Page 80 of Faking All the Way
“Kat? I’m back.”
“In here!” Her voice comes from the living room.
I follow the sound and stop short in the arched doorway, taking in the scene before me. She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the coffee table, surrounded by what looks like a craft store explosion. Wrapping paper is spread across the floor like a festive battlefield, along with ribbon, scissors, tape dispensers, and what appears to be nearly a dozen Christmas gifts waiting to be wrapped.
She looks up at me with a slightly frazzled expression, her hair escaping from the messy bun she’s tried to contain it in.There are faint smudges of what might be ink on her fingers, and her sweater, a soft cream-colored one that makes her skin glow, has somehow acquired a small piece of ribbon stuck to the sleeve.
“I may have gone a little overboard with my wrapping aspirations,” she admits, gesturing to the chaos surrounding her. “It’s gotten a little… out of control.”
The sight of her like this makes an unexpected emotion throb in my chest—something that feels uncomfortably close to the kind of protective affection I’ve spent years avoiding.
“I can see that.”
I set the grocery bags on the kitchen counter and pull out the caramel creamer. Kat glances over through the large doorway connecting the kitchen and living room, and her jaw drops at the sight of it. The tired frustration melts away, replaced by a level of excitement that’s honestly fucking adorable.
“Oh my god, I just ran out of that!” She scrambles to her feet, navigating through the wrapping paper minefield to reach me. “You got me more? How did you even find it? There’s only one store in town that has it!”
“Got lucky, I guess. I made a quick stop on the way home.” I shrug, deciding not to tell her that it was actuallythreequick stops to find the exact brand I know she likes.
She wraps her arms around me in a hug, catching me off guard. Her body is warm and soft against mine, fitting against my chest like she was designed to be there. She smells like almond and cinnamon, sweetness and spice, and when she pulls back to look up at me, her eyes are luminous.
Fucking hell. I’d drive to ten different stores in three different states to find that specific creamer if it would always make her smile like this.
“Thank you.” She shakes her head, looking amazed. “Really. That’s incredibly sweet of you.”
“Don’t mention it.” I clear my throat, then gesture with my chin toward the chaos in the living room. “Looks like you could use some help with all this.”
She glances back at the wrapping paper disaster zone and laughs self-deprecatingly. “Oh… yeah. That would be amazing if you don’t mind. I’m usually good at staying organized when I wrap stuff, but I got over-ambitious this year. I might have bought too many gifts.”
“Is there such a thing as too many gifts?”
“Not according to Megan and Oscar.” She grins. “Most of this stuff is for them. I’m their only aunt, so it’s my duty to spoil them.”
I laugh and quickly put away the rest of the groceries, then follow her into the living room, shrugging out of my jacket and tossing it over the back of the couch.
Settling on the floor across from her, I pick up a small rectangular box and a sheet of red paper covered in tiny Christmas trees. How hard can gift wrapping be? I’ve wrapped hockey sticks for equipment donations and handled delicate plays under pressure.
“This should be easy,” I say confidently, holding them up a little.
Famous last words.
If my hockey career ends, I definitely won’t be able to fall back on a job gift wrapping at Macy’s, because even though it takes me over ten minutes to wrap the damn thing, it looks like a fucking abomination. The paper is wrinkled and bunched in places, the corners look like they’ve been through a blender, and I’ve somehow managed to use approximately half a roll of tape on one small box. Hell, there’s more tape on my fingers than on the actual present.
Kat, meanwhile, has wrapped three gifts in the time it’s taken me to butcher one. Despite the mess around her, her packageslook like they belong in a magazine spread, with perfect corners, elegant ribbon work, and the kind of attention to detail that would get her promoted to head gift-wrapper at Macy’s.
“Uh…” I hold my attempt at a gift-wrapped package up, peeling some of the tape off my fingers.
“Oh!” She makes a face as if she’s trying not to laugh at my disaster. “Wow. Hm, maybe we should split this differently.”
“I can figure it out,” I say stubbornly, reaching for yet another piece of tape—as if that will fix this.
“I’m sure you can. Eventually. But at this rate, it’ll be Easter before we finish.” She scoots around the coffee table until she’s sitting beside me, close enough that our shoulders brush. The contact sends heat through my entire arm, making it hard to concentrate on anything except how fucking good she smells.
“First rule of gift wrapping,” she says in a mock-serious tone that makes me huff a laugh despite my frustration. “Measure twice, cut once.”
“I measured.”
“You measured with your eyes. That doesn’t count.” She reaches for the scissors and a fresh sheet of paper. “Watch and learn, hockey boy.”
