Gifts

Dinner wasn’t awkward at all. I was honestly surprised about that, especially after Kaylee dropped that little nugget on me right before. Caleb was surprisingly polite and overwhelmingly gentlemanly. He even offered to help clean up after, taking several firm ‘no’ from Mom before relenting. Conversation was smooth and filled with laughter. The guy was even up to date on the latest superhero movie, which got an eye roll from both Paige and Kaylee as we talked shop for a decent chunk of time.

The worst part was by the end of dinner, I think I liked the guy. It was kinda like Sean, but where Sean was a loveable goof, Caleb was just plain charming. His wit was on point and his zingers at dinner got everyone laughing. Kaylee was especially susceptible to them, or perhaps I was just projecting my insecurities there. Not going to lie, I was watching her a lot over dinner. It was like I had this expectation that she was going to flirt with him or something, I don’t know. Some sort of, ‘Hey… We had fun in the past, maybe we could…?’ sort of thing.

I was jealous. I’ll admit it. I told her I was fine, and I was, but that still didn’t mean hearing her laugh at his jokes, smile at him, or even look his way was easy for me knowing what I knew about them.

Yet out of all my fears, not one manifested. Kaylee might have been laughing at his jokes, but he only held her attention when it was relevant. Over dinner, her gaze was never really drawn to him, but towards me. Whenever I glanced her way, she was already looking at me, ready to give me that wonderful smile of hers. I… don’t know what I expected, but feeling guilty wasn’t it. Sitting across the table from her was the best fuck of her life, and her attention was almost entirely on me. I felt guilty because I expected her attention to be on him, not me. Even if it was my birthday. Even if I was her boyfriend. Caleb was the lovely piece of candy dangling in front of her, and she was basically ignoring him.

Unless she knew that I would be watching her and was purposefully giving me attention so that I—

Fucking hell. What the fuck was wrong with me? I was playing mind games with myself and letting paranoia get the best of me.

After dinner, we all found ourselves in the living room eating cake as gifts were exchanged.

“This cake is delicious!” my dad said before taking another giant bite.

Seeing his overly large bite, mom sighed as she shook her head. “That doesn’t mean you have to eat entire slices at a time.” Dad just gave her an awkward smile as he did his best to chew. Her attention went to Kaylee. “See? This is what happens when you spoil men in the Hoffman family. They find every little opportunity to needle you.” She gave dad a firm look. “Give them enough slack and they’ll regress to children.”

Laughing, Kaylee covered her mouth since she had just taken a bite of cake herself. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Meeting my gaze, she gave me a wink.

Setting aside her half-eaten cake, Paige was practically bouncing on the couch. “Gift time!”

That almost got an eye roll from me. Mom was talking about how we acted like children? That was some strong bias considering Paige was, in theory, the same age as me. I was convinced her mental maturity stopped somewhere in her tween years.

Paige’s reaction to my gift card was lackluster, as if confused why I was giving her one for a store she rarely shopped at. That changed when she got the accompanying tickets. She practically exploded, showering everyone in thanks as she gave mom and dad giant hugs. She even blessed me with one, doing her best to crush the life out of me. Kaylee wasn’t one to be outdone. Her gift surprised me and stunned Paige. It was a poster of Steel Guns, signed by each member. That itself would have been shocking, but each member also left her a personalized message wishing Paige a happy birthday.

By name.

“H-how?” Paige asked, eyes still wide in wonder. I could already tell the poster had achieved deity status. She treated it as if holding some holy relic.

Kaylee seemed a bit embarrassed by all the attention. “I might have mentioned trying to get a signed Steel Guns poster to my cousin. She had my aunt pull some strings…” She shrugged as if it couldn’t be helped.

“Webb,” my father said softly as if putting the final pieces of a puzzle together. “You wouldn’t happen to be related to Renee Webb, would you?”

Kaylee was showing her embarrassment now, sinking back into her seat. “My aunt.”

Mom chuckled. “Well, that explains that. I don’t think there is a week where her name isn’t mentioned once or twice at the office.”

“Thank you, Kaylee,” Paige said, pulling the attention back to her. “Really. This… This is incredible!”

“Don’t mention it.”

Paige met my eye, and for the first time, it felt like there was a glimmer of something besides the quasi-playful sibling animosity there. I almost laughed, because I felt like she was giving my relationship with Kaylee her stamp of approval. Shit, if a bribe was all it took to win her over, I would have done something like this ages ago.

Her gifts open, Paige turned to Caleb. “You can give me your gift later tonight.”

He laughed. “You bet.”

Sigh.

Then it was my turn. My parents got me the box set of Jamie Bond movies released so far. With it was also the latest superhero movie I hadn’t grabbed yet. Great gifts, but a little predictable. Paige got me an amazing figurine of the main character from the Ridgewalker series. Liam was going to be so jealous when I showed him. I’d been wanting it for ages but at nearly three hundred bucks…

Looking at Paige, I gave her thanks from a genuine place deep within me. She waved it away, a faint redness to her cheeks as she pretended to not care. “Just remember that later tonight when you go to complain about the noise…”

You know what? For this wonderful piece of art, she earned herself a pass.

Last was Kaylee’s gift. Sitting next to me, she fidgeted nervously as I unwrapped it. I was curious what she’d got me. From the shape of it, I was guessing it was a box set of something. Considering the places we went while shopping for Paige’s gift and that my parents already got me Jamie Bond, I had a few ideas what she might have gotten—

Staring down at the unwrapped gift, I was stunned by what I saw. It was the complete series of Oslo and the Glyph Masters. Liam and I loved this show, but it was downright impossible to find. Legal issues caused the production company to pull it from shelves days after releasing it. The only reason why I knew about it was because Liam and I had watched most of it online. The problem was we never got to see the last four episodes. We’d read small hints about them, but never actually got to see them.

And here it was, sitting in my lap. The complete series.

I looked over at Kaylee, who was nervously trying to gauge my reaction. “How?”

“Kayla isn’t the only one with connections—”

“I mean, how did you know to get this?” She tilted her head slightly. “Out of everything I looked at in stores, talked and hinted…”

A small smile formed. “Come on. You and Liam talked about this all the time at lunch. You were constantly complaining about never getting to see the last few episodes.”

“Liam and I haven’t talked about this since sophomore year.”

“I know.”

“You never seemed to be paying attention when Liam and I talked about stuff like this.”

Her confidence faltered slightly. “I’ve always paid attention.”

Never in a million years did I expect… this. It wasn’t just the gift that floored me, but the depth of effort necessary to acquire it. It wasn’t about the time and effort to track it down or the sizable cost involved. It was that Kaylee knew that this obscure little show was something important to me. That was something far more precious. Here I thought she had dragged me around to all those shops to get a gift idea when she already had the perfect one in mind. This gift represented something more than a show I’d always wanted to finish. It was proof of how much she cared, going deeper than any words she could say. Words were cheap and easy to give away. This took effort and insight far beyond surface level.

“Thank you,” I said, barely able to keep my voice from cracking as emotion welled inside me.

“You’re welcome.” She hit me with that smile I adored. “I can’t wait to watch it with you. With how you and Liam talked about it, it’s the greatest show ever created.” She looked over at the Jamie Bond set my parents got me. “And I think I’ve only seen like… two of those.”

God damn. I loved this girl.