Page 117 of Catching My Dreams

Ella actually felt human for a change, and it was magnificent.

“Want to put on some music for when the swarm descends?” Noah suggested.

Ella and her gran had spent Christmas morning with Noah’s mom—who was on top of the world after finding out her breast cancer was in complete remission—and Christmas lunch with his dad’s side of the family, but her evening would be spent with Noah and their friends.

Meanwhile, her gran would be spending the rest of the day at the assisted living facility with a handsome new resident she’d started seeing.

“Sounds good.” Noah released his hold on her, and she walked over to her record collection. “How about evermore?”

“Uh, I was thinking Christmas music,” Noah informed her. “You know there is other music out there, right? It’s not all Taylor Swift.”

Ella spun to face him and narrowed her eyes on his amused face. “I’ll have you know, Warner, that evermore has a Christmas song on it, thus making it a Christmas album.”

He rolled his blue eyes. “Firstly, which song? And secondly, one song does not make the entire album Christmas-themed.”

“The song is “’tis the damn season,” obviously, and don’t fight me on this,” she warned, pointing her finger sternly at him. “You know I can’t stand Christmas music. It’s cheesy and annoying, and I hate it.”

“But I thought “’tis the damn season” was Christmas music,” Noah replied with a smirk.

Ella groaned. “It’s like the Die Hard of Christmas music, okay,” she explained. “It’s Christmas adjacent, and that’s good enough for me.”

Noah grinned and tugged her back into his arms. “If it makes you happy, we’ll listen to your Christmas-adjacent music,” he said before pressing his lips to her forehead.

She beamed. “I knew you’d come around.”

He sighed and shook his head. “You have me wrapped around your pretty little finger.”

“We can listen to Red next,” she mused. “There’s nothing more Christmasy than the color red.”

Noah laughed. “Sure. That makes perfect sense,” he said in a voice that said it most certainly did not.

“I see you’re wearing your latest gift,” she noted.

“Mhm. I sure am.”

Ella chuckled, pulling back to look at the very ugly, very loud Christmas sweater he was wearing. She might dislike Christmas music, and most Christmas movies, but that dislike didn’t extend to Christmas sweaters. It certainly didn’t extend to the dark blue sweater Noah was currently wearing, which had Santa riding a T-rex on the front.

“I like it,” Ella said.

She was wearing her own ugly sweater, but the sunglasses-wearing reindeer on hers wasn’t quite as cool as a dinosaur-riding Father Christmas.

“It’s great, but I’m definitely more partial to the art set you gave me this morning.”

“Also an amazing gift,” she agreed oh so humbly. The set she’d given him had graphite pencils, color pencils, acrylic paint, watercolor paint, brushes, charcoal sticks, and oil pastels, and it had come in a dark wooden box she’d had personalized with his initials. “I have exquisite taste.”

“And me?” he asked, the hands resting on her hips tugging her forward. He lowered his head to place a kiss on her neck. “Do I have good taste?”

Ella hummed positively in answer. They both knew he did because not only had he told her the Jane Austen box set she’d gotten for her birthday was really from him, but he’d also given her a promise ring that morning.

The thin silver band had a knot instead of a stone, and it went perfectly with the book-shaped locket he’d also gifted her.

He’d already filled the locket with the two images it could house, and her eyes had filled with tears when she’d seen the tiny sketches of Archie and her gran.

“The best,” she told him, leaning further into him as he continued placing kisses to her throat.

“You know,” he whispered against her skin, pausing to flick his tongue over her pulse. “We still have a bit of time before the others get here.”

“Is that so?”

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