same time, dummy.”
Almost every eye turned to us.
They were right.
We were the only ones left that would complete the circle.
I swallowed hard, thinking about what we’d done in the bathroom about fifteen minutes ago, and what we’d done for ten out of the twelve days that we were quarantined.
We’d talked about it but decided subconsciously to ignore the possibility of pregnancy.
And, the really weird thing was, I kind of hoped that she was.
I wished that she would get pregnant just so I could stop second-guessing every fucking decision I made.
I needed something to anchor me.
That sounded like the perfect thing to make that happen.
“Let’s get this show on the road. Everyone heard of the white elephant gift exchange?” Derek asked as he pulled a gift from behind him and placed it on the table.
Mine was already there, along with a few others.
Soon the entire table was filled up with the presents, and Derek was passing out numbers to the twelve of us on the SWAT team.
“No,” Malachi said. “Never done white elephant before.”
“Derek will hand out numbers. Whoever has number one gets to pick a gift, open it, and that’s it. The second person can either choose to take the gift that number one opened or open his own. Number three can take either person one or person two’s gift or open his own. And so on,” Derek said as he opened his number. “Number twelve, bitches. Oh, yeah!”
I opened my number and laid it on my left leg nearest Carolina. She glanced down at it and looked over at me. “One’s actually the best. You can see all the presents get opened, and then you get to choose which one you want if your gift was stolen at the end.”
My number was seven, so it didn’t matter either way.
“Who’s number one?” Derek asked the group as a whole.
Hayes stood up.
“Take your pick,” Derek said as he swept his hand toward the table.
Hayes picked a medium-sized box and started to rip into it. When he got to the box on the inside, he pulled a pocketknife from his back pocket and easily cut through the duct tape that held the box closed.
He blinked when he saw what he’d unwrapped.
“Ummm,” he said as he placed the box on the table. “Cool?”
Inside was a plastic bag with air and water in it… and a goldfish.
He pulled the bag out of the box and held it up for everyone to see.
“Oh, cool!” Ares cried. “I’ve always wanted a fish!”
Except, upon closer inspection, the fish was floating upside down.
“That fish is dead.” Carolina pointed out the obvious.
“It died after I got it home,” Nathan admitted. “I have the receipt for whoever gets to keep it.”
There were snickers all around as Ares took the dead fish bag and put it back into the box.
“That sucks.” She pouted.
Bourne was next, picking up the largest box on the table and ripping into it.
He pulled the box out and gasped. “This is exactly what I’ve always wanted.”
Snorts followed his obviously false enthusiasm.
“A motion-activated light-up toilet seat,” Reggie read the box. “Sweet. Asa’s gonna love that. But, just sayin’, so will I. Nathan’s gonna steal that.”
Bourne scowled at her.
Ford was next, picking up a small-ish box and opening it.
He pulled out what looked to be about a hundred pairs of socks.
“Nice,” he said as he poured them all out onto the table. “Always exactly what I wanted.”
Chuckles followed the announcement as Samuel stood up. He walked over to the socks and stole them, causing Ford to groan.
“Hey!” Ford cried out.
“I could really use some new socks,” Samuel admitted. “Like for real.”
Ford grumbled his way up to the table again and picked up another present. He ripped it open and looked at the pink box with disgust.
“Umm,” he said as he stared. “What the fuck?”
“It’s a Shave with Me Barbie.” Louis grinned like a motherfucker. “Way actually shaved some of my leg hair to use on her legs. You’re welcome.”
Everyone burst out laughing when Louis explained.
The next to go was Louis.
He stood up and walked to the table, picking the one that had to be the absolutely smallest on the table.
Louis opened the small package and read the label.
That was when he burst out laughing and tossed the gift in Carolina’s direction.
She caught the small package and looked at it, eyes narrowing.
On the package that was shrink-wrapped to hell and back said, ‘Emergency Underpants.’
I couldn’t help it.
I laughed.
She glared at me hard. “This is not funny.”
My brows rose. “Come on,”