Arranged love

this the season

will's Pov

The three of us are sitting on our living room floor wrapping presents for the children's hospital. It's something Juliet does every year since Lilly's first Christmas as they spent that in the hospital with pneumonia. It made her see that so many children spend Christmas in the hospital every year, and all children's hospitals try to collect presents for all the kids for Christmas Day. That's why we have spent the last 2 weeks wrapping presents for the hospitals. We had Patrick, Selena, Nate, and Asher here to help us wrap, but now the last day it's just the three of us. Lilly isn't that much of a help, but she does put a sticker on every single present that says Merry Christmas.

We attach a ribbon around every present with a note that says what's inside so the hospital can figure out which kid to give it to. All in all, I think we are at around 1k presents together for all the children's hospitals around here.

Our company does a similar thing where they give presents to an organization that gives presents to kids where the parents can't afford Christmas presents for whatever reason. It's been something the Fitzgerald company has done for a few years, and we decided to continue the tradition after the merger. The interns and assistants have had the joy of wrapping a couple of thousands of presents that came from our company.

"Do you want to build a showman, come on let's go and play" Lilly sings at the top of her lungs as she dances around us between putting stickers on presents. "I never see you anymore, come out the door, it's like you've gone away" I add in my terrible singing voice making her laugh.

She comes over and cups my face in her small hands "We used to be best buddies, And now we're not, I wish you would tell me why! Do you wanna build a snowman? It doesn't have to be a snowman..." she says and adds the silly voice at the end.

This kid is full of rainbows and sunshine with a constant heightened energy. It's like the batteries never run out of her, she is always wiggling or on the move. How she manages to sit still in class is a mystery to me. But we haven't heard anything from the school about her not paying attention or getting up from her seat, so she must be doing as she is told there.

"willy. you're a silly Billy willy" she says and lets me continue to wrap presents. when I look over at Juliet, she is watching us with a big smile on her face. she has told me how much it means to her that I get along with Lilly because Lilly has never had a male figure in her life. It's not that I try to be her dad for real, I don't think I'm ready to be anyone's dad, but being a stepdad isn't that bad after all. When I first heard that the woman, I was marrying had a child I wanted to run away because I'm not fit to be around a child. But Lilly proved me wrong, I can handle children and they are a lot of fun after all.

Juliet's Pov

"Mommy it's Christmas!" Lilly screams as she comes running into my room on Christmas morning. I groan and rub my tired eyes. will and I didn't go to bed until late last night because we were getting the presents under the tree and making sure everything was perfect for today. "Merry Christmas Lilliana. How about you go, and wake Will too"

She doesn't need to be asked twice so she runs to the other room and wakes him too with excitement. I slip out of bed in my Christmas pajamas and go join them in Will's room. She is jumping on his bed while he is waking up. I walk over and run my fingers through his soft blond hair. "Merry Christmas love," he says pulling me down for a simple peck on the lips. "Merry Christmas will"

Lilly drags us both downstairs to see if Santa came and if he ate her homemade cookies and drank the milk. Will did both of those things last night, but she still believes in the magic of Christmas and I'm not going to spoil that.