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The tag says To Hendrix, From Stevie.
The other gift is mine to her, and I suck at wrapping so she gets a bag with a Christmas design on it and tape holding the top closed.
I give it to her with a sheepish smile. “Sorry my present isn’t as pretty as yours.”
“That’s definitely not why I’m screwing you, Hendrix,” she says with a wink.
I bust out laughing and lower myself right beside her on the couch, turning the red box over in my hands. I shake it but hear nothing.
Setting it on my lap, I nod toward her gift bag. “You first.”
“Okay,” she says gleefully and rips into the tape. I watch her expression as she pulls out two velvet jewelry boxes.
I tap the slightly smaller box. “Open that one first.”
“Is it the best?” she asks, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
“It’s the most expensive,” I assure her.
“You don’t have to spend—”
I lean over and kiss her to shut her up. “I’ll buy you whatever the fuck I want, so zip it, woman.”
Stevie gives me a chastising look but flips open the box. She gasps, her hand covering her mouth. “Hendrix… those are… magnificent.”
They really are. Diamond stud earrings, a little more than a carat each.
Her eyes drift from the box to me, her hand going to my cheek. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Thank you is sufficient.”
She leans over and kisses me softly. “Thank you,” she breathes into my mouth. “You treat me far too good.”
I take the box from her and nod to the other. “Open that one. It’s the best.”
While the diamonds are gorgeous and clearly indicate I’m serious about her, they don’t have the personal touch I wanted.
Stevie lifts the lid, and her face splits in a wide grin. “Oh my God! I love it,” she exclaims, pulling from the velvet a new charm to wear on the necklace I gave her with the nine-ball pendant.
She holds it up to examine—it’s a small hockey puck, no bigger in diameter than a dime, and a friend of a friend painted the Titans’ logo on it. “To wear with your nine ball.”
“Here… hold it,” she says as she thrusts the charm at me. She reaches back and unlatches the necklace that I’ve never seen her without since the day I gave it to her.
I hand the charm back, and she threads the silver links through the loop. When she puts it back on, she lifts it out to see the nine ball and puck together.
“It’s us,” she murmurs. Her eyes lift to mine, shining with something I can’t quite name, but it seems like something big has shifted between us. “I love it so much.”
“Maybe that can be our nicknames, the way you and your dad are Peas and Carrots. We’ll be Nine Ball and Puck.”
Stevie laughs and then picks up the present on my lap, pushing it into my hand. “Open yours,” she says.
Smiling, I start to pull at the ribbon.
“It’s not expensive or anything,” she advises.
My gaze lifts, and I cock an eyebrow at her. “Yeah… well aware that you don’t make the type of money I do. Don’t need to point it out.”
“Sorry,” she mutters with a lopsided grin. “It’s just… those earrings.”
Chuckling, I turn my attention back to the box. Doesn’t feel like there’s anything in it at all.
More than intrigued, I give up trying to savor the experience and rip into the paper. Unveiled is a white box and when I lift the lid, I frown at the triple-folded paper inside.
I lift my head, eyebrows drawn inward as I look at Stevie. “You got me a piece of paper.”
Her eyes twinkle with amusement, and her lips curve upward. “Not just any piece of paper.” She nods back down at it.
Removing it from the box, I unfold it and at first only see a bunch of words written in neat cursive in blue ink. But then I see my name among the words, see the date at the top—December 2—and I realize it’s her journal entry after our very first date.
I’ve seen her journal sitting in various places around her house. She leaves it where she’s done her writing, and I’ve never once touched it. I’ve teased her plenty about reading it, but teasing is all it’s been.
That journal is more than just her keeping her thoughts and memorializing good and bad times. It’s an accounting of her life. We all have our deepest, innermost thoughts, all of which are entitled to privacy.
But here in my hand… it’s her private thoughts after our first date—written then without any intention of ever showing another human being—and I realize what a gift this is.
I’m getting Stevie laid bare before me.
My eyes bore into hers. “You sure?”
Stevie snuggles into the corner of the couch, pulling her legs in tighter. She rests her chin in her palm and smiles. “I’m sure.”
