On The Rocks (Royce)

epilogue (pt.1)

Jacob's P.O.V.

"Chres" I whispered, rolling over to face his sleeping form, his face was all but stuffed into the pillow and the blanket was pulled up to his chin. "Chres..." I nudged him gently, poking out my lip, "Chresanto".

"Hm" he grunted abruptly, I watched him slowly open his eyes to stare at me, they were unfocused with sleep until he blinked a few times. "Yes, sweetheart? What is it?"

I smiled a him, "it's Christmas".

"Indeed".

"It's really early, like eight in the morning early, but I haven't gotten to celebrate Christmas since I was, um... Since I was fifteen... So I was hoping that maybe we could get up early, like they do in the TV shows and the movies, and go open presents?"

Chresanto's eyes had fallen shut while I was speaking, and when he didn't answer right away, I figured he had fallen back asleep. That's okay, we'd been up pretty late last night, he was tired, I should just let him sleep. I can wake up early next Christmas, I don't mind waiting another year.

"That sounds like a great idea" Chres suddenly murmured, he blinked open his eyes again and sat up slowly, rubbing at his eyes before stretching. I smiled, climbing out of the bed when he did the same. I was only concerned about my house slippers, but Chresanto walked to the closet and pulled out his robe and the one he bought for me. "Here, put this on, please. I'm sure it'll be a bit cold downstairs".

I nodded, quickly putting the robe on. Chresanto smiled at me, gently taking both of my wrists in his hands, his fingers ran along my skin.

"It was the first time we used handcuffs instead of rope..." He stared down at my slightly red skin, "do your wrists hurt any?"

"No, they feel fine".

"Are you sure? They look irrita-" "Chresanto, presents" I whined, feeling like I was a five year old child, because okay, I was whining like I was one. "I'm going to get irritated if we don't get downstairs soon".

With a small chuckle, Chresanto let me go and motioned for me to leave the room. I looked behind me to make sure he was following and we walked downstairs together, Luna was scratching at her cat post in the corner when she noticed us, meowing and jumping down onto the floor. She stalked over to where I decided to sit, which was right by the Christmas tree Chresanto and I picked out and decorated together. Luna rubbed herself against my thigh, purring lowly.

"Morning, Lulu" I greeted, scratching between her ears.

Chresanto looked up from his phone, "Ray and Elijah are going to come over, they have presents".

I smiled, "okay".

"Well, go ahead, which do you want to open first?"

"Um".

I looked over the different sized boxes, deciding to quickly sort out which were for Chresanto and which were for me. I remember going Christmas shopping with Elijah, I bought presents for Chresanto and he bought presents for Ray. At some point, Chresanto and Ray went shopping too, then a few days later I went shopping with Chresanto to find presents for Elijah and I'm sure Elijah did the same with Ray.

"Okay, I'll... I'll open this one" I murmured, picking up a shallow, medium sized box, I tore the wrapping paper, beginning to make a pile. "A photo album".