Page 65 of Ropers Can't Tie Knots
Of course, it took up prime real estate on the tree, hanging front and centre for us to see every time we walked into the room.
Gabe stands up when I enter the living room, and I immediately burst out laughing.
“What did you do?”
He wears a Santa hat with red-and-white polka dot pyjamas that are absolutely ridiculous. Empty rolls of wrapping paper areeverywhere, and there aren’t enough gifts under the tree to explain all the empty rolls.
“I know it’s not Christmas morning, but I’d like to propose a new tradition.” After topping up his amaretto, I set the bottle on the table. Gabe sighs, then sips, and grins at me. I pluck a piece of ribbon and tape from his hat.
“You know you didn’t need to go through all this trouble. Just being with you is all I need for Christmas.” There’s so much he’s already given me. He doesn’t need to wrap things or go through all this fuss.
“You say that now.” He laughs with a hint of wickedness, and I narrow my eyes.
“If I don’t like what you’ve done, I won’t give you your present.”
“Well, that’s not fair.” He pouts, but he pulls me to the couch, anyway. “When I was little and my mom and sisters were still here, we didn’t have a lot, but we made it fun. Sort of like dragging the day out and making it feel full, if that makes sense.”
“Sure. You wanted the day to last longer. Christmas magic and all that.”
“Yeah. Kind of.” He sets his glass on the table, and it’s now that I notice all the empty tape rolls. Which is about as many as the wrapping paper rolls. “So…we taped all our gifts with loads of tape or put zip ties around them. Maybe ribbons or string. We wrapped everything in extra layers. Anything to make it take longer to unwrap.”
I bark a laugh. “So I’m supposed to get completely pissed off on this merriest of occasions because I can’t open my gift?”
“It’s fun, I promise!”
I’m skeptical.
Gabe has wrapped three small gifts this way with no less than six rolls of paper and eight rolls of tape. And that’s just what I see and can count.
“I didn’t even wrap yours, though. This feels unfair.”
“How can you not wrap gifts at all?” His face falls, and I immediately lean in to kiss him.
“I didn’t say they weren’t wrapped. I just said I didn’t wrap them. You want to do this tonight instead of the morning?”
“Yes!” Gabe stands and cleans up the mess while motioning to my almost empty glass. “Let’s refill and get started!”
His enthusiasm is infectious, and once again, since I’ve met Gabe, I’m smiling and loving this life again. Maybe even learning to love Christmas again. I’ll reserve that judgment until after the gifts and this tape job.
But first, I disappear upstairs and retrieve the bag of gifts for Gabe. I wasn’t kidding, though, when I said his gift wasn’t wrapped. These are gifts, but more of a decoy for him than anything else.
When I return to the living room, I place all the pretty wrapped gifts under the tree before saving one and sitting next to Gabe.
“I just want you to know that I have zero experience gifting people I love things. I hope you’re not disappointed.”
Passing him the small box wrapped in shiny red paper, Gabe falters. “Shit. You went all sincere, and I went all asshole with the tape. I didn’t think you’d be so…” He bites his lip. “I was actually expecting a gift bag stuffed with tissue paper.”
Laughing, I sip my drink and motion for him to open it. “You’re not wrong about that assumption. But my sources said if I wanted to woo you, this was the way to go.”
“Woo me?” he whispers. Gabe seems more stuck on that than the tape he plastered to my gifts.
“Yeah, you see…I’ve never been one for romance or feelings, but you keep getting me doing all kinds of things that go against that. I love how you light up when I do something that surprises you.” Gabe’s gaze meets mine, and he smiles. The smile that makes my rusty heart creak and reach for the WD-40. “Just like that, counsellor,” I whisper as I dust my knuckles over his cheek. Such a gorgeous man. “I love that. I bring that smile to your face and I love how you make me feel shit.”
Gabe snorts. “Feel shit. Not quite poetry, but I’ll take it.”
“Like I said, this is mostly new to me, and I want to do this for you. Now open the damn present, will you?”
Yes, I’m more excited for him to open it, and that’s just a part of this whole thing, isn’t it? Gabe takes a long sip from his drink, and after a quick calculation of how many he’s had tonight, he’s probably well on his way to being drunk.
