AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Alexis’s mom had always been crafty in a way that Alexis was not. Brittany took after their mother, but Alexis didn’t derive the same kind of joy from making things that her mother did.
She took the gift and unwrapped it, revealing four onesies in newborn size, as well as some fabric markers. Alexis stared down at the gift for a moment, feeling heat filling her face. She hadn’t found the perfect time to tell Kyle yet, but he’d know for sure now.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” Kyle asked.
Mom’s eyes widened, and she whispered, “Sorry, Lexi.”
Alexis did her best to make the most out of the moment by taking Kyle’s hand and dragging him off to their bedroom. “I was going to tell you Christmas morning, but I guess Mom just blew my surprise.”
“How long have you known?” he asked.
She took a deep breath. “About a month.”
He looked shocked, and more than a little hurt. “So you’ve known you were pregnant for a month, and you told your mother, but you didn’t bother to tell me?” he asked. “I’m the father!”
She sat down on the bed and looked down at her hands. “I…I just wasn’t sure we were ready for a baby yet. Neither of us have even said, ‘I love you,’ and I thought that should happen first.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” he said once again.
“I’m so sorry. I know I should have said something sooner, and this isn’t the way I wanted you to find out.” She looked straight at him. “I love you, and I wanted to tell you on Christmas morning with a gift.”
Kyle couldn’t believe how badly it hurt that she hadn’t told him. “I love you back, but you should have told me. You can’t think that all arguments will be solved with you telling me you love me. It’s not going to work like that.”
She nodded. “I’m aware. I…I messed up, but I thought telling you in a special way was more important than telling you immediately.”
He sat down beside her on the side of the bed, taking her hand in his. “We’ll settle all this later. For now, we need to go be with family.”
Alexis worried she’d ruined their marriage, but he was right. There were guests in the living room, and they needed to pay attention to them.
She plastered a smile on her face, and walked out to her family and his mother, all of them dressed with the same motif, even though their styles of clothing were different.
She sat on the couch beside Kyle, and he kept an arm around her shoulders. She was certain he only did it for appearances, but at least he wasn’t shying away from touching her.
They listened to Christmas songs and talked as they did. “What time do we start Monopoly in the morning?” her mother asked.
“I thought we’d play something different,” Alexis said. “I found this game called Encore, and you divide into teams. Each team gets a word, and you have to sing a song with that word in it. Then the other team has to do the same. You get to roll if you win with the most songs with the word.”
Brittany smiled. “I’m on Lexi’s team!”
Alexis grinned at her sister, nodding. “Good.”
Brent frowned. “If those two are on the same team, and we’re dividing into two teams, I say the other team has five people, and they only have four.”
Alexis shook her head at her brother. “You could join us on the winning team. You don’t have to try to put together a team that will beat us.”
“More fun my way,” Brent said.
As they went to bed that night, Alexis waited to hear Kyle say something, anything, about the bombshell. He didn’t. Instead, he turned away from her and went to sleep. It was the first time he hadn’t at least kissed her goodnight since their wedding, and she turned away from him, feeling the silent tears that slipped down her cheeks.
She was up before anyone else the following day to make the French toast casserole and get the game from the game closet. She only wished she knew where she stood with Kyle. Was he going to hate her forever?
That evening, they opened gifts, and Alexis watched instead of opening any of her own. It was just so much more fun to give gifts than to receive them. Their family had always opened gifts on Christmas Eve, but the stockings were left for Christmas morning.
She’d gotten Kyle new jeans and flannel shirts, knowing that’s all he’d wear for work. She’d also gotten him new gloves because his hands had looked like they had been rubbed raw for a while.
From her family, she received maternity clothes from her parents and a necklace from Brittany. From her brother, she’d gotten a Chia Pet. When she opened it, he raised his arms in celebration. “I win!”
This same Chia Pet had been gifted and regifted throughout their family for over five years. If someone realized they were getting the Chia Pet, it would revert to the person who had given it. Alexis sighed. “You win.”
