I'm Holding On (Sequel to Making My Way To You)

Chapter 25

"Can you believe it's already Christmas Eve?" I listened for a second and didn't hear Cole respond. I thought I'd just heard him come in the room. "Cole?"

"Give me a second!" I heard the echo of his voice from the attic stairs. Then heard what sounded like boxes being thrown around right after.

"You better not of damaged any of those presents!" I yelled out to him.

A few seconds later he came into the room and leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed. "Seriously? You hear a loud noise, knew that I was on the stairs and you ask if the presents are okay instead of running to see if I was okay?" He was trying to get out of trouble considering I knew what he'd done.

"You tried bringing all the boxes down at once. Didn't you?"

"What if I wasn't okay?"

"Stop trying to get out of trouble and go get the presents for me so I can wrap them." I told him and he turned around. "And everything better still be in one piece!" I called after him.

"Then will you forgive me?"

"We'll see." I laughed and decided to go help him. I got to the stairs and looked at the pile. "Wow, what is all this?"

"You didn't have to come help. I've got it." Cole put his hands on my shoulders and tried to direct me away from the gigantic pile of presents on the floor.

"No, no. Did you go out and buy more for the kids after I said that they had enough?"

"No." His response was short and he looked down and it immediately gave away that he had bought more gifts.

"Cole."

"What?"

"They don't need anything else."

"But--"

"But nothing. We agreed."

"No, I'm pretty sure you just told me. I didn't agree to anything."

I sighed. "Okay, but did you have to get so much more?"

"It was one more each. It's not that big a deal. If you want, they'll be from Santa." He gave me the puppy dog look.

I looked away and sighed once again. I couldn't exactly say no to it now. "It's fine. Ella knows we're Santa anyway and Haley's almost there. They can be from us. Just don't do this again please." I turned and started walking back toward the bedroom but then turned back around and pointed at him. "And you better be helping me wrap everything."

"I will. I'll be in with some in just a minute."

"Okay." I went in the room and sat on the bed to wait. I picked up my phone to see if I had any messages. I hadn't gotten the chance to check it at all today. I saw Cole's shadow come into the room and without looking up I told him to set the gifts on the floor.

"I didn't bring any gifts in yet."

"What? Why not?" I looked up and saw him walking over to me with mistletoe in his hand.

"Because look what I found." He said waving it back and forth. He started laughing and brought it down tossing it on the bed next to me. "How come it didn't get put up this year?"

"Because we have one hanging up already. We haven't hung this one in I think seven years or longer. I actually thought we lost it." I smiled, being glad that we still had it. "Where did you find it?"

"It was on the floor in the attic. What do you mean you thought we lost it?"

"This is the one we had at the old house. Remember? It was probably the only other Christmas decoration we had besides our tree for three or four years. Before we actually got on the ball and went out to buy lights and everything. When we moved I figured it fell out of a box and got left behind or something because I couldn't find it."

"I'm glad you remember things like that. I wouldn't of known the difference." He laughed and came over to pick it back up. He held it above us and smirked. "I think we've got seven years of catching up to do."

I stood up and placed my hands on his shoulders then gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Sorry but we've got a bunch of wrapping to do. There isn't any time for catching up right now." I walked by him and went to get some of the presents myself. It was only a second before Cole came to help.

We got everything wrapped and tagged within an hour which by the pile, I didn't was going to happen. I picked up the last one and brought it downstairs to place under the tree then went back up to see Cole picking up the extra wrapping paper.

"I don't know why we do this to ourselves. Every year we say we are going to get the wrapping done well in advance but we still always wait until Christmas Eve night. I'm exhausted." I looked at the clock and it was one in the morning already. It would've been earlier but Max was too excited to go to sleep. He finally passed out on the couch at ten thirty and we were able to get upstairs.

"Its just what we do. We're not going to be able to break out of it now." He said while putting the rolls of wrapping paper in the closet.

I nodded and plopped on the bed. I moved up a little and laid down. "You don't suppose the kids will sleep in tomorrow morning, do you?" I asked him.

I got a laugh from him in response. "You know that's not even a question. They're going to be awake in another five hours or maybe even before."

"I know. And honestly I can't wait, but if I could squeeze three more hours into tonight for some more sleep, I would do whatever it took to do it." I closed my eyes and put my arm over my face. I felt Cole come over to my side of the bed and stand over me. "What are you doing?"

"I think you know." He chuckled. "I didn't get my real kiss under the mistletoe."

I took my arm off my face and opened my eyes to see him dangling the mistletoe over us. I smiled and sat up then knelt on the bed so I could kiss him. "Better?"

"Much." He grinned.

"Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, baby. I love you."

'Twas the night before Christmas and--oh wrong story? Sorry. Anywaay... sorry for another filler chapter but I needed a transition to Christmas time and I promise the last 4 chapters are going to be a lot more exciting so I'll make up for the fillers. For now, what'd you think of this chapter? Christmas chapter is next! What's going to happen?