Page 158 of What About Us

And when we walked inside, there was a huge real tree standing in front of the massive windows in the living room, already lit.

All we had to do was decorate it. The top was already decorated—I don’t even want to know how they managed it—but we spent an evening together hanging ornaments, drinking hot toddies, and listening to Christmas music.

It was awesome.

But I drastically underestimated just how much my man loves Christmas because he might have gone a little overboard.

“Did you wrap those yourself?” I ask him, admiring the pretty red-and-gold paper with green bows.

“Of course not. If I did it, they wouldn’t look that good.” His hand glides up and down my back. “Are you going to keep staring at them, or are you going to open them?”

“For now, I’m staring.”

I notice some little green-wrapped gifts too.

“What are those?”

“For Cally. Our baby needs Christmas presents, Red.”

Two things: One, he’s the sweetest man on the planet. And two: I’m so in love with him that I can hardly breathe.

“Don’t tell me you hate Christmas,” he says, and I look up to find him frowning, his eyes filled with worry.

“No, it’s not that. Who could hate this? It’s just . . . this is my first Christmas.”

His voice drops. “Say that again.”

I wrap my arms around his middle and smile up at him. “This is the first time I’ve ever had Christmas.”

“At all?”

I nod and bite my lower lip. “And I’m a bad girlfriend because I only got you one present, and you got me a million.”

“It’s not a competition.”

Yeah, well, now I know that next year I can go crazy too.

“Come on, I want you to start opening. It’s going to take you a while, and we have to be at Tucker’s place by eleven.”

“It’s not going to take me three hours to open these.”

“This isn’t all of them. Let’s go.”

My jaw drops, and I stare at him for a full fifteen seconds before tears fill my eyes.

“Whoa, none of that. Christmas is fun, wildcat.”

I blink the tears away and sigh.

“Okay. Where do I start?”

“You sit here on your throne,” he replies, showing me over to the nearby love seat. “And I’ll deliver packages.”

“You get a kick out of this.”

“Are you kidding? This is my favorite thing. Showering you with fun stuff.”

He waggles his eyebrows and grabs a box, passes it to me, and for the next hour, I rip paper, untie bows, and by the end of it, I just don’t know what to say.