Safe With You

36. Christmas Day

My eyelids flutter open and try to get focused. I peel my cheek of Hunter and scoot up on top of him, slowly pressing my lips under his cheek bone. "Hunterr, wake up, its Christmas." I whisper. "Hey." I get on all fours and hover over him. "Hey dork, wake up!" I push our lips together and smile, it takes him a minute or two to actually wake up, but I don't really mind. His eyes blink open, and I know he's a boy, but he's so beautiful. Just, the way the sunshine hits his face, the way his eyelashes flutter, that and his eyes can cure cancer. He rubs his face and eyes for a few seconds before groaning. "Merry Christmas." I say in some weird goofy accent.

"I'm never drinking that much again." He moans.

I giggle at him and crawl out of bed, "Hunter you had like four beers!" I say as I peel the covers off of us and crawl out of bed.

"Yeah, four too many." He pushes himself up but holds his head. "Good God."

"You're such a kid." I say and throw a bottle of water at him along with a bottle of aspirin. "Here, that stuff works good."

"How would you know?" He asks with a smirk on his face.

"Just because I had a drunk boyfriend doesn't mean I never had alcohol before." I say walking back over to him smirking.

He smiles and takes two pills, I stand next to him and since he's sitting, his head is about at my stomach, so I pull his head over and stroke his hair, occasionally playing with his ear. The ends of his hair are blonde, but the roots are dark, I told him that if he uses that kind of gel it would make his hair darker, but he doesn't listen, or care. His hair is soft and fluffy, it feels good to run my fingers through it.

He moves his hands up my sides, lifting my shirt and kissing just below my belly button then pulls me back down on the bed, laying on me so I can't get up. "Hunter get off!" I laugh.

"I love you!" He shouts obnoxiously, still not letting me go. I tickle his sides and he squirms around for a few seconds falling back onto the bed. "Aly! Come back!"

"Its Jesus' birthday! Lets go open presents in his honor!" I say dragging him off the bed.

"Fine." He stands up and stumbles into the living room hanging onto me. We both sit on the floor across from each other, one by one handing each other something. I got Hunter some Starbucks and iTunes gift cards, some new converse that he wanted, more clothes, and really expensive mandolin and case that he wouldn't shut up about. "Oh my gosh! Aly, how'd you know?"

"How'd I know?" I repeat laughing. "Every time we would pass that shop you would go straight to it, and you would play that then walk out! You always talked about it and when I asked the guys that was their first thing to tell me because apparently you told them about it too."

"Oh," he says blushing and returning it to its case.

He got me the high top converse that I've wanted, lots and lots of gift cards because thats basically all I asked for, and a record player. I think he knew I was confused when I opened it because he laughed and started explaining. "I know you and me really love to listen to whole records and get the actual CDs and stuff, so I figured I would get this and we could collect vinyls together, it can be our hobby I guess." He says shrugging his shoulders proudly.

"Aw Hunter!" I crawl over it and hug him. "Thank you so much, I love it. And thank you for the other stuff."

I pull away from his shoulder with my arms still wrapped around him. "No problem." He plants a quick kiss on my lips and we both smile. "Oh! I forgot something!" He says getting up quickly, almost throwing me onto the floor. He goes behind our short little tree and pulls out a big square flat box with a tiny bow on it. He hands it to me and anxiously watches me rip off the paper. I open it up and see a small line of curved diamonds necklace that I've always secretly loved. "I know its not big, but-"

"Are you kidding? Hunter I love it so much!" I put it down next to me and hug him again, this time even tighter. "You didn't have to do that."

"But I wanted to," He whispers "because I love you."

I smile and blush like a dork just before kissing his cheek "I love you too." I pull away and look at it again. "Did I ever tell you?" I ask looking up at him.

He furrows his eye brows "Tell me what?"

I look back down at the necklace, "I've always wanted one just like this, I don't remember ever telling anyone because I didn't want to get disappointed if I never got one..."

He shrugs his shoulders and grabs the wrapping paper crumpling it up into a ball and shoving it in the trash bag. "It's just, whenever someone would be wearing one, I would see you looking at it, and when those commercials came on and that one showed, your eyes lit up." I blush, quickly look at my lap.

Even though we had been living together for only a month or two, Hunter has treated me better than anyone I've ever known. Watching to see what I like, buying me things and just non-stop loving me. On the days I'm insecure and scared that he stops liking me he always lets me know that he's there and not going anywhere any time soon. Who knew my best friend would be the perfect guy.

~~~

After he gets a shower he puts on one of his new shirts, leather jacket and new converse. Once he's done I shower myself and slip on some leggings, and my big fluffy sweater which un-coincidentally matches my new pink converse. We're both about to walk out the door when Hunter stops me.

"Forgetting something?" He asks with the tiny chain of the necklace twirled around his fingers. I smile and stand between him and the mirror.

He pushes the hair off my back and slowly puts it over my head and slides it up to where I want it. On the third attempt he gets it clasped, then plants a few soft kisses up my neck, taking his time with each one. His hands snake around my waist and I put my hands on top of his. After looking at each other in the mirror for a few seconds he kisses my cheek, and turns me around to kiss my lips. The whole world stops, I feel like I'm being lifted off the ground thats how many butterflies are in my stomach. He slowly pulls back and our foreheads touch together.

"I love you." I whisper.

He leans over, slowly planting a kiss behind my ear. "I love you too." He helps me put my jacket on and we walk out the door hand in hand.