Home Is Where the Heart Is (Brittana)

Chapter 23

Santana's POV

In early December, Brittany, Everly, and I were decorating our Christmas tree when Brittany's phone rang.

I picked it up and answered it, since she was busy putting the lights on the tree (something she insisted I did wrong, so I just gave up).

"Hello?" I answered.

"Is Brittany there?" a man's voice asked.

"Who are you?"

"It's Reid."

I froze.

"Get Brittany on the phone, now!"

I looked at Brittany and saw she was already looking at me concerned. She turned down the Christmas music and took the phone from me.

"I won't" she said almost as soon as she grabbed the phone.

I hated not being able to hear what Reid was saying.

"I promise... Goodbye Reid."

When Brittany finally hung up the phone, I looked at her confused.

"Reid's been bothering me," she said. "I didn't want to worry you, so I didn't say anything."

"Why not? Aren't we in this together?" I stood from the couch.

"Yes, of course we are, but-"

"But what? Just please tell me you aren't going to take Everly to see him."

"I would never. He said he wouldn't bother me again as long as I promised to never ask for money from him or let Everly know he's her father. And I never want to do those things."

"Okay, but what if he tries to hurt you?"

"I'll be fine. Yes, Reid scares me, but he said he wouldn't try to call me or anything ever again."

"And do you trust him?" I asked.

"I think I have to. Besides, if we spend all our time worrying about Reid, we're never going to enjoy anything. I'm going to change my number and hopefully, we'll never hear from him again. Besides, it's been almost two years since I left him, and he hasn't tried to hurt us yet. Okay?"

"Okay. I trust you."

---

We drove back to Lima for Christmas Eve. Everly got far more toys and clothes than she needed, but she was happy and that's what mattered. She had a new toy kitchen for her bedroom (which was extremely crowded, so she wouldn't be able to properly play with it until we moved into a house) and spent almost an entire hour trying on new clothes until she started to get fussy.

Back at our apartment on Christmas day, we gave Everly a few books wrapped in colorful wrapping paper, which she loved to tear. (Unwrapping the presents was probably her favorite part of Christmas.) We didn't get her anything more because we knew that moving into a house would be most of our presents to each other and Everly for at least a year.

We took Everly for a ride on her new sled in the snow before changing into our Christmas pyjamas that evening. And we went to bed, smiling, because our Christmas was magical no matter how many gifts we received.

---

It took us almost until our lease was up until we finally found a house within our price range that we didn't get outbid on.

"It's all yours," was one of the best things we'd ever heard as we were handed the house keys.

We started packing immediately, since we only had one week left on our lease, and our families and friends came to help us move into our new house. Since we didn't have any time to work on it between it coming into our possession and needing to move in, we knew we would have to renovate while we were living in the house, but we were just so excited to finally have a place of our own where we wouldn't be constantly tripping over everything, including each other.

Moving in January was not the most ideal, but we were so excited to finally have a house to live in that we didn't care too much.

---

The first thing we did in our new house was paint the main room blue to cover up its hideous brown. Then, we could set up our living and dining room furniture (which sure didn't look like much in the bigger space). We decided to paint our daughter's room next. Since we were in a strange, new place, we allowed Everly to sleep with us in the unfinished master bedroom while we painted and decorated her bedroom.

We painted the walls a light pink, since, even though our daughter could hardly talk, it was obviously her favorite color. We used most of her old underwater-themed decorations in her new bedroom as well, but, for the first time ever, switched her crib setting (the crib that would grow with her) to be lower to the ground and have less of a railing. We added some new decorations that were more her style (since she had her own opinions now), and even bought her a cradle for her first baby doll that she'd recently become obsessed with.

Once she was mostly adjusted to the new house, we would see her carrying her baby doll around with her everywhere she went, occasionally using the small stroller instead. We kept the stairs blocked off. Since we hadn't lived somewhere with stairs before, it was an adjustment for all of us. The house required a lot more baby-proofing than our apartment had.

As we slowly made the house our home, the weather also started to get warmer. By the time March rolled around, the snow was starting to melt into the grass, and we could finally see our small backyard space.

Our daughter loved our backyard even more than we did. She'd play with her doll outside or just spend time rolling around in the grass, laughing.

We bought a baby swing, and after that, we would spend hours every day pushing her in her swing until she was too tired to stay awake. She would constantly insist to go swinging outside, and the first time Jessie came to visit us after we got the swing, they spent almost the entire time playing with her outside. They were already great friends, and we loved that our best friend loved our daughter so much.

Usually, Brittany and I would just glance past the third upstairs bedroom that we'd been using for extra storage, but one night, we couldn't avoid the topic any longer.

"Do you want any more kids?" Brittany asked, attacking the question head on.

"I think so, do you?"

"I would love more kids."

"Okay," I said, then pausing to take in a breath. "Um, if you want to, then you totally can, but I think I want to carry."

"If that's what you want, then we can plan that for the future. When do you want to start?"

"Not yet," I replied. "Everly is still so young yet, so we should wait."

"Yeah," Brittany said. "It's just good to plan for the future."

"Exactly."

We knew having another baby would be expensive, so we started budgeting even more than usual, but we put as much of our energy as we could into Everly, knowing that she would be all grown up before we knew it.