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Chapter Fifty-Seven: Maggie

It astounds me how much time has passed since I had gotten into a relationship with Evan.

It only felt like yesterday when I agreed to officially be his girlfriend and now we're already spending our first Christmas together as a couple.

The holidays rolled around quicker than I expected, but Tiffany and Mason, as well as my mom, decided that it would be best if we spent the holidays together.

My mom and I weren't technically close with our relatives as the families on both my mother and father's side (especially my father's side) tend to just keep to themselves and only select a few chosen relatives whom they deemed worthy of their time to spend special occasions with.

Unfortunately, my mom and I weren't one of those worthy relatives.

But we were fine with that considering we only really needed each other, plus it wasn't like we were close with them in the first place.

With our family tree consisting mostly of people who constantly kept building empires after empires of cooperation and only ever prioritized their jobs above anything else, the sentimentalities of family gatherings weren't really pivotal to them.

Except for my grandparents from my mother's side (not to say my grandparents from my father's were bad, but the apple didn't fall too far from the tree in terms of pleasantness) being the only ones we contact during these occasions, there wasn't anybody else.

But now after Tiffany and Mason's invitation, it seemed somewhat exciting to start the holidays because they were pretty much family to us at this point.

My mom loved being around them plus now that Evan and I are dating, we have grown closer and more intimate as well, now these events don't seem as bland as they were before. And mainly because Evan seemed to have a lot of plans once Christmas rolls around.

"We're telling them, during dinner. End of discussion."

"Evan, this is the first time I'm spending Christmas with your parents and quite frankly, I don't want it to be my last with them either," I retorted.

His eyebrows furrowed "Why? It's not like they'll have a problem with it."

"It's not them having a problem with it that I'm worried about, it's me having a problem about how awkward it will be for you to drop such a huge announcement during the holidays that I'll have no choice but to dump your ass right on the spot," he rolled his eyes at me for that "Can't we just wait until the New Year starts?"

"No! Christmas is the perfect time because it's basically our gift to them"

"You're treating our relationship as if it was the eighth wonder of the world."

"Well, it is for me," he said with a wink as I was the one to roll my eyes at him this time "Come on, Carter! It'll be great and don't you think it's about time our parents found out?"

As shocking as it may seem, both of our parents still don't know that the same children they had set up for marriage had officially started dating. But despite the sheer irony of it all, we do know that they'll be somewhat pleased knowing Evan and I have finally become the couple they so desperately wanted us to become since the beginning.

But it was still hard considering it was big enough of information to not drop just like so during dinner, we needed to prepare for the announcement.

Especially for my mom who was more aware of the past struggles Evan and I have gone through before we started dating, she'll probably be more wary of our relationship than Tiffany and Mason.

"Think about it, we've kept them in the dark long enough to finally tell them the truth about what's going on between us," he suggested, looking at me with an encouraging gaze.

I sighed "I'm just nervous, I've been so used to this relationship just being so low key that telling about it to our parents seems like such a..."

"Such a huge step to take?" he finished "How once we tell them it'll finally feel like something serious rather than something you wanted to cherish for a while before the world could potentially take the thrill of it all away from us?"

I didn't respond, just simply nodded. He smiled affectionately in return as he leaned forward from where I sat on the edge of my bed.

He squatted down to meet my gaze and gently tucked a strand of hair behind my ear "But the thing is no one's gonna take that thrill away from us. I'm not gonna let that happen."

"You never know, that's all." I muttered, "Sometimes people just like to see the shine dim away from something beautiful all because they can't handle its light."

His eyes softened at that "That may be true, but it's never gonna dim though, the light we have,"

"How can you be so sure of that?"

He shrugged "Not unless either one of us decides to turn it off, it's not gonna go away, and I sure as hell ain't gonna turn it off anytime soon." he said "And you?"

I chuckled, shaking my head "I'm not gonna turn it off either,"

... At least not anytime soon, that is.

* * *

It seems as though making absurd and rather abrupt plans during the holidays was something that runs in the Williams family.

It wasn't long before the Christmas spirit eventually took a toll on everyone as they all scrambled to prepare for Christmas dinner and hanging up decorations.

And by everyone I mean Tiffany.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone act as enthusiastic about Christmas more than Tiffany, or maybe it's because I've never really paid much attention to any other holiday whether it be Christmas, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, or any of the other mundane events that just tries to give people excuses to actually anticipate something else other than their birthdays.

Heck, I don't even care about my own birthday.

But it seems as though Tiffany was the complete opposite.

"Oh gosh, I can't believe we're spending our first Christmas together! The more the merrier, right?" Tiffany squealed as she paced around the living room of their house, decorating the Christmas tree that I'm pretty sure is about to burst through their roof with how tall it is.

I was helping Tiffany with decorations considering back at home my mom and I tend to keep it simplistic when it comes to Christmas decorations, so we had finished quickly unlike the Williams who decided to go all in.

And so I had volunteered to help Tiffany while Mason went to work and Evan decided to build the twenty feet tall Santa Claus right outside of their front yard that I'm pretty sure after three hours of working on it, he's probably only finished assembling Santa's head.

Meanwhile, I assisted Tiffany by handing her ornaments and Christmas stockings to hang in the tree as she stood on a ladder, decorating it from top to bottom.

"With how gigantic this tree is it's gonna take us until midnight before we get all the ornaments up, we're not even finished with one side of the tree yet." I teased as she laughed.

"You know me, I always like to be extravagant in all aspects of my life." she said, eyes beaming "Plus now that you and Veronica will be joining us during Christmas, the more the reason to make Christmas much more vibrant and enjoyable."

"The fact you even invited us means a lot," I told her.

"Oh please," she grinned, teasing "You and your mother are part of our family by now."

My heart swelled at her words as I forced myself not to get carried away by how much that sentence alone made butterflies erupt in my stomach.

The fact Evan's parents see me as someone who's a part of their family.

The fact Evan sees me as his family.

I could only blush deeply at her words, looking down "That's really sweet."

She smiled down at me and was about to speak again when the front door to the house opened, the sound resonating inside the living room as Tiffany perked up "Oh, that must be Evan."

Sure enough, it was, as he strolled inside to come and greet us, a look of exhaustion evident on his face "I don't even see the point of putting up that monstrosity outside of the house when we're just gonna take it down in a couple of days," he said, referring to the giant Santa Claus.

Tiffany rolled her eyes as she climbed down the ladder. "It might be too much of a handful but at least our house is the most eye-catching out of all the ones in our neighborhood." She looked back at me and gave me a wink. "Wait until the truckload of Christmas lights is up."

"I'm not doing that," Evan proclaimed as Tiffany waved him off.

"Oh no, I'll ask someone else to do that for me, while you, on the other hand, have something else to do," Tiffany said with a mischievous glint in her eyes as Evan arched an eyebrow.

"Please don't make me do any more manual labor, I'm about to throw up."

"Don't worry, dear, this one will be easy." she said, taking out something from the pockets of her shorts as she then whipped out a list "As a matter of fact, you'll have Maggie to help you with your task."

My eyes widened as she gave Evan the list and he scanned it before speaking "Wait, we're gonna do the grocery shopping for dinner?"

"Yup!" she chirped as I looked at her, taken aback.

"How about the tree?"

"Oh, don't worry about the tree, dear. I can do it all on my own, while you two-" she then pushed me towards Evan "Will be out buying food for Christmas dinner."

"But this list is so long," Evan whined, dropping down the list for emphasis as the paper went past the floor "This is gonna take us hours."

"Then make a whole day out of it! It's only 3:00 PM, after all." she said "Now go! I'm planning to make the fruit salad by 7:00 PM so you two better be back by then!"

With that, it wasn't soon after she pushed us both out of the door and we stood by the front porch, utterly dumbfounded by the way she just kicked us out.

We were silent for a while, not until Evan let out a deep sigh. "Well, she said to make a whole day out of it, so we will." he said as he looked at me "Ready to wait in the grocery line for one whole hour?"

I laughed, shrugging "Sure, why not?"

* * *

Doing grocery shopping during Christmas is equivalent to trying to survive in the Hunger Games, every man for himself and all.

The whole store was packed with mothers, fathers, children, and angry Karens going around aggressively hurling food after food in their shopping carts, practically making a contest out of whose shopping cart is gonna make it the most obvious which family is going to gain at least 50 pounds by the end of the holidays.

Everyone was quick to roam around and pick out whatever was needed to be bought so they could return home and start with making Christmas dinner, while Evan and I were taking our sweet precious time looking over the list once more in utter horror.

"This is gonna take us fucking ages before we even get halfway into buying half of what's on this list," I stated as we walked through the grocery store "What does Tiffany need 3 kilograms of gummy bears for?"

His face scrunched up at the question "She makes this weird combination with the fruit salad by putting gummy bears in it," he said as my face contorted in disgust "Trust me, even after eighteen years of having to eat that concoction I'm still grossed out by it."

I shook my head. "Okay, we might as well start if we want to get the last pack of gummy bears, assuming they even have 3 kilograms in stock."

With that, we went our separate ways as we got down to picking up different portions of the food on the list, both of us having our own shopping cart considering the list of foods needed, one wasn't gonna suffice.

I started picking up the meats and vegetables while Evan picked up the ingredients. It took me about 20 minutes before my cart was filled with all sorts of pork and poultry and beef and so I wanted to check up on Evan to see how he was doing.

I texted him asking where he was at and he replied saying how he was in the candy aisle picking out the gummy bears, making me smile as I went to go see him.

Sure enough, he was scanning the shelves holding one pack of gummy bears in his hand "Good God," he enunciated as he looked at the selections of sweets "They ran out."

I chuckled as I glanced at the one pack of gummy bears in his grip. "It seems as though we're not the only ones in need of kilos of candy for their fruit salads."

"Mom's gonna flip when we come home empty-handed. She won't make the fruit salad unless there's at least a bowl full of gummy bears."

"We'll just drop by the convenience store to see if they have any," I implied as I motioned my head for us to move along "For now-"

"Um, excuse me."

Both Evan and I turned our heads to see a woman walking up to us, smiling softly as she gestured to the pack of sweets clutched in Evan's hands "Are you gonna take that?"

Evan blinked before answering "Yes, I am actually."

The woman's eyes saddened before she nodded "Okay, I was just asking-"

But before she could even back away, a small figure went running up to her, a child who seemed about as young as ten years old.

"Mom, did you get it?" the child asked as the woman looked at her daughter with disappointed eyes, shaking her head.

"Sorry, sweetie. They all ran out." she said as her child slumped her small shoulders, disheartened "But we'll see if the other stores have any-"

"But the ones they have here are my favorite-"

"I know, sweetie. But-"

"Uh, ma'am?" Evan called out to the woman as he stepped closer towards her "You can have these if you want."

With that said, Evan handed the woman the last pack of gummy bears as her eyes widened, shaking her head in return "Oh no, we can't, you probably need it more than we do-"

"It's okay, there's other more we can buy, plus-" Evan looked down on the little girl before squatting down to level his gaze with hers, all the while as he smiled fondly.

"I couldn't possibly take this beautiful girl's favorite candy from her," he said as he handed her the pack of sweets "Now that would just be criminal, no?"

The little girl looked down in response, shy as she clutched the pack of candies in her tiny hands and hid it behind her back "Thank you," she said in a small tone as Evan laughed.

"You're welcome, sweetheart." he cooed as he stood up while the mother stared at him, in awe.

"Thank you," she said, taking her daughter's hand in hers as she slightly bowed her head in farewell "You two have a wonderful day."

With that, the pair walked off while I stood still on my spot, astonished with Evan's current display "Wow," I voiced out as I let out a laugh "That was so... nice."

He waved it off as he took hold of his shopping cart "Eh, I would've done the same thing if I had a kid of my own," he said "I'd probably fight everyone in the store if there was only one pack of gummies left and they wanted it. Plus, I don't have to endure having gummy bears in my goddamn fruit salad anymore."

He pushed the cart forward and was about to resume shopping again when I just kept staring at him "So, how about we move along?" he said as I kept my eyes on him "What?"

I bit my bottom lip as I shook my head. "Nothing, I just can't help but think how you'll make a great dad one day, that's all."

He took a moment to process my words before a smirk made its way up to his lips, tilting his head as he looked at me "Wouldn't you like to know?"

My cheeks heated up as I swatted him across the chest, but he was unaffected as he just laughed at me "Why do you have to ruin such a nice compliment?" I retorted as I resumed pushing the cart as I walked briskly past him, all the while as he let out a snigger.

"I'm just saying," he insinuated, "If you're ever curious to know the full package, let me know."

I rolled my eyes, but it wasn't long before the need to suppress the amusement on my face vanished and I found myself grinning "Yeah right, keep dreaming on it."

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