Effortless

I spent Christmas Day with Ricky just like we did every year. It was fun, especially since I felt like we hadn't spent as much time together just the two of us lately. We played games and stuffed our faces with dessert, and it felt just like old times.

So before that I spent Christmas Eve with Javier. They had a lot of extended family over so I got to meet all of them. They were nice but I couldn't tell you any of their names even though everyone introduced themselves to me. It was a little bit chaotic. There were at least twenty-five people in the house at once so I couldn't go anywhere without someone else being there. But I guess it didn't matter because I spent the entire day glued to Javi anyway.

He broke free from the chaos and brought me upstairs to give me my gift in private. Nervously, he pulled a tiny box out of his pocket and opened it to reveal a necklace. It was a thick silver chain bar necklace, the skinny pendant hanging vertically in the middle. Inscribed in tiny letters on the pendant was 'E & J'.

"Woah." I was whispering as I ran my finger over the inscribed letters.

He pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them. "You don't wear any jewelry so I thought you might like it. And I got it inscribed so that whenever you're not okay you can remember how much I... care about you."

My eyes went wide and I felt a rush of warmth that went all the way to my cheeks as I looked at him. It looked pretty expensive but I was afraid to ask just how expensive it was. I had never owned something as nice as it and I intended to wear it every day.

"I love it." I was still whispering. It was like I couldn't find the bass in my voice because of the sweetness of his gesture.

He chuckled at me. "I'm glad you love it."

Keeping the necklace in my hand, I rolled off the bed and walked toward his closet. Opening it, I said, "Uh, so now that I am thinking about it, my gift may seem childish compared to yours. I didn't mean for it to be that way, I just thought you would like it."

Javi watched me from the bed. "You got me a gift?"

I nodded as I rummaged through all of the junk in the closet. It was a bit unorganized to say the least. "Emerson actually let me use her debit card to buy it, with a budget of course. She said it was my reward for always doing her math homework."

"You could've gotten something for yourself."

I had found the gift that Gabriella had hid in the corner of the closet underneath a bunch of clothes. It wasn't wrapped so I held it behind my back and brought it over to him.

When I got to their house I immediately found Gabriella and got her to hide the gift for me. I didn't want Javi to know that I got him something until he was ready to give me what he bought for me. I thought it would be a nice surprise since we didn't think I would be able to get him anything in the first place. I had a little money saved—very little. By very little I meant that all I would have been able to buy was a couple of boxes of cereal, which was not enough to buy what I wanted. I asked Emerson to help me out when she was in one of her better moods and much to my surprise, she agreed. She agreed even though what I wanted to buy was a want and not a need. She handed her card to me and assured me that if I went over the budget she gave she would never be that kind again.

"Why would I do that?" I laughed. "Then you wouldn't have gotten a present from me."

I then dramatically revealed the soft brown teddy bear with pretty green eyes to him. His lips curled into a smile as he took in the sight of the bear that was about the size of his torso. Javi took it from my hands and rubbed his hand over the fuzziness.