“No,” I said with a laugh. “I thought maybe you were busy with someone new.”
He smiled. “Didn’t even cross my mind.”
I shook my head and kept searching. “Well, I don’t believe that. Surely there’s someone out there that isn’t such a mess.”
“Hey.” He grabbed my hand. “I don’t want someone else. All I’ve been doing is thinking about you. Wondering where you were. If you were safe. If you were happy. Dreaming of you.” He looked back at the snow.
“I dreamed about you too. All the time. It was weird having seen pictures of this house.” I started digging in the snow again. “It was easy to picture you here being happy.”
“I wasn’t happy without you.”
“Me either.” Talking to Miller was so…easy. There was never any second guessing what he said. He just told me the truth. And it was easy to be honest with him. “And you already know that some of my dreams about you were quite sinful,” I said.
He laughed. “Certainly not as sinful as mine.”
I would have been distracted by his comment, but my hands finally collided with something hard. “Ah! I found it!” I pulled the box out from under the snow. The silver foil wrapping paper looked fine, maybe just a little frosty. But the big red bow ontop looked a little sad. I hoped everything wasn’t soaked inside. “Merry Christmas, Miller.” I handed it to him.
He helped me to my feet as I closed the door. “We should probably change,” he said.
“Nope. Not until you open that before it melts.”
“Before it melts?” He just stared at me. “What is it?”
I pulled off my gloves and rubbed my frozen fingers together. “Just open it.” But he was right, I was cold. And if the frozen box was any indication, everything inside was plenty cold. “We can open it in front of the fire.”
Miller pulled off his wet hoodie as we sat down on the floor right in front of the fireplace.
I sighed as I stared at his abs. I remembered him rolling around in the sand, laughing. I should have kissed him right then. When we both looked like sugar doughnuts. All my memories of the beach house were tarnished because of how stubborn I had been. I’d pushed him away every time he got close. And I wondered if he thought I’d do that again now.
“You okay?” he asked.
“What? Yeah.” I shook my head. “I was just…you gave me a perfect Christmas last year.”
The corner of his mouth ticked up.
“And I want this to be your perfect Christmas this year.”
“It already has been.”
“Hopefully it’s about to be even better.” I tapped on the top of the box and it felt like mush between my fingers. “Ew, gross. It’s ruined.”
“It’s just a box. Who cares what’s on the outside.”
I smiled. I wasn’t even sure he meant for that to affect me in the way it did. But I was really happy he cared about what was on the inside. That he liked me for me. I’d been so torn up about being a Sanders or a Pruitt or a Caldwell. Thinking about the Caldwell last name felt like a punch in the gut. I swallowed hard and tried to shove the feeling away. None of that mattered. I was just a Sanders now.
Miller untied the soggy red bow and somehow managed to get the mush wrapping paper off. He lifted the lid off the box and I could have cried. Because somehow everything inside seemed fine.
He picked up the oversized mugs. Brooklyn and Miller were written on them. Although, if I’d known his name was Richard I totally would have put Little Dicky on his mug. There was also hot chocolate and mini marshmallows. The perfect things for a cold winter night.
There was a picnic blanket and a cooler for spring picnics.
He laughed when he lifted up the bright yellow swim trunks. I knew they were way too loud for him. But I also hoped that he’d laugh just like he had when he saw them. And they reminded me of the time we’d spent at the beach house.
There was also a set of bowls with our names on them too. They were the perfect size for ice cream. Which we’d started sharing last fall. It was the first time we’d really bonded. Over a bowl of ice cream. “Open the cooler,” I said.
He opened the cooler and lifted up the pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream.
I reached out and was happy it was still frozen. Although, now that I thought about it that should have been the least of my concerns. The snow outside was probably just as cold as a freezer. “I got things for every season. The hot chocolate mugs for winter. The picnic blanket for spring. The swim trunks for summer. And the ice cream bowls for fall.”
