Page 33 of A Dragon's Miracle (Fires of Fate)
I didn't have the heart to tell him any different, even as I noticed Zed looking our way. Wondering when I was going to tell Finn about my cancer, no doubt.
Not tonight.
Tonight was for celebrating. And for exchanging presents, because, apparently, Finn didn't want to wait until the morning. He took me back to his place after dinner and grabbed a carefully wrapped gift box from his closet.
“Did I do this right?” he asked, pointing at the red ribbon around the box. “I wasn't sure whether it was too much.”
“It's perfect,” I reassured him. “You didn't have to get me anything.” We'd never done Christmas before.
“No, Zed told me that Christmas is a family thing in your culture, but you're not in contact with your family, so I thought... since you're mine now, you're also my family, right? So...” He held the box out to me.
I took it and stared at it. “That was... very thoughtful of you.”
“I want you to be happy. I know you live here now, but you must miss home sometimes.”
I shook my head. “This is home now.” I pressed my lips to his for a brief moment. “You're making this home. Thank you.”
He gave me a smile. “You're welcome. Now go on and open it.”
“Okay.” I unwrapped the box careful not to tear the paper, and probably too slowly for Finn, because he was whipping on his heels as he watched me. Underneath the paper, I found a beautiful new sketchbook.
“Since you lost yours,” Finn said with a grin on his face. “You like it? I wasn’t sure about the size.”
I opened it and flipped through the pages, taking in that lovely smell of new paper—and the endless possibilities of what drawings I could put in here. “It’s great.” And so thoughtful. I ran my finger over the cover and wondered. Maybe I wouldn’t hide this one away. At least not from Finn.
“I wouldn’t know what I’d do without my guitar,” Finn said. “So I thought you had to be missing your sketchbook.”
“Yeah… I was. Thank you. You know… “ I glanced at my bag. “I got you something too.”
“You did?”
“I wasn’t sure whether we were going to be exchanging gifts, but I wanted you to have this.” I pulled a gift box wrapped in red paper out of my bag and handed it to him.
“Thank you!” Finn exclaimed before he’d even opened it. “My first Christmas gift!”
His excitement made me smile. He deserved this, and so much more. “Open it.”
He tore the paper to shreds in a matter of seconds. “Is this…” He looked at the DVD cases in his hands. “Those movies we watched?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t sure whether you remembered…” The day we’d met, I’d invited Finn to come watch a movie with me. The Lord of the Rings had been on TV, so we’d ended up watching that. Finn had never seen it before, but he’d enjoyed it enough that he’d come back to watch the other movies as well. It had been fun.
“How could I forget? This is how I met you. I will never forget that.”
“Good. I don’t want you to forget me.” I hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud, but somehow it had slipped out anyway.
“Why would I ever…” Finn put the movies on his desk and took both of my hands in his. “I love you, Ryan. You know that, right?”
Yes, I knew, because he’d told me before, and all I’d done in response was let him kiss me and drag me to bed, because hearing him say those words made me feel like I was stuck in a dream, and I didn’t want to do anything to shatter the illusion. “I love you too.”
Even though I lied to you and stole from your family for over two years.
How had I done that to someone I loved?
Oblivious to my inner turmoil, Finn wrapped me in his arms and kissed me. My heart sped up the moment I felt his lips on mine. I had to tell him the truth, I knew that.
But not at Christmas.
