Page 81 (1/1)

"So, do you want your presents?" I asked, heading to the kitchen where I had them stashed in a cabinet Nolan put her hands over her face and turned red in an instant "Uh, or not…" I stopped ina bit "I totally want the for you I sort of haven’t been able to do much lately, I’ve been…busy"

I watched her face carefully I wasn’t sure how ht to turn into a self-help session, or an intervention To put her at ease, I just smiled and bent down behind the kitchen counter to pull out her gifts "Yeah, that’s pretty crappy of you to not get ," I teased as I walked toward her, her face hardening with a toughness at hts with"Seriously, Noles, you don’t need to getI wanted to do"

I slid the first box in front of her It was one of est box with a lid we had in the house I didn’t wrap it very well, opting to just tie a ribbon around it She pulled the strings and looked at ejob "Hey, I was in a hurry," I shrugged

She s the lid to the side I held ray T-shirt It was e football shirt She held it up to her face and breathed it in, and watching her close her eyes and just take inand in love, had me lost "It was always your favorite," I said softly She just nodded and looked up, her eyes tearing "There’s ed her on

She pulled out a MicNic shirt next, just like the one she’d had for years "Where’d you find this?" she held it up against her body, rubbing the softness of it and clutching it close

"Ah, that one was hard I had Sienna’s help We went to three different thrift stores, and that one was actually in the last one, all the way up in Florence," I said, acknowledging that I’d driven to the next town, 50 miles away, just to find a shirt

As she took each shirt out of the box, she held it up and adainst her, hugging them close There were old movie shirts, concert T-shirts, Arizona tourist trap shirts--they weren’t all exact replicas, but they were daner labels Hell, the girl owned maybe two dresses, and a skirt, still as an adult But these stupid T-shirts? They rapped up in her identity And I knehen she lost them that she’d feel stripped And I just couldn’t stand it

"You like the for the last one she’d pulled fro the soft letters froo

She nodded without words, not ready to look me in the eyes She wore her emotions, and I knew she was touched But I didn’t want this to be about her appreciation forhappy, relieved and less lost So, I sat there quietly--and waited while she put each one back in the box, and then slid it to the corner of the sofa She scooted over to , her head resting hard against my shoulder I heard her slad you like the her hair until she was ready to release me

When she finally did, I slapped my hands in my lap and then asked if she was ready for the next one

"You got uilty

"Ah No feeling bad, I told you, I don’t need anything," I said, sliding over the second box Nolan recognized it instantly, her eyes popping back up to rinning ear-to-ear "You kept this? All this tiirl shows up at s like this, I store it safely--even if she’s pissed as hell when she does it," I said, recalling the tih school Nolan had showed up attherily I’d put the box in otten about it until the fire I kneouldn’t replace a lot of the ood start And they were all memories of us, and that’s what I wanted her to hold onto most