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“Alright, so who wants to go first?” Avril asked, eyes drifting toward the three women, who all had far more typical gifts—though they didn’t know it yet and were probably wondering if they’d find construction equipment waiting for them, too—inside their gift piles. “Maybe you three should even out the distribution a little before Liam and I rip into our presents.”
It was the sensible suggestion, which, at this point, made it all the stranger that it’d come from Avril’s mouth. But no, Liam could guess why. He knew better than to think that he would open his present anytime soon. Whatever payoff there was that he couldn’t fathom in her gift, he knew she was going to make him wait to find out. So, at the very least, there’d be twenty to thirty minutes of normalcy before that occurred.
With no one arguing against Avril’s suggestion, the telltale sounds of wrapping paper as it was ripped open soon drowned out the TV. Amusedly, and something that Avril would quickly enough call out, Anna even opened her presents politely.
Quickly after they’d started, they realized they’d forgotten to snag a trash bag for the shredded wrapping paper. Volunteering to get one, Liam disappeared into the kitchen briefly. Upon his return, dropping off the bag between Victoria and Tess, he found Avril already chortling at how pristine Anna’s opened wrapping paper remained.
It was a trend that continued. With the aid of her nails, she slid them through the tape binding the festive paper together. Rarely did she cause any rips in her paper, and never did she tear into her gifts. With the efficiency of an engineer, Anna deconstructed each gift’s wrapping paper, mostly ignoring Avril’s jibes over it.
Swiftly enough, the three women could also let their guards down about receiving hard hats or screwdrivers among their respective gift hoards. They found perfectly fitting sweaters, smart mugs for keeping coffee warm, heated eye massagers, and more. While there were plenty of gifts that all three women received, with Avril coordinating things so that they would generally open shared items in concert, there were just as many that were unique, especially in the clothes department. While Tess received a sleek winter coat, Victoria’s comparable gift was a long-sleeved jumper that would fall midway down her thighs. And so on and so forth.
Upon opening the ridiculously expensive chocolate, even Victoria seemed enticed. Apparently, it was a familiar favorite among the women.
“Okay, now we’re all pretty even,” Avril announced once the number of unopened presents in front of the three other women had plummeted to just three each. Those included his and Anna’s gifts to Tess and Victoria, which, at Avril’s insistence, had been made off-limits until near the end.
“So, maybe you should both open one,” Tess suggested.
“Yeah, sure,” Avril said, turning her attention to him. “Let’s see what Anna got us both.”
“Sure,” he said. He only had two presents to open, so there was only so much more stalling that Avril could manage after he opened Anna’s gift.
So did the gift giver, who only watched as Avril leaped ahead of the process by beginning to open her roommate’s gift. Compared to the size of his gift from Anna, hers was far bulkier. Soon enough, with Avril wasting no time ripping through the verdant paper covering it, they all found out why.
At first, it appeared to be some sort of dark blanket. That wasn’t too far from the truth of what it was. Examining it while sitting next to him, they both saw the flaps in its sherpa-lined sides. Within short order, Anna provided Avril with confirmation of a correctly made guess that she’d just made. It was a blanket, though it was meant to be situated onto a chair’s back, after which the flaps could be clasped shut thanks to some metallic snap fasteners. From there, like four wings furling in, it could fold over the wearer’s shoulders and the legs.
Grinning, Avril, even without a chair to make proper use of it, swaddled herself in its warmth. “I’m still not letting you turn the heating down any, but thanks, Annabelle. It’s super warm.”
“You’re welcome, Avril,” the yin to her yang replied.
The eyes examining Avril and her newest way to stave off the cold soon shifted. Once that occurred, Liam smiled toothlessly and picked up Anna’s gift. While he couldn’t be as confident about it as he was Avril’s gift, he had a good idea of what he’d find within. They’d traded Christmas wishes on their way out of his neighborhood just the other day, after all. Far more compact than her gift to Avril and still in its box, as far as he could tell, Liam soon separated paper from cardboard.
“Thanks, Anna, I really appreciate it,” he said, smiling as Avril leaned over to see what she’d gotten him.
“Howromantic,”she scoffed lightheartedly.
“It’s exactly what I asked for,” he said, coming to Anna’s defense as he finished unwrapping the wireless phone charger. It was a bit more than that, as the box proclaimed it to also serve as an alarm clock, which the image depicted beneath those words further supported. He turned his focus back to the individual responsible for the gift. “So, thanks, Anna.”
“You’re welcome,” Anna said, smiling politely.
“God, you two and your obsession withfunctionality,” Avril said, shaking her head.
“Says the woman who got me a hammer?” was his riposte.
“You don’t know what I got you,” she retorted, raising her chin. “You don’t have any idea.”
What are you up to?Liam demanded with his eyes.
Avril’s verdant gaze gleamed mirthfully as she grinned.You’ll find out soon enough.
“How about you open Liam’s present to you, Anna?” Tess soon suggested.
“Okay.”
With her usual equilibrium, Anna picked up what had proven to be the most challenging thing that Liam had wrapped yesterday. It hadn’t come with a box, and he hadn’t found any available boxes large enough to shove Sam into for a day last night. So, rather than mummifying the poor thing, he’d looked up a video on how to wrap stuffed animals and followed along as best he could. What Anna lifted into her lap somewhat resembled an enormous donut bag, the bottom flat, the top tapered and sealed with an inordinate amount of tape.
“Did you wrap this?” she asked.
“Sure as hell wasn’t me,” Avril grunted, finally willing to admit that she had a single failing in life.
