Knox's Girl (Carmichael Series #1)✔️

Christmas Comes Early

**Edited**

Poppy's POV

The last seven days of taking my morning sickness pills have been incredible. I called them my little miracle workers because that's truly what they were. I wasn't sure what I would've done had they not helped at all. Probably cried, honestly. The only problem I had now was that because I was actually able to eat food and keep it down, I was consuming every single thing in sight. Knox and I made two full trips to the grocery store this week alone.

However, despite how much better I was feeling, Knox had gone into overprotective papa bear mode; his worry for me has increased at least tenfold, something I hadn't even known was possible. If he wasn't able to be around me every waking second, he was paying Zane or another friend to do so for him; I liked to call them both my babysitters. Even though I was being a good sport and joking about the whole situation, It was driving me absolutely nuts. I wasn't sure how I was going to endure another thirty-some weeks of this.

Deciding I needed a break from sitting around the house, I picked up Kiara before driving to the closest shopping mall and desperately wandered around, in search of a Christmas present for Knox - who had turned out to be incredibly hard to shop for. Well, actually that wasn't totally true. I could buy some plain old lingerie set and he'd be happy as a clam, but I was trying to think outside of the box. I soothed myself by remembering that I still had three weeks before I had to give him whatever gift I found.

I perused through the men's department, not finding anything. He already had an entire closet full of suits, dress shirts, and ties so I can't buy him anything of that sort. He already has an expensive watch that he wore daily. Everything in his - our - house was state of the art, so there wasn't anything that could possibly need "upgrading". Realistically, there wasn't anything that money could buy that he didn't already have or could possibly want.

I was at a complete and total loss.

"How about we go look around in there?" Kiara suggested, pointing towards the housewares store across the way. I gave her a deadpan look.

"You're kidding, right? Knox can't cook for the life of him and it's not for lack of trying. Don't you remember having to come pick out a brand new set of pots and pans with me about a month ago?" I asked, to which she laughed in reply.

"You're right. He definitely wasn't a housewife in his last life, that's for damn sure," she stated with amusement while bumping my shoulder. "As I said an hour and a half ago when we got here, there's nothing he wants, Poppy. Just you being with him and celebrating the holiday by his side is the best Christmas gift you could possibly give. Besides, it'll probably piss him off if you do buy him anything, anyway. He's quite the hypocrite. He loves to spoil you rotten, but he hates when you try to do the same. Men," she scoffed with a roll of her eyes.

"Agreed," I muttered. I was about to give up and call it quits for the day when we passed the last department store we hadn't checked already. There were a few "ugly" Christmas sweaters on display, but they had the cutest designs I'd ever seen.

"I know exactly what I'm going to do!" I exclaimed, bubbling with excitement.

"Oh no. What is it now?" she asked apprehensively, already knowing I was up to no good.

"We're going to take a family Christmas photo in matching sweaters and then send it out. He'll love that, don't you think?" I gushed.

"Let's see, a blatant display that you're his? Oh yeah, he'll die for that shit, " she joked with a smirk. I lightly smacked her arm in reprimand before quickly guiding her into the store.