"Hey, Kota Merry Christmas!" Paul yells merrily as he marches into my living room, audibly plopping down onto my couch which I heard from my bedroom.
Buttoning up the last button on my favorite flannel shirt that I stole from Jake last December, I quickly look myself in the mirror over before meeting him in the living room, "Hey Hothead, Merry Christmas. I'm not saying it's not a pleasant surprise to see you but why are you here, I've gotta be at Charlie's in 20 minutes?"
Paul pulls out a brown package out of his jacket and hands it to me, "I know it's not much but I wanted to get you something. You mean a lot to me and I wanted to ask you something."
"Anything."
Paul smiles at me, taking the package out of my hands and carefully puts it on the end table as he slips his large rough hands into mine, "Kods, there's always been something about you that caught my eye and then when I saw you that night in the clearing it all made sense, I'm supposed to be with you. Not because our Ancestors said so but because you're truly amazing. How many girls your size is willing to pick a fight with me and Jake when we're both about to Phase? Anyways, I love you and I want to be with you. Will you go out with me?"
My breath hitches at the question, I nod smiling like the Cheshire Cat. He smiles equally as bright, happily pressing his lips onto mine. "What would you have done if I said no?" I laugh as I pull away, remembering I have to be at Charlie's soon.
Paul thinks the question over, framing in set jaw with his thumb and index fingers. When he finally answered, he simply raised his shoulders, "Wait until you left and wallowed in self-pity."
"Well it's a good thing I said yes then, isn't it?" I open the door, trying to hurry to Charlie's before I'm late. "You wanna come with me?"
"Anywhere."
Right as Paul and I pull up in front of Charlie's Bella and her caravan from the Cullen residence, including Seth and Leah, pile out of their vehicles and make way to the front door where Charlie and Sue wait patiently for us. We each greet each other with a hug and pleasantries as we converge in the living room where the tree is.
Paul sits on the couch, wedged between the Clearwater siblings, playing with the ends of my hair as I look out the large window that's beside the Christmas tree, "The snow is sticking."
"Hey, we still have today," Paul whispers down, tenderly kissing my warm forehead as I begin to stress eat whatever Sue decided to put on the plate in front of me.
Charlie walks into the room, yelling over our scattered conversations to get everyone's attention, "All right! Present time! Let's go! Seth, Leah, Kota, Paul stop eating. Jake, you start. Get it going."
"Why do you gotta call me out like that, huh?" I playfully grumble, my mouth full of the chocolate chip cookie that I had just shoved into my mouth, making Renesmee giggle at me and my childishness. "So rude Uncle Charlie."
Jacob rolls his eyes at me as he quietly passes a present to Renesmee as Seth and Leah begin to bicker behind me, making Paul become annoyed with them fairly quick. "What did you get me?"
Leah frowned at her pestering little brother, who isn't more than 16 now, "I'm not giving you anything."
"Hey! No, come on, what did you get me?" Seth nudges my butt with his foot, catching my attention from Jake and Renesmee to him.
Rather than answering with the sarcastic comment I had readied in my mind, I pull the two gifts for the Clearwaters out from under the coffee table in front of me and hand them to the corresponding member of the Pack, "Hey Kid. This is from me. I hope you like it because if not, I'll be really mad. And this is for you Leah."
Leah pulls out my gift from the shimmering tissue paper, running her thin fingers faintly over the carvings and the glass of the picture frame as she smiles down at the image, "Thank you Kota. This is beautiful."
"I figured for my first birthday here you gave me that frame with me and Sam. So I'd make one for you with a picture of you, Seth, and your dad. Sue gave me a picture."
Seth gasped, redirecting my attention from the sentimental moment his sister and I had to his excitement, "Dude, is this what I think it is?"
"That hoodie that you told me you wanted when we were shopping for our wedding clothes, yes."
Seth pulls it on over his clothes then tries his best to hug me from the angle he was at, failing miserably, "Thank you, Kods. You're the best."
"Well, Dad, we didn't have time to wrap yours, but here it is," Bella gives Charlie a piece of paper. "It's a 5-day fishing trip to Fraser River. It's for you and Sue."
Edward smirks down at me, "You leave tomorrow."
"Wow, that's really nice. Thank you. Tomorrow?" Charlie asks, reality hitting him again from the kindness of their selfish gesture. "I can't leave tomorrow."
Sue comes in from the kitchen, taking a seat on his lap, "I made arrangements for you at work."
"Sneaky. And extravagant," Charlie frowns at me, figuring I had something to do with the gift because I'm the only one who knows anything about fishing and that it's his favorite yet most expensive spot to fish at.
Edward smirks, knowing that he's won the battle, "And non-refundable, I'm afraid."
"You guys trying to get rid of me?" He asks the three of us which makes all of us including Sue go quiet, hoping that he hadn't caught on to anything we've been whispering about today. "Because it's working! Fraser River. That means we'll be chasing Cutthroat."
"We might even hook a Rainbow or some Bulls," Sue adds, surprising Charlie and I. Then my surprise quickly fades, making me dart my eyes at Sue's children, when I remember that her late husband was Charlie's fishing partner for years.
"Woman knows her trout."
Bella kneels down to see the present that Jake had given Ness, seeing the woven bracelet that Jake had made, "Hey, beautiful. Let me see. Jacob make this for you? Wanna put it on?"
Bella puts the bracelet on her daughter's wrist as Ness coos, "It's so pretty."
"It is really pretty," Bella agrees, turning to Edward and I smiling. I'm not sure if Bella is aware of the significance of that bracelet but I continue to smile at them, admiring the beauty of the woven bracelet.
"Not as pretty as you, Lovebug," I chuckle, sliding over to her.
Ness grabs two presents out from in front of her, the one I put in her pile from me and a neatly wrapped blue box that I'm assuming she wrapped herself because you could see the unnecessary amounts of tape on the edges, "Open my present Kody, it's the blue one."
"This one? Oohh sounds like it's a good present," I laugh, shaking the box next to my ear as I hear very little movement in the big box. Her giggles filled the room as she swatted at my hands, instructing me to stop shaking the box, "What is it? Help me open it Kiddo."
"Okay," Renesmee begins to help me rip at the paper, as all eyes were on us as if we were the only things that mattered.
We got it down to the brown cardboard box, where I ripped off the scotch tape revealing a brightly colored case. It was a violin case that Ness had painted. "Okay. So what is it? It's a... Case for my violin?"
Ness beamed at me, ecstatic that I guessed correctly on the first try, "Yes! See I painted it just for you! It's got your name and I drew our family. See that's me, Mommy, Daddy, Uncles Emmett, Jasper, Paul and Aunts Alice, Rosalie. And I drew Grandma Esme and Grandpa Carlisle and I drew Sue and Grandpa Charlie. And then there's Jake, Leah and Seth next to Paul."
I inspect her beautiful painting of our big, unconventional family then to her, "That's very beautiful. Thank you Lovebug, very sweet. That's by far my favorite gift ever."