Home Is Where the Heart Is (Brittana)

Chapter 15

Brittany's POV

Deciding not to tell anyone about our engagement until Christmas, the week of waiting was almost pure torture. Still, I knew that telling our families in person was something that was very important to both of us.

Our daughter's first Christmas, we knew, she would never remember. Still, we wanted it to be special. Santana and I had decided we would go to Lima for a few days but return home on Christmas Eve to have our own Christmas in Columbus.

Everly was just over three months old when we packed up and made our way to Lima in a snow storm.

"We should have just stayed home," Santana said, about an hour into the drive, but not even close to half of the way to Lima.

Being the driver, Santana was even more anxious than normal, rightfully so, since the snow that was blowing across the roads made it progressively harder to see. The sky slowly grew darker with the sunset that we knew was happening behind the snow clouds.

"Well, we can't just turn back now," I replied. "We're more than an hour out of Columbus."

"I'm going to pull over." Santana turned on the car's hazard lights and pulled over very cautiously, not completely sure where the side of the road was. The last thing we needed was to end up stuck in the ditch.

Our daughter, who usually slept through car rides, woke up, starting to fuss in the backseat.

"She shouldn't need to eat yet," I said, a little confused, as I climbed over the center console and into the backseat.

"What should I do?" Santana asked, stressed.

"Call our parents," I replied, not really sure what to do in the situation either. I changed Everly's diaper on the mat we kept in the back of the car but didn't return her to her car seat yet, needing to hold her close.

"They said we should try to keep driving," Santana said, "before we get stuck here or the car car runs out of gas. There is a hotel a few miles from here where we can stay if we need to stop before it's too dark out."

"Okay. Do you want me to try driving?" I asked, although, we both knew I had even less experience than Santana when it came to driving in winter storms.

"I think you know the answer to that question," Santana kidded, her voice shaking despite trying to make me laugh.

I smiled and buckled Everly back into her car seat, climbing back into the passenger seat of the car.

The sky was almost completely dark by the time we reached the hotel, deciding to stop, since driving in a snow storm got way worse once it was nighttime. We'd been driving for almost two hours (the same amount of time it usually would take us to get to Lima), and we were exhausted.

Santana stopped the car next to the entrance of the hotel, and I ran inside to ask about a room.

"You're lucky," the man at the front desk replied when I asked about open rooms. "We only have three rooms left." He handed me a key. "You're in room number 345."

"Thank you," I said, rushing back outside to tell Santana.

She parked the car as close to the hotel entrance as she could. Then, I got out of the car, pulling my hood on to try to protect my face from the wind as I opened the door to get Everly out of the car.

I pulled the cover we hadn't ever used yet over her infant seat before pulling it and her diaper bag out, closing the door behind me. From the trunk, Santana grabbed one of each of our suitcases and the case with the pack'n'play for Everly before locking the car. We winced against the cold wind biting our skin as we walked through the parking lot, our shoes slowly getting covered in crisp snow. Stepping into the hotel, we finally let out sighs of relief before heading into the elevator to make our way to our room on the third floor.