I sit up on his lap. “Good, I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Liam tucks my hair behind my ear. “Don’t apologize, I want all of you, Allison, anyway I can get you.” He kisses my temple. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I wanted to tell my parents about you. I wanted to tell them I had fallen head over heels in love with you.” I reach up and press my palm against his cheek. “My tears are happy and sad. Happy I have you in my life, that I have you to wrap your arms around me and make me feel safe. Sad, they will never get to meet you and see how amazing you are. They’ll never get to see the happiness you’ve given me.” I take a deep breath. “When you came rushing out the door to me, I couldn’t control my emotions anymore,” I explain.
“They’re always with you, with us. They know how much I love you.” He holds me tighter, and when he speaks again, I can hear the emotion in his voice. “They know you’re my forever.”
It’s getting late, so we say goodbye to Gran and Aiden’s parents and begin the journey to the MacCoys’. Liam and Aiden load the Pathfinder, and Liam tosses Aiden his keys. Aiden nods his head, understanding Liam wants to sit in the back with me. He tucks me close under his arm. I’m emotionally exhausted and fall fast asleep in his arms.
I wake up to Liam pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Wake up, baby, we made it.” I open my eyes and smile at him.
“I love you, Liam MacCoy,” I whisper in my husky sleep laced voice. I’m gifted with his smile, dimples and all.
“I love you too, beautiful. Let’s get you inside.”
Exhausted from the long day we say a quick hello to Mr. and Mrs. Mac and turn in. I quickly change into one of Liam’s t-shirts and slide into bed. As I slide in Liam reaches for me. He draws me tight against his chest. “Goodnight, beautiful. I love you.” I manage to tell him I love him too before falling back to sleep.
Christmas morning with the MacCoys is amazing. We all sit in the living room eating pastries and drinking coffee before opening gifts. I’m nervous to give Liam the gift I made him, so I busy myself with passing out my gifts to everyone else. Mr. and Mrs. Mac love the gift card Aiden and I got them to a restaurant close to the bed and breakfast Liam and Hailey reserved for them. Aiden loves his Best Buy gift card. He wants a new stereo system for his car. Hailey squeals when she opens her Coach wristlet and matching iPhone case. I smile shyly at Liam as I hand him his gift. He smiles at me in return and hands me two more as well. He, of course, makes me go first.
I open the larger one first and grin from ear to ear when I see it’s the new Coach purse I’ve been eyeing at Macy’s. “Go on, you’ve got one more.” Liam urges me. I slowly un-wrap the last gift and open the black felt case. Nestled inside is a beautiful diamond heart necklace. I look up at Liam with tears in my eyes. “I figured since you own my heart you should have a symbol of it to wear as well,” he says while his entire family and Aiden watch us.
I don’t care who’s watching, I launch myself at him and hug him tight. “Thank you, Liam. I love it. It’s beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you,” he whispers so only I can hear. He clasps the delicate chain around my neck, placing a soft kiss against my nape when he’s done. I grab the box that his last gift is in and hand it to him. Here goes nothing. Liam makes quick work of the wrapping paper and gently lifts the lid off of the box. He pulls out the pale blue book that represents our school colors. Liam opens the book, and then looks back at me. “How did you?” He turns to the next page. “Where did you?” He looks through a few more pages, before setting the book aside and capturing me in a soul searing kiss. “I love it, and I love you. This is the most amazing gift ever. When did you find the time to do this?”
I sigh with relief that he likes it. “I worked on it the weekends you had away games and spent at Gran’s. She gets tired easy these days and sleeps a lot, so I worked on it while she napped.”
“What is it?” Aiden asks him. I kept the gift a secret from him.
Liam smiles as he passes it to him. “It’s a scrapbook of my entire football career,” he tells him as he reaches for me and gives me one of his bear hugs. “You’re amazing, Allison.” The book is passed around, and everyone compliments me on it. Once they’ve all looked at it, Liam sits on the floor between my legs and studies the details of every page. I explain to him that his mom and Hailey both helped me with pictures. I included his pee wee days all through college.
“Well, there’s just one more gift to give,” Mr. Mac says as he gets up and grabs four envelopes from the mantel. “We know how close all of you are, and well, we thought it might be nice if all of you were able to get away for a weekend.” He hands each of us an envelope. “All of these are the exact same, but we wanted each of you to be able to open one, so on the count of three.” On three we all tear open our envelopes, and inside is a voucher for a three-night stay at a log cabin in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. All four of us are immediately on our feet, hugging Mr. and Mrs. Mac and thanking them for the gift. “There’s no expiration date, and it’s paid in full, so you guys can go when you can get your schedules to mesh. Of course, you’ll have to call to schedule your date with the company.”
We’re only able to stay at Liam’s parents for two days due to Liam and Aiden needing to get back for football practice. They’re playing in a bowl game on New Year’s Day.
Liam unloads all of our gifts into our room while I unload all of the leftovers Mrs. Mac sent home with us. Once I am done, I walk back to the bedroom and find Liam sitting on the bed, propped up against the headboard, looking through his scrapbook in his lap. “Hey.”
“This really is incredible, Allison,” he says as he continues to flip through the pages. “You managed to capture my entire football career in this book. This means so much to me. This is the most personal gift I’ve ever been given, and to know you made it for me, makes it even better.”
“I wanted to do something special for you.” I hesitate. I am afraid to tell him what I am thinking. I decide to just go for it, he loves me. “I thought it would be something you could show your kids one day.” I shrug.
He leans over and kisses me softly on the lips. “I will definitely be showing this to our kids, so they can see how amazingly talented their mom is.”
Chapter 32
Liam
Waking up with Allison tangled in my arms is something I’ll never get tired of. She pretty much lives here now. Well, not technically, but most of her clothes are here, as well as all of her books and laptop. It’s been weeks since she’s stayed at her dorm. Hailey’s always here too, unless she has a date, which has been less often. The four of us have become a tight knit group. Allison thinks there might be something brewing with Aiden and Hailey, but I don’t see it. Of course, I rarely pay attention to anything else when Allison is around, I’m captivated by her.
Today is New Year’s Eve Eve, and since Aiden and I have a big game New Year’s Day and we fly out to Miami tomorrow, we decide to just have a quiet night at the apartment. Hailey decides to stay in with us, as well as Blitzen and his date, Jerrica. Blitzen very seldom has dates, he’s more of a hook-up kind of guy. I can’t judge him, because I used to be the same way before Allie. Maybe Jerrica will be the one to help him change his ways.