How the Hitman Stole Christmas - Sam Mariano Page 0,77

though? There’s only an hour of Christmas left. Maybe we should open each other’s gifts.”

His smile falls but he nods, releasing me and sitting forward. “Maybe we should.”

He’s less excited about it than I am, but he’s less excited about Christmas in general than I am, so I don’t take it personally. I crawl over to the tree and retrieve the last two presents.

Mine is larger and rectangular, about the size of a vinyl album, but thicker and sturdier. It feels like it might be a book.

His is much smaller, the size of a jewelry box—because it is a jewelry box.

I crawl over and kneel on the floor in front of him. As I hand him his gift, I look up and tell him, “I want to preface this gift by saying that I didn’t know what to get you when we went shopping. We hadn’t had sex yet, and also you were shopping with me and you pay constant attention to everything, so it was really hard to grab something you wouldn’t notice.”

Jasper’s beautiful lips tug up as he looks down at the present wrapped lovingly in candy cane paper and topped with a tiny silver bow. “You didn’t have to get me anything. I certainly wasn’t expecting you to.”

“It’s small, but I thought it was perfect,” I tell him.

“I’m sure it is,” he says, plucking the bow off the package and sticking it on top of my head.

I shoot him a look, but I leave the bow where he put it and watch as he tears into the package.

I picked out something for him at the mercantile where we bought the bulk of our Stillwater gifts. They had these cute little key chains—handmade like everything else—shaped like Minnesota with a red heart where Stillwater is located.

“Since I love the town so much,” I rush to explain. “It’s like, ‘my heart is in Stillwater.’”

He nods, looking down at me and smiling. “I understood the implication. It’s great. Thank you.”

I flash him a smile. Now it’s my turn to open the present he bought me, so I start to tear into it.

“Wait,” he says before I can.

I pause and look up in question.

He scoots over, patting the couch cushion next to him. “Sit up here with me.”

My hesitation fades and I smile again, pushing myself up and joining him on the couch. This is cozier, anyway; I much prefer it to sitting on the floor at his feet.

Not that I can’t think of instances where that might be fun, but this isn’t one of them.

I’m excited to see what he picked out for me, but I can’t shake a slight sense of nervousness, too. It’s his mood more than the gift making me feel that way. While today filled me with hopes and built up even the wildest of my dreams, Jasper seems… grounded.

We only stand a chance if we’re both willing to be a little crazy, so grounded is not ideal.

Still, I’m optimistic as I run my hand over the red shiny gift wrap. This isn’t the paper I bought, so he must have snuck my gift to his mom or his sister, or at least used their paper.

“Did you wrap it yourself?” I ask.

“Of course.”

That makes me smile. “Mr. I can’t wrap, I can’t bake—I can’t do anything I don’t want to do.”

He smiles a little at me teasing him, but that smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Can I open it now?”

Jasper nods.

I rip the paper off easily—one pull and it all comes undone. He must not have anchored the paper to the gift with a piece of tape like I usually do.

I don’t care about the wrapping though, I want to see what’s inside.

My eyes light up when I see an absolutely beautiful copy of The Night Before Christmas sitting on my lap. It’s a leather bound edition of the children’s book—one I pointed to at the book shop downtown while we were doing our Christmas shopping.

“Jasper, it’s beautiful. I love it.” I smile at him warmly. “Thank you.”

“I know it’s a kid’s book, but when we were at the bookstore, you told me about your little Christmas Eve fantasy,” he explains.

I know the one he’s talking about. I nod, my smile softening. “I remember. It’s perfect, Jasper. Really. Thank you.”

He nods, looking down at the illustration of Santa in the center of the cover so he doesn’t have to look at me. “I wanted to be the one to get it for you. I wanted you