The Love Series Complete Box Set (17 page)

“Finally!” I huff at her.

We load up the car with our bags and tons of snacks, and then head over to Reid’s to grab my book. It’s not a long drive at all, so we just listen to some music and sing along for the ten minutes that we’re in the car. As we park in front of the house, I notice a change in Mel. She’s extra bubbly—if it’s even possible to be bubblier than she already is on a daily basis.

“What are you up to, Mel?” I ask, leering my eyes in her direction.

She just shrugs in return and says nothing. She hops out of the car, and I follow right behind. She knocks on the door, which is so odd; we never knock here. As the door opens, she steps to the side so that my view is unobstructed. I am stunned at what I see. Reid holds out his hand to grasp mine, and he brings me into the house.

“It’s . . . it’s so clean. What the hell? What is going on, Reid?”

They’re definitely up to something, but neither Melanie nor Reid is saying anything. They’re just sharing glances with each other, laughing secretly. Shock is giving way to frustration at this point, and I nearly yell, “What the hell is going on, guys? I’ve put up with your little secrets for almost two months now and it’s getting a little old.”

Why not stomp your feet and huff and puff while you’re at it, Maddy?

They look at each other once more, and Reid pulls something out from his back pocket. “Trust me?” he asks. I’m confused by his question, but when I see that he’s holding a blindfold, I understand.

“Of course I trust you, Reid, but if you don’t start talking soon, I’m going to freak out a little.”

He just laughs and moves to tie the blindfold over my eyes. He pulls my hair out of the way as he does so, and I can feel his breath, hot and sweet on my neck. He kisses me gently right under my ear before nibbling lightly. Shivers course over my entire body, and my nipples harden. He knows he has this effect on me, and I can feel him smiling against my neck.

“I hope you like your surprise, Maddy.” And with that he finishes his assault on my neck. I have to squeeze my thighs together to try to tame the inferno that he causes in me.

I nod, and he leads me into what I believe is the direction of the living room, which was hidden from my view by the wall of the entryway. It smells of cleaning solution—some fresh pine scent. I can sense other people in the room; I can feel their collective nervousness, and I’m jittery to take this blindfold off and see what the hell is going on.

“Can I take this thing off now, Reid? I feel like an ass.”

His response is a chuckle and an “okay.” He is standing behind me, and as he unties the blindfold, he wraps his arms around my waist. Tears fall from my eyes at the scene before me. That pine scent wasn’t from the cleanliness of the room. It was from a Christmas tree, a huge, real, gorgeous tree. My eyes go to that first because it takes up the majority of the large living room, but eventually I catch people in my periphery. Jack and Cammie are here, fingers interlaced at their side; Lia’s here, too, smiling away as usual. I’m surprised to see Logan and Bryan as well.

“What are you guys doing here? Aren’t you all supposed to be traveling today?” I can’t hide the shock in my voice. I really don’t understand what is going on.

Lia pipes up for the entire group. “Well, your sweet boyfriend here talked us all into changing our plans so that we can spend the weekend together.” She pauses a beat before adding, “Here at home.” She wraps her arms around me and squeezes tightly, and then looks up at me. Unshed tears are shimmering in her chocolate eyes. “We all wanted to be here together, like a family, for you.”

Big, fat crocodile tears fall from my eyes. I turn to look at Reid and smile. “You did this for me?” My voice is shaking with emotion. I am in love with this dear, sweet man before me.

“Well, I had some help, as usual.” He winks at Melanie, and I can’t help but swell with love for her, too.

“You guys, all of you,” I make brief eye contact with everyone in the room, “are amazing. You’ll never know how much this means to me. I’ve never had a big family holiday . . .” My words trail off behind my thick emotion. I can’t speak past the lump in my throat. When I finally rein in my emotions, I look at Reid. “What’s with the tree, though? You know Christmas isn’t for another month. Did you get your holidays mixed up or something?” My sarcasm always gets the best of me.

Logan responds rather than Reid. “Well, I couldn’t be here for Christmas, and Bryan has to fly home, too, so I thought we could all do both holidays together now, start a new tradition. You know?” He stands next to me while he’s saying all of this. When he’s done, he pulls me into a platonic hug and says, low enough so that no one else can hear, “Plus, I was a real jerk for lying to Reid about us, and I really wanted to make it up to you.”

I’ve been really angry with him about that whole situation even though he’s said he’s sorry a bunch of times—even though Reid’s already kicked his ass. This gesture of thoughtfulness causes me to soften toward him. I can’t stay mad at him when he’s played a part in all of this, so I hug him back and tell him thank you.

“So here’s the plan,” Cammie chimes in. “Tonight we’re going to trim this monster of a tree and drink cheap wine and eat pizza. That was always the tradition at my house, so now I’m sharing that with you. Come on,” she says to Mel and Lia, “and help me in the kitchen with some drinks, and we’ll order for delivery while the boys bring in all of the decorations from the car.”

At that everyone scurries off to their task. Reid stays behind, though, and sweeps me into his arms, and he starts dancing with me, just like I remember my parents doing—no music, no beat, no dance floor. Just us. I am most definitely in love.

I rest my head on his chest and inhale his perfectly masculine scent. He is my home, and I feel so safe in his warm arms. He kisses the top of my head, and I look up into his ocean-blue eyes, which are shining with emotion.

“You’re not mad at me, are you? I wanted to surprise you and give you something that you’ve always wanted.”

His question catches me off guard. Mad? Is he kidding? I’m beyond elated at his loving gesture. “Reid, how can I possibly be mad at you? This is all so amazing. I feel so loved and cherished. That could never make me mad. You are the sweetest,” I plant a kiss on his lips, “kindest,” another kiss, “hottest,” another kiss, this one deeper, “boyfriend ever, and I am so unbelievably lucky to have you in my life.”

He kisses me deeply, passionately, lovingly, and then holds my face in his large but gentle hands. “Yeah, I guess I am quite the catch, huh?” Sweet and playful—God, he’s amazing. He continues in a more serious tone, “You’re the one who’s the catch, Maddy.” He cups my face gently and strokes his thumbs over my cheeks. I lean into him once more and kiss him with the sudden wave of love that I feel for him.

My curiosity finally gets the better of me, and I have to start on my truth-seeking quest. I pull back from him and ask, “So how did all of this come together? I mean, aside from the obvious answer that you and Mel did it all.” I arch my eyebrows at him.

His lips quirk up into a playful smile as he pulls us over to the couch, which, I’m just now realizing, is new. “You got a new couch! Oh, thank God! I felt like I needed a shower after sitting on the old one.”

He just laughs at me and says, “It was pretty gross, huh?”

“Gross? Reid, that thing was beyond filthy. I get the creeps just thinking about what might have happened on that couch over the years.” I actually shudder a little at that thought. “So dish. How did this all go down, and how on earth did you afford all of this? I mean, a tree, decorations, a new couch—I’m dying here!”

“Well, when you said you wanted a big family dinner, I couldn’t help but get Mel in on it. Everyone was more than willing to change their plans for you. They all love you, you know that, right?” He kisses me chastely on the lips before continuing, “Your suite was definitely the cleaner option, but it wasn’t big enough. So I hired a maid service to clean the place up, and I spent most of yesterday and today while you were in class at Target and at the food market getting everything else. I didn’t realize how much we didn’t have until Mel pointed it out to me. We didn’t even have plates. And food—the fucking cabinets were bare. So I stocked up on everything, and when I came home and saw how clean the place was, I couldn’t imagine keeping the furniture. I was lucky enough to talk the sales guy in to letting me buy the floor samples. I threw in a pretty large tip, and wouldn’t you know it, they were able to deliver it all this morning.”

He makes it all seem so simple, but where on earth is all of this money coming from?

“But the money, Reid, that’s a shitload of dough to spend on one person.”

“You’re right. It’s a lot to spend on one person, but, Maddy, you are not
just
one person. You are everything to me. I just wanted to do something nice for you. The money is no big deal, please believe me.”

I want to believe him that it’s really not a big deal, but he’s a twenty-one-year-old college student; this is way too much for him to spend on me.

“But, Reid, this is crazy! Please let me pay you back. My tuition and room are mostly covered by scholarships, and the rest is taken care of by my parents’ life insurance policy. I can pay you back out of there.”

He looks angry—like, really pissed—at the suggestion that I pay him back.

“No.” His voice is hard and stone cold. Even he hears it, so he lets the anger recede before saying more. “You will not pay me back. You will not use money from your parents on me doing something nice for you. I’ve got it covered. The money is from a lawsuit from when I was a teenager. It settled out of court, and I never really touched it. I never had any reason to use it, so it just sat there and grew. Now I have you, and doing shit like this makes me happy, so it’s the perfect reason to finally spend it. Believe me, all of this is a drop in the bucket where that money is concerned. Plus, if I didn’t have that money, how else would I have been able to pay off that movie operator and have him play your favorite movie of all time on our first date?”

I can’t help but melt into him and his thoughtfulness. I stare into his eyes and tell him, sincerely, “Thank you, Reid. For all of this—not the material stuff—but for the family I never had, for giving me the chance to finally open up to somebody. You make me so happy, and I only hope that I make you half as happy.”

“Happy? Are you kidding? Maddy, you are the reason I breathe. Without you, my life would have no meaning at all, so saying that you ‘make me happy’ is a huge fucking understatement. You bring more happiness into my life than I ever thought I deserved.” His lips crush into mine, and he kisses me with all the emotion that he’s trying to convey in his words. These feelings of love and joy are so overwhelming that I feel like my heart might explode.

Our kiss is broken when we hear the guys barging through the door, carrying all the bags from Reid’s shopping excursions. “Reid, get your ass in here, man! This shit’s heavy.”

Jack’s words are strained under the weight of the bags he’s trying to lug through the door. I move to help him, but he tells me stay right where I am. I lean my head back on the couch and revel in the idea that I’m not going to need to scrub my skin clean when I get up.

I hear the door slam shut and bags hit the floor. The girls come back into the living room with a tray full of snacks and some drinks. Lia passes everyone a glass of wine and proposes a toast. “To our first Thanksgiving together as a family.” Everyone raises their glasses, saying “hear, hear,” and takes a sip.

When Lia says “family,” realization dawns. “Oh, no, Mel, we have to call Momma and tell her about all of this. She’ll be worried to pieces over us.” I glance down at my watch and realize that we should have been there two hours ago. “She’s probably got the search-and-rescue team out already!”

I bend down to get my phone out of my purse, which fell to the floor when Reid took my blindfold off. When I’m upright again, I can’t help the shriek of shock that comes out of my mouth.

“Momma C!” I scream so loudly that everyone actually has to cover their ears. I run into her open arms and bask in her motherliness. She must have been hiding behind the wall in the entryway. “But . . . how . . . when . . . what are you doing here? How did you even know we would be here? I didn’t see your car up front.” I stutter over my words, but I’m just so surprised to see her.

Mel walks up next to her mom and wraps an arm around her waist so that it’s the three of us linked together before all our friends.

I see Momma wipe a stray tear from her cheek before she starts talking. “Well, Maddy, your boyfriend over there,” she smiles warmly at him, and I know that he’s won her over, “he called me the other day and asked if I wouldn’t mind changing my plans to be here with you and all of your friends. And then he promised that I wouldn’t have to lift a finger, that he would take care of everything. I couldn’t turn him down. A weekend with my girls and their best friends and . . .” she stretches out the last “and” for emphasis, almost as if to remind Reid of his promise, “I don’t have to cook or clean or do anything but enjoy all of you—how could I turn that down? Reid sent a car for me this afternoon so that I wouldn’t have to drive myself and, well, here I am.”

Reid steps over to Mel, Momma, and me, and he reaches out his hand to Momma. “It’s an absolute pleasure to finally meet you, Mrs. Crane. I’m so thrilled that you could help me do all of this for Maddy.”

She releases us and looks at his hand as if it’s a foreign object protruding from his arm. She’s a hugger, not a hand-shaker, so she pulls him into a soft hug. When she whispers something into his ear, a small smile curves up at the corner of his mouth. She says, this time loud enough for everyone to hear, “It’s my pleasure, Reid. Anyone who would go through all this trouble for my Maddy deserves at least a little effort on my part.”

And at that, we all return to our drinks, and the conversation carries through the room. We begin unpacking all the decorations and immediately go to decorate the tree. The evening passes by quickly because we’re all having so much fun. We eat pizza off paper plates on the living room floor while we all share memories of holidays past. Reid looks concerned for me, and I understand why; I don’t have all that many memories to share, but I just smile warmly at him.