One Day At A Time - Revised Edition

Within the next week or so, everyone has had enough time to scramble together their presents for each other.

All four of them sit in Ava's bedroom after school with their presents for each other in front of them, ready to be gifted.

"Who's going first? Who gets their present first?" Ava blurts out eagerly.
"Rose organizes this whole thing every year, so they should go first." Lilly reasons, which everyone agrees with.

If she has any say in it, she wants Ava to go last, so the anticipation of what her present is can build up.

Ava passes her present over to Rose.
The box is wrapped with too much tape, the way Ava usually wraps presents.

After wrestling with it for a moment, Rose tears the wrapping paper open to reveal a large container of plastic bracelet-making beads.

They're the type of beads that Rose doesn't already have in their friendship bracelet making arsenal. (They make bracelets for all different occasions, for anyone who needs one.)
There are some glittery beads, some metallic ones, letter beads that are glittery, and letter beads of all different colors.
All the variety a person could ask for.

Rose smiles at the box in their lap.
"Woah... I'm gonna make bracelets for days! I'll start a business and sell them." They joke and look at Ava. "Thank you. I love it!"

Rose sets the box of beads aside and passes their present to Lucas, who rubs his hands together, ready as all hell.

It's a small, thin package covered in wrapping paper, which he wastes no time tearing into.

"Holy shit- thank you! They're awesome!" He's holding a small package of musical theatre themed enamel pins in his hand.

There's a pin for The Book Of Mormon and Newsies, two pins that make him the happiest, among the other Mamma Mia! and Rent pins.

Setting his pins aside, Lucas hands his gift bag to Lilly. "I tried to wrap it, but it looked like shit." He says, laughing faintly at himself.

Lilly takes the pieces of crumpled up tissue paper out of the bag, and pulls out a navy blue wooden box that's in the shape of a book.

Before she can ask exactly what it is, Lucas tells her,
"Open it. It's a secret place to keep things."
He winks at her and everyone instantly knows what he's insinuating.

She opens the box and inside of it is a keychain with her name on it, surrounded by shiny stars.
"It's cool! I'll be sure to hide some things in here... but I'm keeping it PG." She says, smiling as she sets the book next to herself. (She doesn't want to imagine her parents finding out about the whole, "getting high with Lucas" thing.)

As she anticipated, Ava is sitting next to her, waiting very, very eagerly for her gift.
Her plan of building up the anticipation had worked.

Lilly hands Ava her present, which, like Lucas' gift, is in a gift bag thanks to her terrible wrapping skills.

Ava is the quickest to open her gift, yanking out the pieces of tissue paper and reaching into the bag.

She smiles faintly when her fingers touch soft fabric.

She tries to pull the gift out with one hand, but can't.
"It's heavy." She comments, putting both hands into the gift bag and pulling out the gift that Lilly had gotten home late to get.

Ava's eyes go wide and a huge grin spreads across her face.

In her hands is an orangish-red plush dragon that's filled with beans to make it weighted; a thing to give tight hugs.

Which she does in an instant.

Lilly asks an almost stupid question,
"Do you like it?"

Ava turns to Lilly with the biggest smile anyone has ever seen on her face.
"Yes!" She answers a little too loud.

She hastily tosses the dragon towards Rose, non-verbally asking them to hold it for a moment while she pulls Lilly in for a hug, a long and tight hug.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Lilly's heart could burst open from how happy she feels right now.
It makes her heart so unbelievably giddy to see Ava so thrilled about her gift, even more thrilled than she first had thought.

Ava eventually lets Lilly go and gestures for Rose to give her dragon back.

"Are you gonna name him?" Lucas asks.
Ava looks down at the dragon in her lap, rubbing its flappy fabric wing between her fingers, as a name pops into her head.
"Mhm! His name is Odin."
"Odin?"

"Yes, he looks like an Odin to me." She answers matter-of-factly.

Ava's hug to Lilly causes for them all to take turns hugging each other as a, "Thank you" for their gifts.

They're all happy, more than happy, with this year's Secret Santa gift exchange.

At the end of the night, everyone goes home grinning; filled with bounds and bounds of joy.