giving each one a shake before he slipped them under the tree.
I laughed and wandered over to the box. “What did you find?”
“Oh,” he said, and reached in to pull out a series of three oversize round ornaments that were definitely handmade and shedding glitter. In the center of each one were pictures—of us.
“Oh my god,” I exhaled and stared at them. “We were so tiny.”
“And buck-toothed,” he teased, nudging the one I took. “But you still have the best smile.”
I rolled my eyes. “And you couldn’t believe I’d kept the ones you made me.” I stuck my tongue at him.
He gave my ass a squeeze. “I think that was Jake. I know what a sentimental sap you are, even if you try to hide it.”
“Pfft, I’m not a sap. I barely like hugging most days.”
“Not true,” he argued, sliding his arms around me and pulling my back to his chest. “You do like hugging. You just like hugging the right people.” When he rubbed his cheek against my hair, I melted a little and leaned into him.
“You give great hugs.”
“Exactly,” he murmured. “I’m the right people.”
Eyes closed, I just let him hold me for a minute. “I’m not freaking out.”
“I know you’re not,” he agreed, and at the same time, I didn’t want him to let go. “This is not a ‘freaking out’ hug, this is a ‘damn, you’re hot and I want to rub my dick against your ass’ hug.”
Laughter bubbled right up through me, and I snort-giggled. He licked his index finger and made a sizzling sound as he marked an imaginary point. When I glanced up at him though, his gray-green eyes were warm, if a bit concerned.
“Well, your dick gives great ass hugs,” I said, waiting until we’d pulled apart and he went to take a drink. Water sprayed out of his nose, and I grinned, marking my own point in the air. We were still laughing when the guys got back.
They brought with them treasures each. Among Jake’s stash were a pair of ornaments he’d picked up during the time he’d lived in Germany. We didn’t talk about when he was gone so much, but Coop and I had both felt his absence. As sorry as I was for his parents, I was so glad that his mom had moved back.
Ian had a bunch of sports and music ornaments, including some cartoon characters playing instruments. Archie had these crystal snowflakes and teardrops. They were fancy as hell, and I had a feeling they belonged to his grandmother. He also had some light up ornaments and action figures.
To say the tree had a most eclectic theme when we were done would be understating it. It was a little lopsided, and we didn’t have anything for the top of it. I had Jake put my Santa hat on it for now.
Archie passed out the sweaters and told everyone to change. After, we got together in front of the tree, and he worked it out with his phone to do a group selfie of all of us in front of our crazy ass tree.
He even managed to get one where Coop and Jake were both kissing my cheeks, which meant we had to do another with Archie and Ian doing the same thing. I loved the snaps he got and made him send almost all of them to me. I’d also noticed a couple of other presents had been snuck under the tree while we’d been decorating, not that I commented.
I’d save my shaking for later.
After we’d cleaned up, we settled in for leftovers—of which we had tons—and movies. First up, predictably, was Die Hard. It definitely qualified as a Christmas movie. I dozed off during one of the next films, curled up against Jake, and woke up snuggling Coop.
“Had to pee,” Jake told me with a grin. “Then he wouldn’t give you back.”
“You wizz, you lose,” Coop chortled, and that had Archie rolling his eyes.
Still, it was an awesome day, and by the time we wandered off to bed, I was full, the house was Christmassy, and I couldn’t believe our week of freedom was almost over.
Oh, and the guys were going running in the morning.
No, thank you.
“Don’t worry,” Coop whispered against my ear. “I have other workout plans.”
I was definitely not worried.
Chapter Twelve
You Can Tell Me Anything
“I can’t say I really did the homework,” I admitted. I wanted to apologize, but at the same time… “It was the holiday, and I got distracted by a