Secret Santa Rucas

08 The Moment

Riley watches the ballet completely mesmerized It's one of the few Christmas experiences in the city that she has not tried before and she loves every minute of it The dances the sets and the costumes the fact that Lucas holes her hand for the entire show Riley wants to find a way to bottle every moment of tonight so she can look back on it everyday

After the final curtain falls and they retrieve their coats from the check room they start the wall back towards Riley apartment

Riley- Thank you so much for all of this

Lucas- So you liked it

Riley- Liked it

Riley twirls on her feet completing a full spin before facing him and starting to walk backwards

Riley- I loved it The show was amazing Beautiful and festive and every gift you gave me was related to it wasn't it she can connect it all together now A flower crown for the waltz of the flowers Gingerbread for mother Ginger all of the various snow themed things for the waltz of the snowflakes

Her foot catches on an edge of uneven pavement Lucas reaches out and catches her almost before she can start to stumble and suggests that maybe they both face forward while they talk

They were

As they continue to talk They talk a bit more about the gifts He tells her about how he had his mom write the notes so Riley wouldn't recognize the handwriting and that he chose to take her to the Nutcracker because she once mentioned that she would love to see it but that her family holiday schedule is always so packed that they've never found the time and how he tried to keep within the spirit of the handmade gifts as much as possible from baking the gingerbread himself to using his study halls to do extra work in the school's wood shop carving out the box he had presented her ticket it