Underneath The Mistletoe {Phan} (Book Three)

🌨Three🌨

"Phil, get your lazy ass up." Dan shook me slightly.
My only response was a groan.
"Am I going to have to pull the covers off of you?"
As soon as I heard this, I found myself instinctively holding onto the covers as if my life depended on it.
"Oh, so you are awake." My eyes didn't need to be open to know that Dan had a smirk on his face at that moment. "That's nice to know."
I ignored him as I buried my head into my pillow.
"Phillip, I will not hesitate to pull those covers off."
"You don't want to do that. I'm just wearing boxers and socks."
"That's not really helping your case. In fact, that's only making me want to pull the covers off even more now."
I groaned again. "Five more minutes." I begged.
Dan sighed. "I'll only give you five more minutes if you promise me that you'll get out of bed when said five minutes are up."
"I pinkie promise." I held up my right pinkie.
"You better not break a pinkie promise." I felt Dan's pinkie wrap around mine as he said this.
"I won't." I moved my head from the pillow so that it wasn't muffled anymore to make sure that Dan knew that I was serious.
"Okay, either Ellie or I will be back in exactly five minutes to wake you up."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." I sighed, wishing to spend the next five minutes in peace. "Just let me sleep in peace, would you pretty please?"
"As you wish." Dan laughed a little as he ruffled my hair.

*****

"Phil? Are you awake now? Dan sent me to come and tell you that your five minutes are up."
I yawned as I sat up and rubbed sleep out of my eyes. "Yeah, I'm awake now. You can go and tell Dan so that he doesn't come up here and literally yank me out of bed."
Ellie laughed a little. "Okay, I'll go tell him."
I watched as she turned and headed back downstairs. After she got out of the room, I closed the door behind her and locked it so that she and/or Dan wouldn't come in. I then went over to my closet and began looking at my clothes to see what I wanted to wear today.

"Gee, what a surprise." I laughed a little as I walked out into the kitchen after I finished getting dressed to find that Dan and Ellie were sitting at the table eating a huge plate of bacon together. "You know, I thought that I was only ever gonna live with one person who was obsessed with bacon."
"Oh come on Phil, you're no fun." Dan said to me while his mouth was filled with bacon. "Bacon is amazing. You're really missing out."
"But doesn't me not really liking bacon mean that there's more for you to enjoy?"
Dan's face lit up almost as soon as I said this. "It does! You're totally right! I'm now literally so glad that you don't like bacon that much!"
Ellie laughed as she picked up another piece of bacon. "Dan, you're funny. But you aren't as funny as Phil is. Phil made me laugh so hard while we were out yesterday."
I couldn't help but laugh.
"Now, that's not true." Dan smiled a bit. "I'm just as funny as Phil is. If not that, I'm funnier than he is."
"Prove it then!" Ellie smiled.
"I will later. Just not right now."
"Dan, you're so lazy." I rolled my eyes and smiled.
Dan's smile turned into a frown. "Phil, can we talk in our bedroom alone? There's something I need to talk to you about."

"There's something we need to talk about." Dan said as he closed the door behind us.
"What is it?"
"We need to discuss whether or not we're going to keep Ellie."
"Yeah, I guess we do."
"Well, can we discuss that now?" Dan asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed. "We need to figure it out kinda fast because Christmas is coming up."
"Yeah, I suppose we can discuss it." I sat down next to him. I was so close to him that our legs were brushing up against each other.
"So, are we going to keep her?" Dan asked as he folded his hands on top of each other and placed them on top of his lap before he stared down at them.
"Well, whether or not we keep her depends on some factors." I informed him as I stared down at the ground. "First of all, do you want to keep her?"
"Um, well..." Dan hesitated for a few moments. "You know, now that you say that, I don't really know if I want to keep her or not. I guess I never really thought about that. I mean, she's only been here for a couple of days after all."
"I'm in the same boat as you." I kept looking down at the ground as I started slowly kicking my legs. "I've been too focused on making her happy to focus on whether or not I actually want to adopt her."
"If we do decide to keep her, this will be a huge step not only for us, but for our relationship too." Dan whispered. "We'll be dads. And I don't know if I'm ready to be one."
"Me neither." I whispered back, hating myself because I agreed with him. "But where is she going to go now? She needs a loving family."
"My great grandma could take her in." I continued to whisper. "She gets lonely sometimes so Ellie will be good company for her."
"Okay, so is that our final decision?" My voice was so quiet that I wasn't certain that Dan actually heard me until he spoke.
"Yes, I think it is."
I sighed. "I feel so bad. But, at the same time, I feel comfortable knowing that she'll be living with people I trust."
"Yeah." Dan sighed as well. "Let's not tell her though. Let's let her spend Christmas with us."
"Agreed." I nodded, even though actually admitting to not only Dan, but to myself as well that I wasn't ready to be the parent that Ellie needed in her life after her real ones left her caused me to feel pain in my heart.
"Phil? Are you okay?" I could hear just how concerned Dan was about me and that only cause me to feel even more pain.
"Yes Dan, I'm fine." I knew it was a lie and I knew that it was wrong for me to lie to the one person I loved. But I just wanted to move on from the subject we were currently discussing. I didn't even want to think about it until the time came.
Dan sighed, clearly realizing that it would be best to not push me to tell him whether or not I was actually okay. "Well, I guess I'll let you take Ellie to go and see your great grandma so that they can at least meet each other."