Paradise Lost (Private 9)
"Don't," he replied, squeezing my hands. Then he stepped aside so I could see behind him. In the center of the room was a huge box wrapped in plaid Christmas wrapping paper and topped with a red velvet bow. The thing was the size of a footlocker.
"What is in there?" I asked.
"Just open it. I literally cannot wait to see your face."
Upton released my hand and sat in a leather wing-backed chair facing the humongous present. He placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, like he couldn't have been more excited. All I could think about was how stupid I felt for being so thoughtless.
"Whatever it is, I don't know how I'm going to get it home," I said, kneeling in front of the box. Upton chuckled, and I reached
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up to gingerly remove the bow. I was planning on opening it very carefully, in a sophisticated and mature manner,
but then I realized this might be the only gift I got to unwrap this Christmas and thought, Screw it. I tore into the sucker like I was tearing into my first pair of soccer cleats.
And it was a footlocker. A big, metal footlocker, with no lock on the clasp. I blinked at Upton, confused. A little stab of trepidation sliced through me. Talk about a bad horror movie trailer. Was I going to find a dead body in this thing? Holy crap, had Upton killed Poppy for me and stashed her in a footlocker?
Stranger things actually had happened in my life.
"Well? Open it!" Upton said with glee.
I swallowed hard, reached for the clasp with a shaky hand, held my breath, and flung open the top. My jaw dropped open.
The footlocker was filled with college sweatshirts. On the top were Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Penn, and Brown, but as I dug through the piles, I found Penn State, University of Miami, Boston College, UCLA, University of Texas, William & Mary, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Illinois, NYU, Rutgers, Arizona, and on and on and on. There were at least forty sweatshirts crammed into the thing.
"Upton . . . I. . . this is so cool!" I said, sitting back on my heels with the Miami sweatshirt in my clutches.
Upton laughed and got up, walking around the footlocker to sit next to me. "I figured that you could wear them all this coming year and see which one you think suits you best. And then, when you
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make your choice, you'll have a properly broken-in shirt when you get there, and you'll feel as if you're already home."
I sat there and gaped at him. I had never received a more thoughtful gift from anyone in my entire life.
"How did you manage to do this?" I asked, reaching out to run my hand over the Harvard shirt's lettering.
"Let's just say I'm glad my family owns stock in FedEx," he replied with a grin. His eyes danced in the dim light from the desk lamp. "Well? Do you like it?"
"It's absolutely the best Christmas gift I've ever received," I told him. I leaned in and kissed him. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," he replied, taking my hand.
I turned around to sit next to him again, and he put his arm around me. I cuddled into him as we leaned back against the leather couch behind us, and we both gazed into the footlocker. The footlocker that held my many potential futures.
"I envy you. All the choices you're about to make," Upton said, running his thumb back and forth across my shoulder. "It's got to be so exciting."
He really did sound envious of little old me. But then, his choices had all been laid out for him. I sighed, trying not to feel overwhelmed by everything that was to come. The tinkling merriment of the party sounded very far off from this back room, with the ocean crashing outside the windows, and suddenly the idea of rejoining all those people felt overwhelming.
"Let's just stay in here for a little while, okay?" I suggested.
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Upton sighed and pulled me in tighter, closing his eyes and leaning back his head against the couch. "We can stay in here all night for all I care."
I smiled. It didn't even sound like a come-on. It just sounded like he wanted to be with me. And that, really, was the best present I could have asked for.
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