Troian Bellisario: Just Me & My Girl

The Surprise of a Lifetime

The Next Morning
Troian's Pov

I'm awakened by someone shaking me, and force myself to open my eyes. Aspen sits on top of me, her hands on my shoulders and an excited look on her face.

"Mommy, get up!" She says giddily "It's Christmas, Santa came!" I rub my eyes and sit up, repositioning Aspen so she's on my lap. Though it's only 5:18am, I suddenly feel awake. Sure, Christmas morning isn't quite as exciting as when I was a kid, but it's still lots of fun.

"Well, I guess we should go downstairs then, shouldn't we?" I ask with a smile.

"Yeah!" Aspen exclaims, climbing off of my lap.

"Wait!" I call after her "Come wake Keegan up." She hurries back over to the bed, then climbs onto his back.

"Keeeegggaaan!" She yells "Wake up! It's Christmas!" He sits up, causing Aspen to tumble off his back. She giggles as she falls onto the feather blanket, but quickly sits up again.

"I'm up! I'm up!" Keegan laughs, his eyes wide and his hair tousled.

"Then let's go downstairs!" Aspen nearly begs "Santa came!" We all get out of bed, Keegan scooping Aspen up in his arms as we walk down the stairs. As we walk into the living room, Aspen's jaw drops and her eyes widen at the sight of the presents. I can't help but smile, seeing my daughters face on Christmas morning is absolutely priceless. I can't wait to see how happy she'll be when she sees a certain special present.

"Alright Aspen, pick the first present you want to open." I tell her as she eyes them excitedly. Keegan has his camera out, getting ready to snap pictures. I sit down beside him, leaning into him as Aspen pulls a big box out from under the tree.

"Check who it's for." I tell her before she rips the snowflake wrapping paper off.

She reads the tag before yelling "It's me!" And tearing it open.

"A new Barbie house!" She exclaims as the wrapping paper falls to the floor "Can we set it up now?"

"There's still other presents to open, but maybe later." I chuckle. As she opens another present, I lean closer to Keegan, making sure Aspen isn't listening.

"We should check on the you-know-what soon." I whisper. He nods, turning to face me.

"I'll go get it when she's opening up her last present." Keegan replies "Just make sure it's the thing that goes with the you-know-what." I nod, focusing my attention back on Aspen. Keegan wraps his arm around me, kissing the top of my head. I can't help but smile as I realize how family-like we seem right now. Sure, we still haven't found out if Keegan is Aspen's dad, but we've both decided to wait for many reasons. One being that Keegan and I want to settle into our fairly new relationship without complicating things by figuring out the mystery of my daughters father. Right now, Keegan is the closest thing to a father figure to Aspen, and he feels that way by choice, not because of a paternity test. If he ends up being her dad, then great, but if not, that's okay too. It doesn't mean he can't be a father figure to her. We'll do the test when we feel the time is right, but for now, we're just going to live out our little moment of happiness before things get complicated.

"I'm gonna go get you-know-what now." Keegan tells me quietly. I nod as he stands up and walks out of the room, leaving me and Aspen.