Lauren was in the kitchen chopping vegetables when she heard the front door open, signalling Joey's arrival home from work.
"Hi babe," she called out, expecting him to appear at any minute. But when there was no sign of him, she walked through to the living room to see what he was doing.
There was still no sign of Joey, but the front door was open and she could see the rucksack he'd taken to work with him that morning on the floor. She wandered over to the door, to see Joey grabbing shopping bags out of the trunk.
She frowned. "We did grocery shopping two days ago JoJo," she called as he got nearer.
He looked up at the sound of her voice and grinned.
"They're not groceries," he said, kissing her temple as he sidestepped her into the apartment.
She shut the door and turned to him questioningly. When he made no attempt to elaborate, she took a look inside one of the bags for herself while he was kicking his shoes off.
"Jesus Christ, Joey, how much did you spend?" she exclaimed upon seeing that the bag was full of Christmas decorations. On further inspection of the other four bags, it seemed Joey was trying to set some sort of record for the most festively decorated apartment.
"Well, when I was trying to get out the Christmas decorations the other day," he said as Lauren began laughing in spite of herself, "I noticed that we were very lacking."
She wrapped her arms around his middle. "Yeah, because neither of us are normally here for Christmas."
"But this year we are," he said with a grin, briefly kissing her. "So we can go all out."
She shook her head fondly at him, and tiptoed to kiss him properly.
"I just want this Christmas to be perfect," he said softly when she broke the kiss, a crease appearing between his brows. Lauren held him more tightly.
"It will be perfect. We're together," she said gently, and he smiled at her reassurance.
He stepped away to start putting the bags away.
"Seriously though, how much did you spend?" she asked. She trusted him, but Joey did have a tendency to get carried away with himself and she wouldn't put it past him to spend any amount to try and make it a good Christmas for her.
"Relax, Lo, we'll still have enough money for you to buy ingredients for an entire bakery's worth of treats," he said, and she laughed.
"You don't complain when you get to eat said treats," she told him, one eyebrow raised.
"That's because you are the most incredible baker," he said, returning to pull her into his arms again.
"Don't you forget it."
