12 Days Until Christmas✔️

Christmas Part 2

Bending over and resting his hands on his knees, Daniel burst into a fit of laughter, tears streaming down his face as I stand frozen with shock. What's going on here?

"Oh. My. Gosh." Daniel says between gasps, his laughter dying down slightly but as he looks up at my panicked face, he dissolves into another round of chuckles. "Your face!" He wheezes.

When I snap out of my unmoving state, I begin to grow upset and to get Daniel's attention, I flick him, hard, on the head.

"Ouch!"He whimpers, quickly composing himself. Wiping the stray tears from the corners of his eyes he turns to me with a smile. "I told him this would be worth it. If only he could have seen your face." I can tell that he's about to laugh again but my glare causes him to keep it at bay.

I fold my arms across my chest and send him a curious look. "Who's he? I thought I was supposed to meet him here?"

He merely grins at me. "He's just someone who's way too eager to see you and it was my plan to act as your admirer just to get a kick out of it. It was definitely worth it."

I wanted to be angry at Daniel but how could I when the butterflies in my stomach were going out of control at the mention of my still anonymous admirer.

"Where is he?" I ask Daniel, trying not to sound too desperate but who cares. I was about to meet the real person responsible for my giddy mood the past 12 days.

With a knowing smirk, his gaze travels somewhere behind me. "Through the front door." He says. "You'll know the way."

I send him a grateful smile and make my way towards the door. As I push it open, I notice a trail of rose petals that definitely weren't there before. Shutting the door behind me, I follow the petals, not taking my eyes off the ground for even a second. The trail leads me through the house towards the back door. Taking a deep breathe, I push it open.

My garden is pretty big, with a pool in the centre and wide, grassy paths at its side leading towards the patio, but it had never felt smaller than when my eyes locked on a dark haired figure. He was pacing back and forth on the patio with a bouquet of red roses in his hand. The suit he wore clung to his drool-worthy body and his hair looked handsomely messy.

When his eyes settled on me, his pacing stopped and I didn't think I would be able to move even the slightest bit but I knew that I had to.

With shaky steps, I made my way towards him, our eyes locked as if we were afraid that this might all be a blissful dream.

An unsteady grin makes its way onto my face as he intertwines his shaking fingers with mine. The wide grin on his face makes me want to melt right there and then. This is it; the moment that I've waited too freaking long for. A lump forms in my throat as I whisper his name.

"Noah."

He raises our intertwined fingers and kisses the back of my hand.

"Hello, Beautiful. You look absolutely stunning." He says as his eyes rake my body from head to toe. As if suddenly remembering, he hands me the roses. "These are for you."

My cheeks heat up as I take the roses. "You look absolutely handsome yourself and thank you. They're beautiful" After taking a breath, I dumbly say, "So it's been you this whole time."

His grin widens. "Yeah. You have no idea how hard it was to keep it from you but I wanted this day to be special and by the look on your face it was all worth it." Speaking of worth it.

I lift my hand holding the roses and hit his shoulder with them. "I can't believe you let Daniel pose as my fake admirer. I nearly died thinking about how I was going to explain it to Nora." I was frowning on the outside but on the inside I couldn't be happier.

Noah lets out a small chuckle. "He was so excited I couldn't say no. And don't worry, I would have protected you from Nora."

I blush again and chuckle. Looking into his eyes I can see the open affection he has been hiding from me and I want to do nothing more than kiss him. But I don't.

After a while of staring into each other's eyes, Noah finally speaks. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to tell you how I really felt about you but I was so scared that you would reject me. We've always been really close but I always thought you saw me as nothing more than a close friend or brother. So I decided to keep everything hidden; until a few weeks ago. We were about to graduate and I knew that it was now or never. And being the total romantic that I am, I wanted everything to be special. Obviously, I needed some help when hiding the charms so I told Nora, Daniel, your parents and the Adams' about my plan. It was really great to know that they supported my idea and were almost as excited as I was. And now here you are today, in front of me. The girl that I've been in love with since I'd laid eyes on her."

Tears streamed down my face as my heart exploded with too much joy to even comprehend. I didn't even care that my make-up could be ruined because the love of my life had just told me that he's in love with me.

He reluctantly released my hand that he'd been holding the entire time to pull a black box out of his pocket.

"The charm bracelet was Nora's idea and I couldn't thank her enough for it because now these charms can be our forever. A physical representation of the things you love and the things I love about you. And I know for sure that there will be many more charms to come after this one."

Noah opens the box revealing a beautiful gold crown charm. He removes it from the box, lifts my wrist holding the charm bracelet that I never take off and gently clips it on with the rest, holding my sweaty hand tightly.

"I may have given you a heart charm a couple of days ago but I truly gave you my heart the day that I met you. But this charm that I'm giving you now represents our future, with you as my queen. Forever and always. As long as it's okay with you?"

I couldn't move. Literally. My brain was working overtime, trying to control my emotions while comprehending what he had just said. Was it okay with me? For damn sure it was. But I wanted to tell him in a way that I've wanted to for way too long.

Dropping the roses, I raise my now free hand, pulling his face closer to mine. My eyes close as our lips touch. And no I didn't see fireworks, because what was going on inside of me was so much more incredible. I felt like something I had lost was finally mine again and I was never going to let it go again.

Our lips moved slowly together, savouring the moment we'd been agonisingly waiting for. And boy was it worth the wait.

Eventually, our lips broke apart so we could catch our breaths but our noses and foreheads remained touching. My hands settled around his neck as his rested on my hips.

"I love you." I whispered.

I could see his smile, even with my eyes closed. "And I love you, my queen."

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A/N:

So there it is everyone. I'm sure most (probably all) of you guessed it was Noah because I'm just so cliché like that. Hope you enjoyed this chapter and stay tuned for the last chapter, the Epilogue.

Mea

xoxo