Love Today (29 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Is he here yet?” Maggie exclaimed, coming out of the bathroom. She went to the window for the
fifth
time in twenty minutes to see if Jared had arrived.

“Maggie, it’s only eight in the morning.”

She looked at me like that meant absolutely nothing to her and said, “Then he should be here already.”

I assumed that meant Jared told her a time. I guess “sometime by nine” worked for me, but not for Maggie.

“He’s here!” she screamed. “He’s here! He’s here!”

The main reason for her excitement was that Jared was bringing by her Christmas present before we left for California the next day. We decided to have our own little Christmas party since Maggie and I would be leaving town, and Jared
would be spending time in
Las Vegas with his mom’s family.
Originally we were going to do it at Jared’s house, but his interior had been repainted and the smell was still pretty strong.

“
Hahaha
! Look at Clyde!” she laughed.

She’d been pointing out the window, and then she ran to the door to open it. I watched curiously as she patted her thighs for the dog to enter, and then I laughed.

He had on reindeer antlers and a big red bow.

When Jared walked through the door my smile grew even more. He attended to Maggie and her excitement first, and when she was content with the promise of presents “soon enough,” he came into the kitchen to greet me next.

“I didn’t realize it was a pajama party,” he smiled, pulling me close to kiss him.

“I didn’t realize it was a play clothes party,” I countered, swatting the butt of his worn jeans.

He smiled again and said, “And what would you do if I smacked
your
butt like that?”

With a shrug I replied, “I don’t know. But I figure you’d be
a
little sweeter to me than that,” I added, batting my eyelashes.

“Ha, you’re the devil in disguise.” He kissed me again and said, “What can I do to help?”

“Well, first
I had to get this roast in
the slow cooker for later
. I figured you could tame the wild animal
while I shower and get dressed, and then
the cinnamon rolls can be consumed
.
”

He glanced over his shoulder and said, “
Tame
t
hat
thing? No, way.”

“Well ‘that thing’ woke me up at five a.m.
You
’re lucky I’m in a good mood.”

“
You have a good mood in you somewhere?
” he quipped, moving just before I could retaliate. He laughed and said, “Easy, tiger.”

“You know, I’m beginning to think someone else writes all those beautiful, sweet songs you claim to be yours. Surely they don’t come from
you
.”

“But I love making you think that they do,” he smiled.

“So
who
should I
really
be thinking about when I hear them
?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Okay, I don’t want you to think about anyone else.”

I pretended like it was too late for that and he took my hand to pull me to him.
He sang a line to one of his songs and I teased,
“Aw, you’re going to sing stolen songs for me?”

I wrapped my arms around him tightly and laid my head against him.
There’s just something about having a song
sung
for you…

“Are you guys kissing?” Maggie
asked
, entering the kitchen.

“Does it look like we’re kissing?” Jared teased her. “You want us to start kissing?”

It was funny when she just shrugged
, but I left the two of them in the kitchen so I could get ready for the day.

It had been two weeks since Jared first kissed me, and the day
after,
I had a weird conversation with a five-year-old. I wasn’t
sure what she would think of how things had changed with Jared, and I wanted her to understand that I really cared about him
before she ever saw us kiss
. She really didn’t have much to respond; it wasn’t like she seemed to care
who
my boyfriend was. It kind of gave me mixed feelings, but I was glad that she at least “approved” of Jared.

But the hardest part was when she asked if I would still kiss Zack too. The easiest way to answer that was to remind her that Zack was a long ways away, and I was gla
d that she didn’t challenge it
any further.
I was honest and told her that I really cared about Zack and that he would always be important to me.

Then she told me that she missed
him
, and my heart fell. I already
sensed
that she did since we still talked about him all the time, but to hear her say it out loud like that
made me feel bad.
She understood that he was in another country, and for now he could only talk to her on the phone, but I worried about how much my choices were going to affect Maggie. I did want her to have the best life, and I wanted that for myself as well, but
when was I ever going to feel content? When were all my questions going to be answered, and when was I ever going to feel completely comfortable with my choices?

Our tiny little Christmas party was wonderful that day.
Jared brought in Maggie’s present after we ate breakfast, and because it was kind of big, I thought she was going to pee her pants. He told her not to get too excited because he wasn’t sure if she’d actually like it, and I didn’t have a clue as to what it was so I really didn’t know if she would or not.

He also had a few other gifts for her, smaller but certainly not
insignificant
, and bless his heart, I’m sure those were his back up plan. He’d asked me beforehand if it was okay to get her several things (so that it was an actual “Christmas”) so I told him he could as long as he didn’t go overboard.

He smiled at the word overboard.

The large gift that he got her—
the
one he’d had for her for over a month—was an electric keyboard. And I knew it wasn’t just any keyboard; it was a really
nice
one. Maggie did think it was pretty cool—the thought of having her own “piano” made her day—but once Jared showed her all of the things she could
do
with such a keyboard…
s
he was
elated
.

They played around with it for thirty minutes
, and Jared even taught Maggie a simple song. It made me wonder if she would actually like to learn how to play the piano, and I later found out that it was Jared’s desire that she would.
That made me happy—that he was willing to teach her such a skill—and since Jared was going to teach Maggie, I decided I wanted to learn as well.

“Yes, it worked,” he quietly praised himself.

It made me laugh, but I really was excited that he was going to teach the both of us.

After a few other presents were opened—Barbies and dress up clothes and other “girly” things
for Maggie
—Jared handed me a gift.

“What? You didn’t need to get me anything.”

“Ha, I couldn’t
wait
to get you something.”

I smiled as I looked at the silver package in my hand. My first thought was that it was the same sized
box that
Maggie’s spoon
had been wrapped in
, and I was going to tease him about it. But I decided to just open it
, and with Maggie
right next to me eager to see what it was, I didn’t have time to realize it was also the same size as a jewelry case. I briefly studied the black box and looked at Jared suspiciously.

“I can’t take it back because it was
a
custom
design
just for you,” he shrugged casually.

“Jared…”

“Just open it.”

I did open it, and I didn’t know what to say for a few seconds. Finally I said, “Wow, that is…so beautiful.” I removed the necklace from the case and held it in my hands.
It was a treble clef and a bass clef that together formed a heart.

“Wow, are those
real
diamonds?” Maggie exclaimed.

I knew they were; two beautiful diamonds that made the dots on the bass clef.

“I kind of have a hard time with gifts,” Jared said, taking it out of my hand. As he brought it around my neck to secure it he added, “I guess I like to give things that are a little bit of myself. I love music, and I know you
do too, but I also wanted something that was as beautiful as you are. I realize that’s an impossible feat, so this was second best.” He took my hair that I’d gathered out of the way and allowed it to fall over my shoulders again as he faced me. “Merry Christmas, Taryn.”

I didn’t say anything at first. I was thrilled with his gift because of how unique it was,
but especially
because
of whom it was from
.

“I love it,” I said, holding it in my fingers. “Thank you so much.” I leaned forward to kiss him, and if Maggie hadn’t been in the room—even though she was busy playing with her new toys—I might have
gone a little overboard wit
h my affection. However, I remained in control
and kept my kissing to a minimum.

“So Maggie,” I said. “I think it’s time to give Jared
his
Christmas present
s
.”

“
Yay
!” she cheered as Jared said, “I don’t need—”

“Sure you do,” I interrupted. “We couldn’t
wait
to get you a gift.”

He smiled as Maggie ransacked the remaining presents under our little tree. There were gifts there for my family as well as a few for Jared, and she immediately went for the one that she had
wrapped for him
herself.

“Is this one?” she asked, trying to read the name on another. She knew her alphabet and how to read a little, but since my dad’s name was Jerry, sometimes she got them mixed up
when we’d practice working on names
.

“Yes, that’s one of them.” I left the couch to help her out, but she was already excited about finding those two and brought them over.

“Wow,” Jared said. “Did you wrap this all by yourself?”

I smiled at
his
playful smile, and Maggie was excited to answer affirmatively.

“Open it!” she commanded.

“Okay, okay,
sheesh
…”

He took his time opening one end of it, and Maggie couldn’t handle it anymore.

“It’s a book!” she gave up, just as Jared turned
it to face him
.

“It is a book. With the most amazing cover ever,” he added with a big smile as he stared at the picture of Maggie and Clyde.

Then he seemed to realize that the rest of the book held a little more
meaning
as he understood what all of the art on it meant. The rest of the cover, and the back, was also
plastered with dozens of little things—l
ike movie stubs, pictures, pieces of restaurant menus
,
fortunes,
candy wrappers, a
nd anything else that reminded us of Jared or our time together. It was once a plain song writing notebook, but after
we
our added
our touch
and covered it with contact paper, tied ribbons on the ends,
and wrote a special inscription on the inside…
it was definitely one of a kind.

“This is so awesome Maggie,” he said, seeming completely in awe as he studied every little thing. “Did you help do all of this?”

She nodded and then flipped the cover open for him. The inside of the cover was custom-designed as well, with more of Maggie’s art and ot
her little pictures collaged to make a history between the three of us. I could tell he was reading the message—or at least trying to with Maggie talking a mile a minute, pointing things out. I let the two of them discuss it for a while and
I
just listened.

When he had a moment he shook his head at me and said, “How do you come up with these kinds of things? I mean I don’t even… I can’t even think of a better gift
for
myself
,
even. I mean…how’d you come up with this?”

I shrugged and said, “I noticed you have a lot of notebooks you jot things down in. I don’t know if you actually write
lyrics
in them or just brainstorm, but I figured another one couldn’t hurt. And we wanted something personalized from us so… I guess it just made sense.”