Page 98 of Daydream

He smiles as he reaches for one of the presents. “It isn’t the wine talking. Here, I want to watch you open this one first.”

I recognize the brown paper wrapping immediately. Henry turned up at my house asking to steal my paper because he hadn’t bought any and didn’t want to fight for parking at the mall with the people he said “were too unorganized for Christmas.” I pointed out thatheis too unorganized for Christmas, but I can’t remember what was said after that because he kissed me.

To his credit, there are tiny pencil drawings of various Christmas-themed items all over the top, so he did try to customize it as well as adding a beautiful bow that also looks very familiar.

Henry promised me he wouldn’t buy me more than one present, but there are three in front of me. I count from one to three out loud, tapping my finger on each ribbon. “One. Two,” he says, tapping on his own gifts because I also ignored the promise.

“Okay, I broke it, but you broke it more.”

“We said buy and I didn’t buy one of them. We’re even.”

“If I knew stealing was allowed, I’d have gone all out.”

He laughs, leaning toward me to kiss me slowly. His hand holds my neck, keeping me in place, but there’s nowhere I’d rather be anyway. He eventually stops and rests his forehead on mine. “Start with the slim one.”

It always amazes me how Henry just functions like a normal personwhen I need five to ten minutes to recover after every kiss. He sends my entire body into chaos every time he touches me, and I’m unsure I’ll ever get used to it.

The “slim one” is more envelope than box, but he managed to wrap it anyway. There are small doodles of animals in Santa hats, and when I spend time admiring each individual drawing, he grows impatient and pokes me in the waist playfully, making me squirm.

“I’m doing it!” Carefully pulling apart the paper, I find it is in fact a wrapped envelope. Unsealing it, I skim the contents then read out loud. “?‘Ms. Jacobs, thank you for supporting our conservation efforts, and those of our partners at our research and breeding facilities in Sichuan, China. Please find enclosed your welcome pack, including recent pictures of the adventures of Bao. Bao is a five-year-old giant pan—’ You got me a panda!”

“I don’t think yougetthe panda, but you get updates on the panda, yes. They’re sending a stuffed toy, which is great, because I don’t think the ten I already won you are enough.”

“The adventures of Bao sounds like a children’s book I’d want to read. You could illustrate it. This is so great, thank you so much.”

“Open the next one.”

It’s super light when I pick it up, almost like there’s nothing in it. There are Christmas cookies drawn all over this one. I’m confused when I carefully remove the wrapping and it’s a shoebox, given there are clearly no shoes in it. When I finally lift the lid I’m even more confused to find a QR code printed on a piece of paper in the center of the box. “I don’t know where my cell phone is,” I say, patting the bed around me for it.

“Use mine.” Henry hands me his phone, and the first thing I spot is me. Literally. The picture of me at the gallery is his lock screen. When I type four zeros, the easiest password in existence, a different picture of me, one where I’m asleep with Joy, is peeking through his collection of apps.

Pulling up the camera, I finally scan the code, and my nana’s handwriting fills the screen.

“What is this?”

He leans over, pinching the screen to zoom out, and it immediately becomes clear. It looks exactly like the recipe book that lives in my kitchen, but the digitalization has made it darker and more visible. The cursive is perfect. I’ve looked at these pages more times than I can count, and it’s identical. The only difference is, where there was previously a picture of the dish cut out from a magazine, there’s now a drawing.

Henry swipes his finger across to go to the next page, and the next, and the next.

“The drawings are placeholders. I photographed each page with my camera, but because the magazine cutouts are so old, they need to be scanned in. They were losing too much quality, but I couldn’t take the book to scan it without you noticing.”

I’m speechless, but I manage to force out a word. “How?”

“Mrs. Astor helped me break in while you were distracted by Cami.”

“I love the drawings. I love everything,” I say, suppressing the urge to sob. “This is the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“I have nightmares that I’m going to accidentally ruin those recipes. Burn down your house, spill my drink, put it in the oven by mistake. I know how important they are to you, which has made my imagination go wild. I’m going to continue not to ruin your prized possession, but I figured if I was anxious about losing them you would be, too. Now you have a backup.”

“I’m struggling to find the words to explain how much this means to me.”

“Please don’t cry. Anastasia said you would cry; I hate it when she’s right.”

“My presents for youaren’tthoughtful,” I say, stressingaren’tlike my life depends on it. “I didn’t realize you were coming here with a game plan to win best Christmas present.”

I sniff, and the fear in his eyes is evident. “I always come to win. Last one, open.”

Handing him back his cell phone, I reach for my final gift. This one, although small, definitely has something in it. The wrapping paper is decorated in candy canes, so I assume it’s food related again.

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