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From Tess, he could tell from the way she remained looking at him that she’d want to discuss this later. From Victoria, who was currently busy engaging in a brief staring contest with Avril, he could tell that his gift to Tess had stoked some semblance of curiosity, if not suspicion, within her.
Whichever it was, it couldn’t be good. However, it was an issue for later. Victoria picked up his present. Soon enough, she’d discovered what it was. Soon enough, everyone else had too. Soon enough, her piercing gaze returned to him.
“Thank you, Liam. I haven’t ever tended to a bonsai tree before.”
She didnotsmile as Avril had suggested she might at the mall yesterday. That, of course, led Avril to huff and fold her arms. In response, Victoria again locked eyes with the annoyed redhead. Naturally, a mildly annoyed Avril stared back.
With the mood beginning to feel like it was deteriorating, Liam sent a pleading look toward Tess and Anna.
“You’re next, Avril,” Tess said, identifying the best way to rectify that slow slide. “You’ve also got some gifts from Liam to open.”
“Guess I do,” she replied, dropping her attention to his presents to her. “Shall I?”
Liam held his hands out. “I don’t know what good a present is if you can’t see what it is, so yeah. You can open the bigger one first.”
He almost worried that she would intentionally do the opposite. With the smaller gift still riding atop the larger one, it would have been easy for her to scoop it up and tear into the copious amount of wrapping paper that he’d cocooned it in before anyone could stop her.
Thankfully, at least this once, Avril played along. Tilting the larger gift, she let the smaller one slide off its back and land softly on her knee. Unlike her predecessors, Avril intentionally shredded the wrapping paper as if she were in a cartoon, sending bits and pieces of brightly colored paper flying in every direction. Tess sighed, but Avril didn’t stop. Not until she—and the rest of them—discovered what he’d gotten her for Christmas.
For whatever reason, it fully rejuvenated the cheer within the room.
“A Bandit’s cap, huh?” Avril said, grinning at the embroidered headshot of a stylized leather duster-wearing bandit with a crimson bandanna covering most of his face and a ten-gallon hat shading his eyes. “And just who let you in on my secret?”
“Tess mentioned that you like them—sometimes. So, I guess I’m hoping this is one of the years where you do.”
Still grinning from ear to ear as she removed her antlered headband so she could don the ballcap, ponytail spilling out of the gap in the back, Avril said, “So far, it is. We’ll see how I feel come next September and October.”
It wasn’t long before her exuberant smile received new fuel, as she soon pulled out the folded Bandit’s shirt, which he’d put beneath the hat when he’d wrapped them together, of the carnage of colorful wrapping paper. In a very Avril-like manner, it wasn’t just because of the gift.
“You think I’m a medium?!” she gasped, splaying a hand over her breasts—her impressive, enticing, and entirely at-fault breasts.
“That was me,” Anna said, coming to his rescue. “He asked what size he should get, and I advised him to get you a medium.”
“Okay. It just sucks that MLB likes to have their women’s tees be as tight as Victoria’s pants.”
As Victoria scowled at her, Avril lashed the shirt through the air, which undid its neat folding. Turning it about so she could see whose name was on the back, her mouth pulled to one side.
“Vargas, huh?” she said knowingly. “That’s a safe pick.”
Liam shrugged. “Admittedly, I don’t know too much about the current team. I just know he’s one of the team’s stars.”
“He’s alright,” Avril replied, smirking. “Thinks he’s worth more money than he actually is, though. Twenty-four million a year for four years for a thirty-seven-year-oldcloser?Dude’s got a screw loose if he thinks he’s going to get that contract.”
“Okay, okay, let’s not go too far down the rabbit hole,” Tess said.
“Agreed,” Victoria said.
Even Anna nodded, which caused Liam to figure that Avril had broached this topic before, or at least ones like it.
Their combined efforts to douse the conversation from spilling into a longer diatribe didn’t harm Avril’s good mood. Refolding the shirt, she draped it over her knee. And then she scooped up her final gift from him.
Curiosity shone bright and brilliant in her eyes. That same curiosity traversed its way into the eyes of the other women to some degree as she lifted the tiny, mostly flat square of wrapping paper. Letting it sit on her palm like a tiny kitten, she did what a good pet owner wouldnotdo and tossed it into the air a few times. It landed softly back on her palm each time.
“Well, this is curious,” she announced, eyeing him. “Why would you hide this one but not the others? I’m assuming it’s got something to do with the Bandits, too, yeah?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Flashing her pearly white teeth, she tossed it one final time. “Only one way to find out?”
