There's No Way

Colorful

[Shawn's POV]

My family had decided to head out after brunch to get some last minute Christmas shopping done which actually worked out great because it gave us some time to talk to Camila's parents privately. She debated just letting her dad tell her mom everything that they had talked about -but she decided she wanted to tell her herself. Sofi went with my family because her and Aaliyah wanted to hang out at the mall together, which I thought was adorable - so it was just Camila, myself & her parents in our living room. It broke my heart all over again to hear her tell the story, and watching her parents faces as she explained the details of what happened just shattered it even more. Camila gave her mom the same speech I assume she had given her dad, her hand intertwined with mine as she spoke. The way she spoke about me was eye opening. I loved her. I loved her more than anything and really was willing to take care of her and protect her no matter what - and knowing that she could feel that all of that was true made my heart swell.

"Oh mija, I'm so sorry..." Sinu cried as she wrapped her daughter up in a hug. "And Shawn..." she whispered as she pulled away from Camila and opened her arms up to me. "...thank you for taking care of and loving our daughter. You're a good man."

"It's my pleasure," I responded. "She's pretty easy to love." I glanced over at Camila, her smile once again making my heart do somersaults.

About thirty minutes later, Sinu and Alejandro were headed out to explore the city a bit and do some last minute Christmas shopping of their own.

"Have a good day, you two! And put some Christmas decorations up - this place is seriously lacking some holiday cheer," Sinu called out as they made their way to their rental car.

"Will do!" Camila called out in response. We had every intention of decorating for Christmas, but kept putting it off and now it was December 23rd and we still hadn't decorated even a little bit. "We do need to at least put the tree up," Camila said as she closed the front door.

"Well put your shoes on and we can go out and buy some decorations." She tilted her head in confusion.

"You don't have Christmas decorations?" I shook my head.

"No. A certain pretentious blonde took them with her when she left. Apparently they were her Christmas decorations." Camila rolled her eyes.

"Ya know, the more you tell me about her the more I'm convinced you were actually dating the Grinch." I snorted. She wasn't wrong.

----

As we perused the aisles of Darlington, our local self-proclaimed 'holiday warehouse', Camila turned to look at me.

"I have a request."

"Okay - let's hear it." She took a deep breath before telling me her request.

"Well...it's not that I don't like the way our house is decorated, because I do! It's just that..."

"It's not colorful enough?" I predicted. She flashed me a 'you-know-me-so-well' smile.

"It's just very neutral. I think we should have a colorful Christmas - I mean, nothing says joy more than every color of the rainbow, right?!" Her excitement was perhaps the cutest thing I had ever witnessed.

"A colorful Christmas sounds great. Go for it." I watched as she gleefully filled our cart with colorful pom-pom garland, some festive greenery, a "Merry Christmas" banner, and a big sign that said "MERRY" to put above the fireplace - which was also adorned with colorful pom-poms. She was even more excited when she found two matching stockings to hang on the mantle. We liked the idea of getting a real tree, but with it already being two days before Christmas there was a slim chance we'd be able to find a decent one, so we opted for a faux tree. She grabbed a few fake pinecones and some multicolored ornaments and put them in the cart, as well as a tree topper she managed to find that - surprise - was also made of pom-poms.