Page 180 of With Us

“Fine.”

Quickly using the bathroom and brushing my teeth, I’d barely opened the door before she was opening the bedroom one.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Sure you don’t want to sleep?”

She didn’t answer me verbally, but her glare said enough.

“Okay, my gattina, let’s go.”

Gus weaved through our feet as we made our way downstairs. Based on the amount of ornaments and glitter covering the floor, he’d enjoyed his night.

Since moving out of my parents’ house, I’d never decorated for the holidays. It’d been fun, but that was mostly to do with Dahlia’s reactions to everything. She’d been slow warming up to the idea of celebrating, but once she had, she was all in. I’d come home numerous times to all the Christmas lights on and her reading in a chair she’d dragged over near the fridge. One time, she’d surprised me by suggesting we get hot chocolate and drive around to look at some of the more elaborately decorated homes. She’d comment on what she liked, disliked, and what she wanted to do to our house in the future.

I wasn’t sure if she’d even realized what she’d been saying, but it made me insanely fucking happy.

Turning into the living room where the massive tree took up a whole corner, Dahlia gasped. “Where did all this come from?”

“Santa?” I tried.

She turned to me before looking back at the tree. “There were only a few things here last night. I thought we agreed we were keeping it small.”

“I did.”

“Notyourversion of small.”

“You never specified.”

After Dahlia had fallen asleep the night before, I’d gone downstairs to add the rest of her presents under the tree. It hadn’t seemed like much at the time, but once they were all out, I’d realized I may have gone overboard.

Even if she didn’t talk about it often, she’d shared enough of her childhood for me to safely guess Christmas hadn’t been a time of joy for her. I would’ve spoiled her regardless because she deserved it, but especially because it was the first time she’d have a real Christmas morning. Not just because of the presents, but because she was spending the day with a family who loved her.

“Start with your stocking, my gattina. I’ll go make us some coffee.” After fixing a couple extra-large mugs, I walked back into the living room to see her sitting on the floor near the couch.

She held a feather bird from Gus’ stocking, giggling softly as he rolled around to attack his prey. “You got your cat a stocking?” she asked, taking the coffee from me.

“Hey, he’s part of the family, too.”

“I’m not arguing… I bought him a present.”

“Open your stocking.”

“But I didn’t get you one.” Her lips pursued before she smiled. “Wait, I’ve got it.” Standing, she got a few small wrapped presents from under the tree and handed them to me. “Pretend these were in a stocking.”

I watched as she dumped her stocking, sorting through the fancy chocolate, soft slipper socks, and about twenty packs of the hair ties she was always saying magically disappeared. When she prompted me again, I opened three heavy pens and a belt. “I love them.”

“Good. You’re kind of hard to shop for.”

“Mom tells me that every year.” I grabbed a present and handed it to her.

Sipping at coffee, we slowly made our way through the pile.

Rosa had helped shop for more clothes, shoes, and makeup for Dahlia since I hadn’t wanted to botch it. Most of it was casual wear, but there were some date night items stuck in. Dahlia must have had the same idea, because I opened a few pairs of loose pajama and track pants, plus some nice dress shirts.

Of everything she’d unwrapped until that point, her favorite seemed to be the new lenses for her camera. She’d hurriedly grabbed her camera and switched to the short distance lense, snapping a picture of me carrying a refreshed coffee.

When she opened one of her last presents, her brows lowered, but she gave me a polite smile. “You already got me this movie.”

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