Transformed || l.h.

Chapter 21

“Luke, help me,” she whines, holding a heavy box in her hand. He chuckles as he steps down from the ladder that leads to the attic and takes the cardboard box from her hands, pressing a swift kiss to her forehead afterward. “You are such a baby,” he teases, rolling his eyes. She huffs, crossing her arms over her chest and sticks out her tongue, “I’m your baby, so deal with it!”

Luke laughs under his breath, “That’s true, you are my baby.”

She blushes, realizing how she set herself up for the joke without even trying. Holding open the door, Georgia bites her lip as she watches Luke walk past. It’s strange, being in the same house she was assaulted in three months later and feeling absolutely different about the place. Now she feels nothing but pure contentment pumping through her veins as she steps into the living room where and eight foot tall Christmas tree is set up.

“Well c’mon then,” she hears Luke call. She smiles, closing the door gently and skips over to stand with him. “Will you help me string up the lights?” Luke asks, pulling the box of fairy lights from within the confines of the box. She nods and watches as he goes about untangling them from one another, laughing when he gets frustrated. “Don’t laugh at me,” he pouts, not looking up at her.

“It’s hard not to,” she answers honestly. His eyebrows are furrowed together and creases form on his forehead and temples as he pushes his hands and arms one way and then the other to try and get the strands of lights untangled. “You’re cute,” Georgia tells him, chewing on her thumbnail.

Finally, Luke looks up at her, a glare settled in his eyes. “Am not,” he huffs, at last pulling the lights into one long string, free of tangles. “Are too,” Georgia sticks out her tongue playfully. “Put that tongue away before I find something productive to do with it,” Luke teases with a smirk and a wink, successfully forcing a bright red color to Georgia’s cheeks. “Oh, stop it,” she grumbles, reaching around the back of the tree to press the plug-in into the outlet. All of the little bulbs light up and set out a soft, warm glow about the room.

Luke stands on one side of the tree and Georgia stands on the other, creating a system of handing the light strand back and forth to one another in a circular motion in order to quickly ring the lights around the entire tree. Eventually it gets so high up that even Luke needs a step stool, and Georgia has to watch from a foot below. “Wow,” she breathes, “it’s beautiful and we’ve hardly done anything.” Luke chuckles as he steps back down to his normal height, pulling her forward by the shoulders and kissing her forehead gently.

“C’mon,” he speaks with a fire lighting up his irises, making him look younger. “Let’s hang the ornaments.”

And so that’s how the next thirty minutes go. Luke helps her open different assorted boxes with ornaments both sentimental and valueless stored inside. Of course with each ornament that is of personal value to Luke, Georgia finds herself asking question after question. There was a small bear cuddling a stocking with the number one printed on it in all pastels which Luke got to represent his first Christmas in the Hemmings family. Another was a small firetruck gifted to him by his Aunt Abigail, which he held back traces of tears as he reminisced in the story. Yet another was a snowglobe that when you looked inside it were all the characters from Spongebob, and when you wound the cog on the underneath side, it played the theme song to the show. Of course Luke just had to wind it up and sing along, making Georgia groan, wondering if she was dating a seventeen year-old teenage boy or an eight year-old child.