Page 127 of Santa Has a Six-Pack
I look at her for confirmation.
She eagerly nods.
“… then it’s going to be in my bed.”
“Your girlfriend,” she breathes. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me too.”
God, Penny. Me too.
“One request, though?” she asks, lying below me, looking like an absolute angel.
“Anything for you.”
She smiles. “Turn the Christmas tree lights on, will you?”
“Well, will you look at that,” I say. “It’s officially Christmas.”
Penny props herself up on an elbow and peers over my chest toward the clock on my nightstand. “So it is.”
For the past few hours, we’ve been lying here in each other’s arms, talking through everything that’s happened over the past few days. All the realizations we’ve made. All the ways that we’re sorry. And all the ways that we forgive each other.
We’re moving forward.
Together.
It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever received.
“I almost forgot,” she says excitedly. “I have something for you.”
Penny steps out of bed and walks across the room to where we dropped her purse by the door. What I lose when she exits my arms, I gain by getting to watch her saunter naked through my apartment. She is truly the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
And she’s all mine.
She pulls that same wrapped package I spotted on the night of the holiday show out of her bag and slips back under the covers with me.
“So it was for me, huh?” I say when she hands me the gift.
“It was. For us, I guess you could say. But giving it to you that night before we’d really talked felt… premature. And then I headed right to my sister’s…”
“Well, now you have me curious,” I say.
“So open it, you goof!”
I tear into the wrapping paper like a little kid. When I see what’s inside, my mouth falls open. “Penny Whitaker. Did you get us matching Christmas pajamas?”
“Maybe?” She cringes. “Is that lame?”
“Are you kidding me!? I’VE ALWAYS WANTED MATCHING CHRISTMAS PAJAMAS!”
She laughs. “Alright, Barbera, simmer down.”
“Impossible to simmer down when you’re beside me,” I growl into her neck.
She responds immediately by pushing the gift box off the bed and climbing on top of me.
“Mmm,” I groan softly in her ear and run my hands down her sides. “While I am really excited about those matching jams, what do you say we wait until the morning to put them on?”
