his hand on my ass had me thinking about the night before.
“Ahem,” Archie said. “Not to intrude, but I’m going to intrude. Can the canoodling and come help with the tree.”
Ian lifted his head and said, “Five minutes,” before he swooped back down to take my mouth again. A groan wound up through my throat when he picked me up.
“Well, I’m going to guess things are working out,” Coop said.
“No shit?” Jake retorted.
“I’m timing this because she’ll need air eventually.”
At Archie’s comment, laughter burst through me and Ian lifted his head with a grin before he made a face at them. “Thank you for the comments from the peanut gallery.”
“You’re welcome,” Coop said with a small bow.
“Tree,” Archie reminded us. “Kissing later.”
Ian grumbled a noise of disagreement, and for a second, my chest tightened. But when he glanced at me and turned his back on the guys, he winked. Relief swarmed me, and he gave me another peck on the lips. “To be continued?”
Oh most definitely.
For the next two hours, the guys got the tree out and set up, then fluffed it. I’d never seen so much debate over “fluffing” before. It was enough that I actually filmed some of it and sent it to Rachel, who sent me back a series of laughing while crying emojis.
The ornaments we’d bought barely covered the tree. Ian and Jake had a similar reaction to the Wizard of Oz ornaments I’d picked up that Archie and Coop had, but I refused to be dissuaded. “I had fun that night… You know we had good memories, too. I’m choosing to remember the good ones. Besides, breaking Sharon’s nose was a good one for me, too.”
There was a beat, then they all started laughing and the worry over the ornaments went away. I had another box with some of the more meaningful ornaments to me socked away. Some I’d made in elementary school. There was one that Coop had made me when we were in first grade, and I had another that Jake had made in third.
Their faces were priceless.
“You kept that?” Jake asked as he stared down at the lumpy blob of clay with a hook in it. It was supposed to have been a train engine, but pieces had broken off and the paint had faded. I could still see it though, just the way he’d made it, and my name was still inscribed on the bottom.
“I liked it,” I told him.
“I could probably make you a better one,” he mused, and I snagged it back from him.
“That’s fine, but I’m keeping this one.”
“Don’t argue, man,” Coop told him as he held up the smashed face cat ornament he’d made me. “We’ll just call it less than modern art.”
Still. The tree seemed kind of barren.
“Okay, I’ve got some stuff at my place,” Ian said. “Some ornaments and gift ones that I have set aside that are mine. I’ll go grab them. I know where they are.”
“Ditto,” Jake agreed.
Before I knew it, they were all splitting up, and I got a series of quick kisses before they took off. In the silence after they left, Tiddles wandered out to stare at the tree with me. He glanced at me like all the noise and interruptions to his routine were my fault.
“Hey, they haven’t decorated you yet,” I teased him. At the same time, the tree warmed the whole living room up. It made it feel cozy in a way I didn’t think it ever had. More, despite the absence of the guys, it didn’t feel so empty.
Coop wouldn’t take long, so I headed back to grab the presents I’d managed to get and found the wrapping paper stored in the back of my bedroom closet. The wrap job I did was pretty awful, but the wonders of tape and bows helped.
I’d just finished wrapping the last one when the front door opened.
“I’m back,” Coop called. “You are not going to believe what I found.”
“Yeah?” I gathered up the hastily wrapped packages and managed to balance them. Coop turned from rummaging in a box on the coffee table and stared at the presents before he hurried over to help me. “I got them.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, then gave me a kiss with a little nip on the lip. “But I’m here to help, and it gives me an excuse to see if any of these are for me.” He always was a little impatient with presents. Not that it stopped him in the slightest from