One day after school, I had decided that I wanted to take Lucas out to get some tea so that we could have a nice conversation somewhere quiet that wasn't either of our dorms or the courtyard. I'm not really sure why I decided to do this (I'm also not really sure why Lucas agreed to this given his struggles with eating, but I was really happy and thankful that he did nonetheless.) Perhaps I was tired of doing the same things with him over and over again and wanted a change? Regardless of whatever the reason may be, I still took Lucas down to my favorite place to get tea; The Flour Box Tea Room And Café. Much to my surprise, we were able to walk in and get a table right away.

When Lucas and I had sat down at our table, we were given menus by our waitress, who quickly introduced herself and walked off so that she could assist other tables and give us time to decide what we wanted.
"I think that we would just get the cream tea service," I said to Lucas almost as soon as the waitress had walked off. I didn't even bother to look at the menu before I said this since I had been here several times and pretty much knew what was on the menu (in terms of what I liked, at least.)
"I've never had tea, so I'm going to trust your statement," Lucas replied as he closed the menu and set it off to the side.
"You've never had tea?" I asked in complete and utter disbelief.
"No." He couldn't help but laugh at my reaction. "I wasn't raised in merry old England, Ellie. I was raised in not so merry America, and here in not so merry America, coffee is valued way more than tea is."
"That's such a shame." I couldn't help but frown a little bit. "Tea is without a doubt superior to coffee."
"I'll take your word for it." He replied as he shrugged slightly. "I don't like coffee at all, so..." He shrugged again.
"Coffee is just okay." I shrugged as well. "Like I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. Though the only way that I'm drinking coffee is if tea isn't an option."
"God forbid that happens then." Lucas teased as he gave me a tiny smile.
"Yeah, you're right." I teased back as I returned the smile. "And God forbid that the only drink option that you have is coffee."
"Oh, God." Lucas immediately ceased teasing me and became completely serious. "Don't even say that. I don't think I could bring myself to do it."
"Do you really hate coffee that much?"
He nodded. "I can't stand the smell of it either. It's the absolute worst."
Before I could even think of a response, our waitress came back to our table and asked if we were ready to order. I told her that we were and also told her that we both wanted some cream tea. She wrote what I said into her notepad before she gave us a nod and said that she would put our order in as she grabbed both of the menus. I thanked her as she walked off again.

"So, how's life been?" I asked Lucas a few moments after the waitress had walked away for the second time. I wanted to get the conversation going now since I knew it would be a little while before our tea was ready.
"Pretty good actually." He replied as he smiled slightly. "I've been keeping up with my studies pretty well, I've been working on personal projects and making good progress on those, and my sleeping has gotten a bit better. Those nights where you come over and play the keyboard that I invested in for you to play when you're over at my dorm and sometimes even sing if I'm really lucky have been the best nights of sleep that I've had in a very long time. I know you can't do it every night because you're sometimes just that busy with homework, but I really wish that you'd come over and do that every single night. If you did, I'd have great sleep for the rest of my life."
"Speaking of your personal projects, did you ever finish up that project where you recorded me playing the original song that I wrote as a project for my piano major?" I asked. "Also, what do you mean that you're really lucky if I sing while playing the keyboard? My singing voice sounds like a dying goat."
"Oh yeah, that project," Lucas replied. It had taken him a couple of moments to figure out what I was talking about. "Yeah, I finished it. I'll show you bit at a later date since I'm not comfortable revealing the inspiration behind it since this inspiration is actually something that happened." He then added, "And no, your singing voice doesn't sound like a dying goat at all. In fact, you have a really beautiful voice, and I really like hearing it."
"Alright, sounds good," I replied, responding to his comment about his project first. "Don't feel pressured to show me. I'm ready to see it when you're one-hundred percent comfortable with showing it to me." I then addressed his comment about my singing voice. "By the way, you're very wrong about my singing voice. It's anything but beautiful. I have no idea how or why you think it's beautiful."
"Thank you for understanding as always." Lucas gave me a smile of appreciation. "I really do appreciate it. Some people wouldn't care about your feelings and just demand to see it just because they want to see it and they don't care how I feel about that despite the fact that I was the one who made it in the first place." He then responded to the second part of our conversation. "You're very wrong about your singing voice, just so you know. It's absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. You could honestly be famous for singing if you wanted to. If I was a talent agent, I would've given you a record deal by now, especially since you can play an instrument."
"Of course. You don't have to thank me for that kind of thing." I smiled back at him. "That's what friends are for." I then added, "Can we just agree to disagree? Clearly, we're not going to convince the other person to see the point of view that we each have respectively."
"Yes, I do suppose that's what friends are for," Lucas said after a couple moments of thought. "Either way, I'm just glad to have a friend like you." He then addressed the second part of our conversation, "Yes, I suppose that we can agree to disagree because you're very much correct when you say that we aren't going to convince the other person to see the point of view that we have regarding the subject at hand."
"I'm glad I have a friend like you too." I smiled softly and had to use every inch of my willpower to not reach and grab ahold of his hand. Honestly, I don't even know why I even had that urge to begin with.  Friends didn't hold hands while they were out a tea shop hanging out together. Though I will admit that I've recently been experiencing some different feelings around Lucas, but they were the good kind of different. For example, I would find myself getting butterflies whenever our arms would brush up against each other while we were walking beside each other. These butterflies would be even more intense when our hands would accidentally brush up to each other's. I also would feel my heart pounding in my chest whenever the two of us would share an embrace, and I always felt like it was so loud that Lucas could hear it, but, thankfully, I don't think he would since he's never once said anything about it to me. I also couldn't forget about the day where Lucas had given me a lesson in cinematography and ended up holding my hands while I was holding onto the camera and even afterward when he said that my hands were cold and he didn't want them to be cold so he went ahead and warmed them up for me by continuing to hold on to his hands so that my hands could absorb the warmth that he had.

While I didn't know what these feelings were, I still liked feeling them because they made me feel good. Granted, they also made me feel nervous, but I tried to focus on how good they made me felt as I experienced them. With that in mind, the realization hit me; I was falling in love. That had to be the reason for all of these feelings.

The moment that this realization hit me, I became terrified. I became terrified of falling too hard for him. We were best friends, after all, and it was very likely that Lucas didn't want to ruin that by turning it into a relationship. Besides, I didn't even know if he liked me that way, which is probably the worst possible part about all of this.

With all of this in mind, I decided that I was going to stop myself from falling in love with him before it was too late because I had a feeling that if I allowed myself to completely fall for him, it would be far too late to fall out of love with him,

*****

I shared a very brief talk with Lucas before our tea arrived (not about the feelings that I just now realized that I had for him thankfully.) I thanked the waitress once again after she served us our tea. She disappeared as quickly as she has every single time she's stopped at our table to give us what we needed.
"Are you ready?" I asked Lucas as I happily picked up my cup.
"As ready as I'll ever be." He replied as he reluctantly picked up his cup.
"We'll try it at the same time if you want," I suggested.
"You've already tried it though." He pointed out.
"Yeah, you're right." I let out a small sigh. "I was just thinking that us drinking it at the same time would make you feel better about trying it."
"Maybe it will." He shrugged.
"Do you want to do that?"
He nodded.
"Okay, ready... one... two... three." I proceeded to take a sip of my tea after I had said "three," watching for Lucas's reaction as I did so.
"Hm, this is actually pretty good." He said after he had gotten his first taste.
"So, I'm guessing that means you like it?"
"Yeah." He nodded. "I like it a lot actually."
"Yes!" I cheered happily. "Since the much better part of my childhood was spent being raised in England, it makes me very happy to hear that." I then asked, "Now, with that being said, do you think that you'd drink it again?"
Lucas thought about it for a moment before he said, "Yeah, I think I would."
"Yes!" I cheered happily again. "God, words can't express how happy I am to hear that."
Lucas simply smiled in response.

*****

I made a bit more small talk with Lucas as we finished up our tea and paid our bills separately (even though I insisted that I would pay for both of us.) After we took care of that, we left a tip for the waitress and then left the tea shop.

As we were walking back to the university campus, all of the feelings that I realized that I had for Lucas not long ago raced through my mind all at once.
I guess it was going to be much harder for me to stop myself from falling in love with than I thought.

~~~~~

"It's nearly Christmas," I whispered excitedly to Lucas almost as soon as the two of us had woken up. "Just two more days to go."
"I know," Lucas whispered back as he smiled tiredly. "I'm excited. Are you excited?"
"Of course I am." I smiled back just as tiredly. However, my smile quickly faded away as I realized something. "Shit, I don't have any gifts for you, Dad, or Papa!"
"It's okay," Lucas reassured. "You don't have to get me anything."
"No, I'm getting you something whether you like it or not." I immediately rebuked his statement. "You're my boyfriend, and you're more than deserving of a gift."
"But if you get me a gift, that means that I have to give you a gift," Lucas replied, obviously having become stressed now. "And... I'm not good at picking out gifts for people. At all."
"Lucas, you know how I am," I said as I let out a sigh. "I'd love anything that you'd give me. In all of my twenty years of being on this planet, I have not once disliked something that someone's given me."
"Oh, I'd change that fact pretty quickly, trust me," Lucas said. "I've never shopped for a gift that was for a girl before. Plus, I don't even really know what girls like, so I'd have an even harder time trying to find something for you."
"You really don't have to buy me a gift in return," I replied. "I don't want you to get stressed over finding something for me, so I'll be just fine without a gift. However, no matter what you say, I'm going to get something for you."
"No, Ellie, please," Lucas begged. "If you buy me a gift, I have to buy you one in return. That's how that works when you're in a relationship."
I sighed again. "Let's not talk about this anymore. If you buy me a gift, that's great. If you don't buy me a gift, that's fine too. I'm okay with whatever doesn't make you stressed because you have enough of that in your life, and I really hate seeing you stressed."
Without waiting for his response, I got out of bed and headed downstairs to get some breakfast.

After getting myself a bowl of cereal, I sat down on the couch with Dad and Papa, who both, as always, were also eating cereal and watching a show that I didn't recognize.
"Where's Lucas?" Papa questioned instead of greeting me and telling me 'good morning.' "Is he still sleeping."
"No." I sighed yet again. "He's upstairs." I then proceeded to explain everything that had just happened between Lucas and me.
"I'm sure everything will be fine." Papa was quick to reassure me. "I can tell that he really cares about you and wants the best for you. He's clearly worried about not making you happy, which is more than likely the only thing that he wants to do."
"I know, but why can't he just accept the fact that I'm going to buy him a gift?" I asked as I groaned in frustration. "He's been my boyfriend for just over a year and I really care about him, so he's more than deserving of a Christmas gift. However, he just doesn't see it that way for whatever reason, and he never has. His brain just won't let him, and it's really sad."
"Come here." Papa simply said as he set his bowl of cereal down on the floor beside him and beckoned for me to come towards him.
I didn't say anything as I also sat my bowl of cereal down on the floor before I hugged him. Content washed over me as Papa hugged me back.

"Thank you, Papa," I said after some time had gone by and I was finally able to break off the hug. "That actually made me feel a little bit better."
"Good," Papa replied, giving me a soft smile as we both grabbed our bowls of cereal and as I sat back down in my seat. "I'm glad."
A couple of moments of silence went by before Dad asked, "So, Ellie, I assume that you're going Christmas shopping today, right?"
"Yeah," I replied as I nodded. "I don't want to wait any longer. That, and I may or may not have never considered the whole getting gifts for people thing until just this morning..."
"Don't feel bad," Dad said as he finished his cereal. "You were too busy being excited about surprising us and staying in London for a couple of weeks. It's no surprise that you weren't thinking about gifts."
"Thank you for understanding." I smiled as I gave him a hug as well. "I love you."
"I love you too," Dad replied as we both pulled away from the brief hug that we shared.
"I love you as well, Papa," I said to the raven-haired man that I was proud to consider as one of my dads as I got up from the couch and gave him a quick hug with one of my arms since I was holding an empty bowl of cereal in one of my hands.
"I love too, Ellie," Papa replied with a grin.

*****

After I had gone into the kitchen and placed my bowl into the sink, I went back upstairs to my room to check on Lucas, who hadn't even gone downstairs to join me for breakfast. Since it was my room, I didn't knock before opening the door. As I stepped inside and closed it behind me, I saw that he was just lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling.
"Hey." I simply said to him as I slowly walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed. "You didn't come down for breakfast and at least accompany me downstairs if you didn't plan on eating."
"I figured that you didn't want me around." He replied as he shrugged and continued to look up at the ceiling. "You didn't even allow me to reply to the last thing that you said to me before you walked out, so I took that as a sign that you wanted to be alone with your parents."
"I mean, I did kinda vent to them about how I was frustrated that you kept insisting that you didn't want me to buy you a gift and how you were terrible at buying gifts," I confessed. "But I'm not mad anymore. I vented about it and hugged it out with Papa, so everything's good now."
"Are you sure?" Lucas asked as very slowly and very hesitantly.
"Yes, I'm quite sure," I replied with a small smile as I leaned over to me and kissed the tip of his nose. "Now, get your lazy butt up and get ready. We have some Christmas shopping to do."

*****

Once we had gotten ready and arrived the place where we would be doing our Christmas shopping (Westfield London was my shopping center of choice,) Lucas looked around the mall with his mouth agape and said, "Okay, what is it with you and your dads and all these fancy places?" He then added, "This is quite possibly the biggest mall that I've ever seen, and it's definitely the most luxurious mall that I've ever been in."
"My parents have quite a lot of money to their name," I explained. "I'm not trying to brag by the way. That's literally why we've gone to all these nice places."
"Where the hell did they get all of this money?"
"They were really big YouTube celebrities," I responded. "Well, I guess past tense isn't correct in this case. They're still pretty big, but they're certainly not as active as they used to be. Like they haven't done any touring in quite some time and they're even worse about making and uploading videos."
"Wow, look at you." Lucas smiled and nudged my arm. "You're the daughter of celebrities. How cool are you?"
"Not as cool as you think I am," I replied as I laughed. "The only reason people even know that I'm their daughter is because of my last name. Even then, I only tell people who they are when they ask if they're my parents or if they say that my last name sounds really familiar but they can't seem to place it."
"Wait, your name's Howell-Lester? Wow, that actually sounds really familiar, and I have no idea why." Lucas couldn't resist laughing as well as he teased me.
"Shut up!" I smiled as I lightly punched his arm. "Don't even go there."
"Sorry, I just couldn't resist." Lucas laughed again.
"I should've known that you were going to do something like that." I laughed again as well. "Alright, let's get back to focusing on what we can here to do, which is Christmas shopping."
"Right." Lucas's smile faded away and he returned to how he had been when I repeatedly insisted that he was going to get a Christmas gift for me.
"You already know my feelings about the whole Christmas gift thing, and I'm not going to say it again." I wasn't about to get frustrated with him again, especially since Christmas was about being cheerful and happy and he as making me feel quite the opposite. "With that being said, if you would like to come with me as I go shopping for a gift for Dad and Papa, you're more than welcome to. As long as you go elsewhere when I go off to buy your gift, of course."
"Actually, I think I'll go off on my own now," Lucas said. "Even though I'll be wandering around in a mall that I've literally never been in before."
"Okay, well, if you get lost, you can just call me." I laughed.
"No, I can't." Lucas laughed as well. "If I call you and tell me where I'm trying to go, you'll try and figure what I'm going to get you."
"Oh, so, you are buying me a gift for Christmas?" I smirked as I teased him.
He was silent for a few moments as he smiled sheepishly and blushed. "Maybe..."
I chuckled as I gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I'll call you when I'm done with my Christmas shopping." I then turned and began walking to my first destination of the day.

*****

The first person that I decided to shop for a gift for is Papa since I thought that he was the easiest person to shop for. In fact, I had his gift, a kit for growing your very own Christmas tree, picked out and purchased within ten to fifteen minutes. Papa had a (not so) secret love of purchasing and buying houseplants. However, he also had (not so secretly) trouble taking care of them, so most of his houseplants died pretty quickly. But since this kit was going to be a Christmas present, I was hoping that he would treat this Christmas tree like a child and that when I came up to visit next Christmas, we'd actually have a real Christmas tree (something that Papa's always wanted to have.)

The next person that I bought a gift for was Dad. While he certainly wasn't as easy to shop for as Papa was, I still able to find him a gift pretty quickly. I ended up getting him a record player and a couple of records of bands and artists that he really liked. Since he was a music lover like me and he's the number one reason why I started playing the piano and stuck to it, I wanted to give him the gift of music this Christmas in order to show him the appreciation that I had for him not only being a great dad, but for also being my music inspiration.

Last but certainly not least, I bought a gift for Lucas. He was without a doubt the hardest person to find a gift for. In fact, I went to four different shops before I finally found the perfect gift; a new camera. For a few months now, he's been complaining that his current camera has been "a pile of shit," so what better time for him to get a brand new camera than Christmas? Besides, as I've said numerous times now, he very much deserved getting a Christmas present from me. Besides, I owe him a lot for not only being a great friend but being a great boyfriend as well.

*****

About an hour or so later, I met up with Lucas in the food court so that we could get some food (he told me that he would attempt to eat a little something while I was on the phone and checking up with him) and while I had three huge bags filled with my three Christmas presents, he only had one tiny bag, which I could only assume was my Christmas present, especially he kept it closely hidden from me. I also kept his Christmas present closely hidden from him, although it was quite difficult for me to do so since it was a large camera.
"So, how did shopping go?" He asked as we found an empty table to set our stuff down.
"It depends on who you're referring to." I shrugged. "If you're referring to Papa, then amazingly. If you're referring to Dad, pretty well. If you're referring to yourself, while it was quite the struggle at first, I managed to find the perfect gift for you."
"I was hard to shop for?" Lucas asked with a frown. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay." I gave him a soft smile. "As I said, I managed to find the perfect gift, so it all worked out in the end." I then asked, "How did your shopping go?"
"It went very well actually." He replied as he smiled back excitedly. "I only had to go into one store before I looked at something, said, 'Yep, this is definitely the one,' and bought it."
"Does that mean that you're confident that I'll like what you got me?"
Lucas thought about my question for a couple of moments before he responded, "No, actually. I kinda think that you'll hate it, but if you do, at least I'll have the satisfaction of trying my absolute best and the fact that I actually didn't struggle to find a gift for someone for once."
"Well, as I said earlier, I'd love anything you'd give me, and there's never been a person that's given me a gift that I didn't like." I simply said in response before I told him that I was going to get something to eat and asked if he wanted anything.
"You don't have to pay for me." He replied. "I can pay for my own food."
"I know, but I want you to stay over here and keep watch over all of the stuff that we bought," I told him. "There's a couple of really expensive items on my end, and the last thing that I want to happen is to have them stolen."
"Good point." He said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He then opened it up and pulled out some pounds before he handed them over to me. "Take this and get me something that you think I like."
"Lucas, I can hardly get you to eat most of the time!" I replied as I gave him a slightly annoyed look. "As if I know what I think you'll like!"
"Fine, you do make a good point." He sighed quietly. He was silent for a moment as he thought about what he wanted to eat. "I want whatever you had at that restaurant we went to the other day. It was the restaurant that we went to after spending time in Hyde Park and the restaurant that I didn't eat anything in."
"Oh, you want fish and chips." I immediately figured out what he was talking about and smiled proudly. "You want to eat my favorite food, huh? I'm so proud. I thought that this day would never come. As a form of celebration, I will also be treating myself to some fish and chips."
"Alright, you go do that." He said as he lightly punched me on the arm. "You're such a big goofball, you know that?"
"Yeah, but I'm your big goofball." I pointed out.
"You've got that right." He chuckled as he planted a kiss on my forehead.

*****

After about twenty minutes, I returned to the table that Lucas was guarding our stuff at and placed one plate of fish and chips on his side of the table and the other on my side of the table. I then sat down across from him and immediately got to work on my absolute favorite dish in the whole wide world.
"Wow, you really do love fish and fries, don't you?" Lucas asked, smirking because he knew that I would get annoyed by him not calling chips by their proper name.
I shook my head. "You've got it wrong, good sir. These right here are fish and chips. I'm not sure how you heard them as anything other than that. Perhaps you need your hearing checked." I was, of course, teasing. I could never get mad about something as insignificant as that. Plus, I knew that he was saying it all in good fun, not to actually insult me for (technically since I was born there) being an American that used British terms since her the better part of her upbringing was when she was being raised by two amazing British men.
"No, miss, I do believe that my hearing is just fine," Lucas replied as he continued to tease me. "You see, where I'm from, this thing that you call 'chips' is actually called 'fries.'"
"Wow, that's really strange." I kept up the teasing as well. "However, I do believe that 'chips' has a better ring to it than 'fries.'"
"Whatever you say." Lucas laughed as he ended the teasing. "For real though, this is really good. I can see why this is your favorite food."
"I told you that it was good." I gave him one of those "I told you so" looks.
"No, you didn't." He replied as he laughed. "You showed how it was good by eating in about five minutes the other day."
"Okay, fair enough." I laughed as well. "But still, I proved to you that it was good. I just didn't tell you like most people do."
"You mean like most normal people do?" Lucas started teasing me yet again.
"Like you're actually normal, Devereaux." I teased back. "You're anything but normal. In fact, you're so strange that I'm surprised that the word 'normal' is actually in your vocabulary."
"Yeah, well, you're so strange that..." He trailed off as he desperately tried to think of something. "Shit, I don't anything have any comebacks."
"Well, I guess this means that I win!" I cheered as I threw my hands up in victory.
"Yeah, yeah, just be ready for the next time," Lucas said with a small smile. "Because that's when I'm gonna get you, Howell-Lester."
"Alright, we'll see about that," I replied as I smiled back.

*****

After we had both finished eating (yes, Lucas finished all of his fish and chips and I was proud of him not only because he had eaten all of his food, but he also ate all of my favorite food,) I called Dad and Papa and told them to come and pick us up since I didn't want to walk all the way home with two extremely heavy gifts. While it was true that I could get Lucas to carry Dad's gift home since he only had one gift to carry rather than three, I didn't want him attempting to sneak a peek at what I had gotten him, hence why I called Dad and Papa so that I could get out of walking home and put the gifts into the trunk.

*****

Dad and Papa arrived at Westfield London to pick us up about fifteen minutes later. As soon as I got out to Papa's car, I told him to open up the trunk and quickly placed the gifts that I had bought into it once it had been opened. I allowed Lucas to put his gift inside as well before I closed the trunk and quickly hopped into the warm car, desperate to get out of the cold.
"How did shopping go?" Dad asked as Lucas and I both put our seatbelts on.
"It went great!" I replied happily. "I officially have gifts for all three of you."
"That's wonderful," Dad said with a smile. He then whispered, "Although, I would really like to see what you bought for Papa."
"Dan, I can hear you!" Papa said as he chuckled. "Just because I'm driving doesn't mean that I've gone deaf."
"I really want to see what she got you though," Dad replied.
"How about this?" Papa proposed (but not exactly like he had just over a decade ago.) "I get to see what Ellie got you and you get to see what Ellie got me."
"Deal," Dad said. He then turned back and looked at me. "Ellie?"
"Yeah, I'd be totally fine with that." I smiled.
"Yes! Dad cheered excitedly. "Oh, I'm so excited, even though I'm not going to see what my present is."
I couldn't help but laugh at Dad's childlike excitement over getting to see his husband's gift.

*****

After I had taken the gifts downstairs so that they could be wrapped, I called Dad down first since he was the one who had asked about the whole seeing the other person's thing.
"Oh my God, I'm unbelievably excited!" He cheered quietly so Papa didn't end up hearing anything. "Let me see! Let me see!"
I laughed quietly as I double checked to make sure that Papa wasn't trying to secretly peek at his present before I pulled it out of the bag and showed it to Dad.
"Is that what I think it is?" He asked quietly.
"A grow your own Christmas tree kit?" I said with a bright smile. "Why, yes, yes, it is."
"Papa's going to love it." Dad gave me a bright smile in return. "Here's hoping that he actually keeps this one alive though."
"You know, I actually thought the same thing when I bought this for him." I laughed quietly.
"Alright, send him down when you're ready to have him see my gift," Dad said before he stood up and went back upstairs.

I tucked Papa's gift out of sight before I called him down. A couple of moments later, he arrived as eagerly as Dad had and quickly demanded to see what Dad's present was.
Like I had done with Papa when I showing Dad his gift, I double checked to make sure that Dad wasn't trying to secretly peek at his present before, after a couple moments of struggling, I managed to get the record player and the records out of the bag.
"Oh. My. God." Papa said in disbelief as he admired the record player. "Dad's going to lose his mind when he sees it. He's definitely gonna love it, that's for sure."
"These records are probably going to be the only thing that you hear when Dad's not playing in piano, so I apologize in advance," I said as I chuckled.
"Don't worry, I more than likely won't get tired of these records," Papa assured me. "Mostly due to the fact that I really like the kind of music that's on them."
"Good," I replied as I smiled.
"Alright, I'll let you get to wrapping presents then." Papa smiled back as he stood up and went back upstairs. I then turned my head so that I was looking at Lucas, who had remained silent the whole time. He had wanted to see the presents that I had gotten for Dad and Papa, and I allowed him to do so since it didn't involve his present getting shown while he was around.
"Alright, unfortunately, I'm going to have to ask you to go upstairs to my room since I have to get all of these presents wrapped, and yes, that includes yours," I said as I handed him a roll of wrapping paper. "Here, you can even wrap my present while you're up there and show my present to my parents if you'd like."
"Okay." He replied as he got up and took the roll of wrapping paper from me. "I'll see you in a little bit then."

*****

Once I had finished wrapping all of the presents, I (somehow) managed to take them upstairs to the door of my room in just one trip. I set all of them down on the floor before I knocked on the door. The only reason that I had knocked on the door was because I knew that Lucas was wrapping my present and I wanted to be a good sport and not see my present since I wasn't allowing him to see his.
"Who is it?"
"It's Ellie."
"Ellie? Why are you knocking on the door if it's your own room?"
"Because I wanted to make sure that you were done wrapping my present."
"Oh, yeah, right, that's smart to do that actually." He said. "Yeah, I'm done. You can come in."

Once he said that I could come in, I opened the door all of the way and picked up all of the presents again. I then walked into my room and set them down in the closet.
"Did you carry that big box of presents upstairs all by yourself?" Lucas asked.
I nodded.
"Why didn't you ask for help?" He was clearly impressed that I was able to carry that (quite) heavy load of presents from downstairs all the way to the closet in my room (although I don't blame him because I was impressed also.) "You could've texted me or something."
"I thought about it, but I realized that I wanted to try and see if I could do it on my own before I did." I shrugged. "Turns out, I can, in fact, carry however much that damn load weighs all the way from downstairs to all the way up here."
"Well, I must say that I'm pretty damn impressed." Lucas smiled proudly, but his proud smile quickly faded away. "Why the hell did I say that you should've texted me for help? There's no way that I would've been able to help. I mean, just look at me." He then motioned to his body. "I'm the skinniest piece of shit that anyone's ever shit. A strong enough wind could probably get the best of me."
"Stop saying that." I frowned as well. "You're actually starting to look a healthy amount of skinny now that you're eating somewhat regularly. Keep up the good work when it comes to that, by the way. I like to see you taking care of yourself."
"Thanks," Lucas replied as he smiled softly. "You know, you've been a big motivator when it comes to me actually trying to force myself to eat like a normal person. Had you not been in my life, I probably would've starved myself to death."
I shuddered at the thought of Lucas not being here and quickly went over to him and hugged him tightly.
"Don't you dare say things like that," I said as I rested my head on his chest so that I could listen to his heartbeat. That was something that always seemed to calm me down, no matter what the situation was."I couldn't imagine this world without you in it, so please, stay here with me."
"As long as you stay in this world with me, you don't have to tell me twice." He replied as he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tightly. "Since the day that we met, I've never wanted nor thought of a world without you, nor do I actually want to see a world without you. And that's because the sky wouldn't be as blue, the grass wouldn't be as green, and the stars wouldn't shine as bright without Elizabeth Mary Howell-Lester in it."
For a very brief moment, I tensed up because he had used my full first name. However, I quickly became a blushing and smiling mess. "And right back at you, Lucas Alexander Devereaux. Right back at you."

~~~~~