Page 97 of Love in the Lab
“Hey now,” Jonathan teases. “I didn’t come up here for that. Open your stocking.”
I smile at him and take a step back. “It’s beautiful. Where did it come from?” I sit on the edge of the bed next to the stocking.
Jonathan sits down beside me. “My grandmother made it. She makes Christmas stockings for all her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I went to her house yesterday to pick it up while you were shopping with Tamara.”
My eyes go wide. “How in the world did she make it so quickly? She didn’t have much advance notice that I was joining the family this Christmas.”
He chuckles. “She said she already had the stocking itself made, so she just needed to stitch your name on it.”
“I can’t wait to meet her later today and thank her.” I pick up the stocking to look at the stitching more closely.
Jonathan caresses my back, running his palm over my soft sweater. “She’s looking forward to meeting you, too.”
I poise my hand over the stocking’s opening. “Ready?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I’m ready whenever you’re ready. This is your show.”
I pull the first item out of the stocking and laugh. It’s a scented candle in a pretty glass jar. The label on the front reads, “Having me as a husband is really the only gift you need.”
“Oh, really?” I give Jonathan some side-eye and shake my head.
“I’m just saying.” He shoots me the smirk I’ve grown to love. “You kind of hit the jackpot in Vegas. We both did.”
“No arguments here.”
I reach back into the stocking and find a bag of my favorite chocolates. “Yum,” I say. “You put all the essentials in here, huh?”
He nods toward the stocking in my hands. “Maybe. Keep looking.”
“Uh-uh. My show,” I remind him. I open the bag and peel the foil wrapper from one of the chocolates. I pop it in my mouth while unwrapping a second piece. This one I give to Jonathan.
“Thank you,” he mumbles around a mouthful of chocolate.
I put my hand back in the stocking. This time I come back with a large bag of Cafe Beignet beignet mix. I laugh.
“So you can still have beignets when we move to Charleston,” Jonathan explains.
I give him a skeptical look. “You think I’m going to make beignets?”
“Of course not,” he scoffs. “I’m going to make them for you.”
“Ah, good.” I smirk. “That works for me.”
The next item that emerges is a large rosette ribbon, blue with gold lettering that says, “Prank Queen of Louisiana.”
“Does this mean I won the prank war?” I ask between gasps of laughter, thinking back to Jonathan teasing me about his high school title of “Prank King of Ohio.”
“Um, obviously.” Jonathan rolls his eyes like a preteen. “I knew I couldn’t beat the frozen-specimens-on-the-day-the-big-boss-visits prank, so I didn’t even try.”
“Okay, Dr. Perron’s visit wasnotsupposed to be part of the prank,” I protest.
“That’s why it was so genius! Truly, I’m in the presence of a master.”
I shake my head indulgently and go back to the stocking. The next thing I find is a package of hair ties, the kind I like that are gentle on my hair. “Can never have too many of these.”
“Agreed.”
I’m getting toward the bottom of the stocking. I can tell by the weight that there are only a few items left.
