

“So why aren’t you busy spending Christmas with your family?” Nate asks as he plops down onto my bed. “I’m glad you like it,” I say shakily as I try to regain normal breathing after the kiss ends.

Hesitantly at first, then when he realizes that I’m kissing him back instead of pushing him away he deepens the kiss. The drawing is amazing.” Nate smiles honestly, then leans in and kisses me. “No, it’s just wow it’s like living that memory – the one of you drawing me – all over again. When he unwraps the drawing he looks at it, then up at me, then back down at the drawing. “Really?” Nate looks at me in happy surprise. “I love it,” I tell him as I clutch the book to my chest. I figured that since we’ll probably have a lot of free time on the trip that maybe we could check some of them out.” He shrugs as his face turns pink. “It has a lot of places that are more ‘off-the-beaten-path’ listed in it. “It’s a guidebook of Paris,” he explains as I unwrap the book. Nate came over later in the evening to give me the gift he had gotten me. My mom took an extra shift at the bar and my dad tried his best to appear happy. The days came and went, Christmas passed almost unnoticeably in my house.
