He's Worth It ~ Lams (COMPLETE)

Day Five

This will be the first story over 10,000 words that I actually finish ;-; I'm so glad that you all have been liking it so far! I'm proud of this baby <3

edited

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I wake up again with a headache, but this time I'm smiling through my pain. I replay yesterday's events in my head like a drive-in movie. I can't contain my euphoric feelings as I spring out of bed and look at my now clean room. It was past midnight when I'd finally finished cleaning, but John and I had returned from the loft area later than we'd expected (we didn't care) and Martha insisted that all of the boys, before they left, help bring the Christmas bins up from the basement for today's decorating spree. There's a dozen bins full of holiday decorations in the living room and the house is going to look overcrowded when she empties three of them. She's a little bit of a Christmas freak.

The best part of last night was the fact that John hugged me before he left. He hugged me! I can still feel tingles where his hands were on my back. He had to leave quickly, something about being late, but he's still coming over today. At 10:30.

I spin haphazardly around my room, smiling and giggling happily like a three year old. At some point Lafayette walks in, leaning against the doorframe as I jump and continue to not notice his presence.

"Alex! What are you, a mountain goat?" He says, breaking me out of my happy daze. I laugh at him and grab his hand, spinning him around. I feel like I'm in a movie. Lafayette looks at me confusingly but dances along anyway, because he's like that.

"What happened to you? Why are you so inexplicably happy?" He asks, and then immediately his lips contort into a smile. "You don't even need to answer that question. John's coming over again today, right? I'll make sure you get some time alone," He whispers, spinning me around. I let go of his hand and bury my flustered face into the palms of my hands.

"I can't help it Gil he's just so-" I exclaim, trust-falling into Lafayette's chest. He catches me and pushes me back up.

"Yeah, yeah, now come on. Mom wants us downstairs for our lists." I follow him down the stairs as he continues to talk about today's agenda. He says that Martha wants to watch White Christmas when we're done with the decorating, and of course he comments that we probably aren't going to be done today.

George is helping Martha write down our lists when Lafayette and I enter the kitchen. They both smile when they see us, and we immediately know that they're done.

When we decorate for Christmas, it's not only decorating, it's cleaning. Martha makes us cleanse the entire house of out-of-season accessories, and she figured out a few years ago that we could also clean-clean the entire house while we did it. So, she makes lists of specific rooms that each of us take to clean and decorate. I wondered if she was going to make John his own or have him work with me. If I knew her at all, she was going to stick him with me. I could thank her for that.

She hands us each a piece of paper with a checklist of rooms. I slide my gaze down the list, high-fiving myself when she gives me the living room/ kitchen combo and the downstairs bathroom. The only downside is that I have to bring in the Christmas tree that's been hanging out on our back porch for a week now. At least I'll have John to help me. Man, I would really like to see him carry it by himself.

I look over at Lafayette's list and he's got the upstairs bathroom, plus the dining room and sitting room. The sitting room is just a large room with a few chairs, and no one ever really goes in it, but Martha still likes to deck it out.

"Once John gets here you boys can start. George and I are going to start on the outside, ok? Help us bring the Christmas Light bins out," She says, pulling her graying hair into a bun with a clip and motioning for us to join her in the living room, where the stacks upon stacks of storage bins are. George pulls one of them out by himself and Lafayette and I waddle outside in the cold with another. We hurry back inside after wishing George and Martha good luck with the lights. They're in their fluffiest parkas and look like they're about to dive headfirst into snow that we all wish covered the ground by now. It's quite frigid outside at this time of year, and Lafayette and I are always grateful that Martha has never assigned us to do outside decorating.