Carly wiggles her eyebrows when Vince opens his: “Blow me. I’m hot.”
“I got one for Mia, too,” Carly tells Laurel. “Remind me to stick it in the box to ship out tomorrow.”
“What box?” Rafe inquires. “I wasn’t aware we were sending presents to Chicago. I didn’t get her anything, either. Next year, someone needs to do a much better job of telling me who all I need to buy gifts for.”
Vince shakes his head. “You don’t have to buy anything. It was just a backdoor way of getting to send presents for Dom. Mateo won’t let me send any, but Laurel’s allowed, so we just brought his stuff to put in her package.”
Rafe stares at Vince like he’s a fucking idiot. “You don’t really think Mateo doesn’t know about this shit, right? You think Mia is sending you pictures he doesn’t know about? You think he expects Laurel to be sending Dom extra gifts? Come on, now.”
I’m a little confused as to how they all think Laurel won’t find it odd that Vince pays so much extra attention to Dom, but when I look over at her, she is blissfully absorbed in loving on Nicholas. She has to hear this, right? Laurel is an intelligent girl—has she honestly not put the pieces together?
“Anyway,” Carly says, redirecting the conversation. “Nicholas still has lots of gifts to open. Skylar, you want to help?”
She doesn’t. Skylar is completely over opening presents; now she just wants to play with the ones she can already see. That’s understandable, so Carly enlists my help, and while Sin cleans up wrapping paper and helps Skylar open her new bath squirties so she can eat the starfish, Carly and I open Nicky’s gifts. He gets lots of good things—cashmere socks, a fabric book, cute little shoes, a onesie that proclaims, “His majesty has arrived,” and then a funnier one that states, “What happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas.”
I hold that one up to show Rafe, quite proud of whomever bought it. Probably Carly.
“Technically, he happened in Chicago,” Rafe states.
“Probably,” Laurel adds. “I’m not sure which city he happened in.”
“Moving on,” Sin says, lifting an eyebrow at Laurel.
Carly and I continue to open Nicky’s presents. Rafe got him a cute little musical lamb. I love it so much, I crawl over to show him. “Look at this little guy. Look how cute.” I turn the tab on his butt to wind him up, then hand the lamb to Laurel so she can hold it up for Nicky while it sings.
“Do you like that?” she asks.
Nicky’s tiny hand pops out of his blanket and he reaches up, resting his hand on the lamb’s head.
“Aw, he loves it,” I decide. “Do you mind if I take a picture?”
“Of course not,” Laurel says.
While I take a couple pictures of Nicky with my phone, Rafe gets off the couch to retrieve a small rectangular package for Laurel, and a much smaller rectangular box for me. “Here you go, ladies.”
I tuck my phone away, looking up at him and flashing him a smile. “Thank you.”
Laurel starts opening hers, so I let her go first. It’s a Nordstrom gift box, and inside is a navy blue, crossbody purse. Laurel oohs over it, then opens it up to check it out and finds a bookstore gift card inside. Her eyes light up more over the gift card than the purse.
“Thank you,” she tells Rafe. “We’ll have to take Nicky to pick out a new book once my warden permits me to leave the house.”
Sin gives her a stoic stare. “You just had a baby.”
Laurel looks to Rafe, faintly apologetic. “It might be five years.”
“He just doesn’t want you to go out with me, kitten,” Rafe teases.
“I’ve let you take my future wife on enough dates for one lifetime,” Sin grumbles.
“It can’t be a date if we bring a baby,” Rafe assures Sin. “I mean, unless you’re offering to babysit.”
“I guess somebody doesn’t want to be invited to Christmas next year,” Sin replies.
“Oh, come on,” Rafe says. “I was joking.”
“I’m laughing my ass off,” Sin tells him.
Rafe shakes his head. “Man, everyone is in a fucking mood today. Lighten up. Next year we should do Christmas at my house, so we all have more space to get away from each other from time to time. This place is too cramped, that’s the problem.”