll get you a couple more so you can rotate them. You look good in blue, so I figured I’d buy you that one first.”
“Pretty soon, my whole closet is going to be full of things with your name on the back,” I joke, and heat flares behind his eyes. I grab a smaller present and hand it to him. “Here.”
“What is this? A wallet?” He peels back the tape on the rectangle shape, and I wait patiently for him to finish.
This is the gift I’m most nervous about. It took the most time, and it’s the only homemade item in the bunch. The idea came to me when I remembered what he said to me the first time he visited my apartment; his words stuck with me, and now I want to give them back to him.
“Be careful,” I say. “It’s kind of fragile.”
“I’m intrigued.” He wiggles open the small box and sucks in a sharp breath. “Are these—is this—”
“Photos of us,” I whisper. “And me.”
“Is this why you kept asking to take photos together this month?” Shawn asks, and he flips through the stack of photographs.
There are fifteen in all, and they’re all from different moments over the last month we’ve spent together. The one I snapped of us on Thanksgiving in his car after his game. In Maggie and Aiden’s kitchen. The one from his apartment, me in his lap and his eyes on me. A dozen more, each showing the same thing.
Two people who care a lot about each other.
Two people in love.
When I was putting them together, I could see myself falling for him in real time.
My smiles got bigger. My face got brighter. Every moment is the happiest moment of my life, and he is there in all of them.
“I wanted you to have something you could carry with you, if you wanted. I have one in my purse of us, too.”
He touches the edges of the photos, careful to not smudge the matching grins we’re wearing. “This is the greatest thing anyone could have ever given to me. I’m going to rotate them every month. Every time I open my wallet, you’ll be the first thing I’ll see. And that makes me so fucking happy.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
“Like it? I love it. God, you’re amazing, Lacey. Nothing could ever top this.”
He tips my chin and kisses me. I adjust my legs around his waist, straddling him so I can face him and run my hands up his chest. Across his neck and into his hair. He hums, and I feel the sound down to my toes.
I love him.
I love him, I love him, I love him.
I try to tell him with hot presses of my mouth. Rolling my hips and unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. Biting his earlobe and smiling into his skin when he moans. When his hands rub up my thighs, I sigh, totally content.
Waves of emotion I’ve never experienced before hit me like a ton of bricks as I sit in his arms. Gratitude. Joy. Immense, overwhelming love.
Love for this man.
Love for the way he loves me.
Love for every maker of fate who led us together.
I want to tell him.
It sits on my tongue, so close to coming out, and I know one day soon, it will.
