We hear the clock strike two o'clock in the morning as we quietly make our way into the kitchen. Semyon holds my hand and intertwines our fingers, leading the way through the halls of our cabin rental. He slowly opens the refrigerator and hums to himself, wondering what kind of snack we are going to make.
"We forgot to buy sandwich stuff," he mumbles, his eyes still scanning the shelves of the refrigerator. "What else sounds good?"
"Ice cream?" I ask while tilting my head to the side and I see his eyes grow wide at my response.
"Ice cream? At two in the morning on Christmas Day?" Semyon snickers, then opens the freezer door. "Ah, cookie dough."
Semyon pulls out the small pint of ice cream and grabs two spoons out of the cupboard. He leads me to the living room as I sit on the couch. He hands me the ice cream and spoons before he turns to the fireplace, soon placing logs inside to start a fire. I smile at him as I open the lid of the ice cream, slowly digging my spoon into the pint. As I bring the spoon to my lips, my eye catches the engagement ring that is on my left hand. My gaze is fixated on the ring as it sparkles with the light of the crackling fire.
"I'm so glad you said yes," I hear a whisper over the fire.
I look up and I see Semyon walking over to me, then he sits down next to me on the couch. He pulls me into his lap and grabs his spoon, digging into the ice cream.
"Why wouldn't I?" I kiss his cheek as he puts his spoon in his mouth.
"Well," he mumbles, "you know. What I did to you."
I place my hand on his cheek and turn his head towards me, looking him deep in his eyes.
"Because that wasn't you," I whisper, "that was the alcohol. It causes us to act differently, whether it's good or bad."
"I was so scared I would never see you again, to apologize," he starts, "but now I have you and Cooper, and that's all I really need."
"And a Stanley Cup." I giggle, pressing my lips against his.
"That would be nice," he says in between kisses. "You know what would be even better?"
"What's that?" I ask as I slowly pull away from him.
"Round 3?" Semyon asks as his eyes light up and he moves in, attaching his lips to my neck.
"Round 3," I confirm, as he picks me up and we retreat to our bedroom.
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Semyon's POV
I awaken early in the morning, too early, as I groan to myself. I don't want to open my eyes, but I want to see the beautiful girl laying beside me. I guess if I slowly poke open one eye, it won't hurt.
I bring myself to open one of my eyes, seeing blonde hair surround me. I smile and chuckle to myself as I see Cameron's naked body laying beside me underneath our flannel sheets. I pull the comforter over her shoulders so she doesn't get cold and I softly pull her body towards mine. I close my eyes once again as her head is now under my nose. I breathe in the scent of her vanilla coconut shampoo, relaxing me as I feel myself drift back to sleep. Until...
I hear the bedroom door creak open, soon hearing the shuffling of little feet. I feel a small figure crawl up onto the bed and slowly up to me. I pretend to be asleep and I try so hard not to chuckle.
"Daddy?" I hear a small voice whisper. "Daddy?"
I slowly open my eyes and I see Cooper staring at me with the biggest grin on his face.
"SANTA CAME!" He exclaims, starting to jump up and down on the bed, waking up his mother.
Cameron yawns and rubs her eyes, then looks up at me and smiles.
"He's not the only one," she whispers in my ear and winks at me. Cameron, not in front of the child.
"Can we open presents? Please, please, pleeeease?" Coopers grasps his hands together and bats his eyes.
"Let Mommy get some coffee first, buddy. Meet us out there." Cameron says with a yawn.
Cooper giggles with glee and runs out of our bedroom. I look down at my beautiful fiancée. God, I'm so lucky.
"I love you so much, Future Mrs. Varlamov," I whisper as I kiss her forehead.
"I love you, Mr. Varlamov," she whispers back as she gives me a quick hug before rolling out of bed.
I get up and walk to my suitcase, pulling out some boxers, sweatpants and an Avs hoodie. I watch Cameron out of the corner of my eye match my outfit, with sweats and Avs hoodie. She walks over to me and holds an Avs Santa hat in her hand.
"No," I whine as she hands it to me, "It makes my head itchy."
She pouts her lips at me and gives me a puppy dog face. Damn it.
"Please, Santa Semyon?" Cameron pleads in a soft voice as her other hand reaches towards my body, her fingers tracing the band of my sweatpants.
"Fuck," I whisper as she smirks, knowing the effect she has on me. "Fine."
I grab the hat out of her hand and place it on my head. She giggles as I stick out my tongue at her.
"You're spoiled, you know." I chuckle at her as I take hold of her hand.
"You know you love spoiling me," she hip checks me as we start to walk down the hallway.
I chuckle to myself and nod my head. I loved spoiling her and our son. I wanted to give them the absolute best of everything. I never wanted them to worry or struggle, I wanted to give them anything they ever wanted.
This was my first Christmas with Cameron and Cooper. I was so excited. Obviously because I asked Cameron to marry me. Secondly, to see Coop's face on Christmas Day. I wish I never screwed up in the first place, otherwise life would be different. I'm just so happy she took me back.
We sit down on the couch as Cooper is wrestling with the presents under the tree. My sister Julia and her husband slowly emerge from the kitchen, holding a tray with a coffee pot and mugs on it.
"I see you got your present," Julia says to me in Russian, nodding at Cameron's engagement ring as she places the tray in front of us.
I smile at her and nod my head, looking over at Cameron and seeing her pour some coffee. She hands me a cup first, then pours her own.
"Go ahead, Coop," Cameron says before she sips her coffee. "Let's see what Santa brought you."
Cooper reaches for a medium size box, struggling to push it to the middle of the floor. I chuckle to myself as I put down my cup of coffee on the table, then I scoot onto the floor to help him with his present. He starts to rip into the wrapping paper as the bows and ribbons fly everywhere. He opens the box and finds brand new hockey skates and an Avs jersey with his first name stitched on the back.
"Whoah!" Cooper exclaims as he unravels the jersey, quickly pulling it over his head. "This is so cool!"
"Daddy is also gonna take you to the rink when we get back to Denver, bud," I say as I ruffle his hair. "We break in your skates."
"Thanks, Dad!" Cooper hugs me tightly, and I don't want to let go of my son.
I hear the click of a phone camera from behind us. I look up and see Cameron holding up her phone.
"Smile, boys!" Cameron chirps, quickly taking pictures of us. "That's going in the scrapbook, for sure."
"Speaking of scrapbooks," I mutter as I grab a box from under the tree, "it's time for your second gift."
I hand Cameron the box and sit down next to her on the couch, wrapping my arm around her shoulders. Cameron looks over at me and smiles.
"You didn't have to get me anything else," she bats her eyes at me. "What is it?"
"Open it and find out. It's from the both of us." I look over at Cooper and nod at him.
Cameron rips open the paper and reveals a brand new Nikon DSLR camera. Her eyes grow wide and her mouth drops, soon her hand comes up to cover her mouth.
"You didn't," she whispers.
"I did." I chuckle, soon feeling her body jump into mine. "I figured you could use a new camera to get back into what you love."
"Thank you so much, Semyon!" Cameron exclaims as she leaves kisses all over my face. "And thank you, Cooper."
Cooper jumps onto the couch to hug his mom with a smile spread across his face.
"I don't think my gift will top what you've gotten me," she whispers to me.
"I will love whatever you give me." I smile reassuringly to her.
She gets up and goes over to the tree, soon bringing me my present. She places it in my lap then sits down next to me. I pull a burgundy and blue book out of the gift bag that says Story of Us on it. I flip open the book and I see pictures of my first day at training camp, when she was the Avs photographer. As I flip through the pages, I see pictures of us when we were dating before everything went wrong, newspaper clippings of career highlights, and pictures of Cameron's ultrasound with Cooper. Soon pictures of baby Cooper appears on the pages, lists of his favorite things as he grows older. As I reach the final page, I see the words To Be Continued.
"Cameron, I absolutely love this," I whisper as tears swell up in my eyes. "Thank you so much."
I kiss her lips with passion, but kept it PG in front of the kid. I pulled her into my chest and Cooper into my lap as we watched my side of the family open their presents.
As I hear Christmas music softly playing in the background, the crackling of the fire, and the contagious laughter of my son, I daze off into my own little world. I was going to marry the woman of my dreams. We were going to raise our son together. We were going to add to our family.
And that is just the beginning.