Page 114 of Green Flag
Kade was nearly crying in his chair, nose screwed up, ready to throw his plastic fork at her across the table if she didn’t use hers faster.
She blamed it on ‘indigestion’. I blamed it on her being a twat too much like her sister.
When she finally finished, Marina was shaking her head at her and ushering the rest of us out of the room to open presents before dessert.
“Now, be polite when opening your presents,” said Marina, sitting on the sofa as Luca and I sat by the tree on the floor and he took great joy in passing them out.
He’d bought Kade an electric motorbike (with two wheels at the back) for the garden, but he spent the next hour zooming around the halls on it. Reid received the new StormSprint game, with a special edition of our dad as a player from when he raced, which caused him to go into an ecstatic meltdown.
Marina received a beautiful necklace with her birthstone in it and Fia a gift card to her favourite bubble tea cafe that she hadn’t shut up about in our nightly FaceTimes.
Then he turned to Dad.
“I don’t want anything,” he said thickly.
“My present to you is your daughter’s happiness.”
Marina smirked, looking down at her jewellery and Fia cackled.
“And this.” He gave him a thin gift bag and when Dad pulled out a bottle of gin, he couldn’t hide his smile, try as he might.
“And for my snuggle muffin,” Luca said, passing me the biggest box. “There are a few others too, but you’ve got to open this first.”
I narrowed my eyes at the box, opening it suspiciously to a brand new PlayStation 5.
“What!”
“Don’t act like I got you world peace,” he laughed. “It’s purely for selfish reasons. To stop you from playing mine. And so we can play together over the break.”
“But—”
“There are no buts,” he said, tsking. “There are some games in the box. Girly ones too.”
He’d bought me ten different games. The StormSprint one included.
And I vowed to only ever play as number 68 because there was no other rider who compared to Luca Mendes.
“There’s another present,” he whispered in my ear after receiving the ugly Christmas jumper I’d given him. He wore it with pride — with the Ciclati colours of red and green, it hadn’t been hard to find one fitting. Everyone was busy with setting up the boys’ new toys and didn’t notice our intimate moment. “But it’s maybe not best in front of these lot.”
My curiosity pulled him up and almost dragged him into the nearest room, which happened to be my dad’s office.
“What is it?”
My dirty mind immediately took me to underwear. With a slit in. For him to tease off me.
“Don’t get too excited,” he laughed. “It comes in two parts.”
A large box and a small wrapped parcel remained in his Santa sack.
First, the box had to be opened. Inside was a pair of beautiful white cowgirl boots with green embroidered flowers.
And I might die on the spot.
“These are… the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen,” I whispered, tracing the embroidery.
“Alright, alright,” he said and pulled me close. “You’ll water my ego.”
It needed growing.
