Lexi was lying on my couch all cozy, reading one of my books, while wearing one of my t-shirts, her hair a little damp from her shower.

I liked how homely this felt way too much.

She was reading Catcher in the Rye. She had never read it before and I'd annoyed her about it. I was glad to see my nagging had not been for nothing.

She looked up from her book when she heard me come in and automatically smiled at the gift in my hands.

She should not be smiling.

Sure, I also had no idea what was in it, but this was a present from Josh. We should all be very worried right now.

Josh never bought normal presents. He only bought the kind of present you had to hide from everyone standing around you.

"Is this for me?" she asked, still grinning.

"Yes, but, I have to warn you beforehand, this present is from Josh and I have no idea what so ever on the content of the box. I mean it could literally be anything. It could eat your face off for all we know," I tried to warned her as I made my way to her.

Lexi absolutely did not seem the right amount of worried as she got up, discarding her book, and walking up to me. "I'm torn between dying with curiosity to know what is inside and fear of losing my face."

"It's a dangerous world," I stated, before stealing a quick kiss from her.

"Especially when Josh is in it," she agreed, shaking her head a bit, amused. She should really be more worried. But instead, she reached forward for the box "Alright, give it to me."

I refrained from making a joke out of that comment, because Josh's presents were a dangerously serious matter.

"Are you sure," I asked her, not giving her the box. She could still change her mind. She could resist the appeal of a gift-wrapped box.

"Yep. Go ahead."

I let out a dramatic sigh. "Alright," I said and handed her the box

Lexi grabbed it and practically skipped back to the couch, sitting down to open it.

I sat down beside her, looking at the box with a lot more reticence than my girlfriend.

And to make matters worse, Lexi wasn't opening right away. She was just playing around with it, shaking it, and weighting it, probably trying to guess what was in there.

She could never guess what was in the box. I also had no idea what her present was, but I could say without a doubt that neither of us would have ever thought about buying it.

Josh didn't buy normal presents.

My Pumpkin suddenly took a deep breath, bracing herself. "Well, here we go."

She tore the gift wrap pretty easily to reveal a box with La parfait femme de ménage written on it.

Ah fuck.

I was going to kill Josh.

I might like, thank him a bit, but then I was definitely going to kill him.

I hid my face in my palms, not actually wanting to see what was in there.

It would be very Josh-like to put something completely different inside the box just to torture me.

It was very like him to actually get what the box was implying too.

Either way.

I was going to kill him.

Lexi was looking my way now, trying to understand why I was looking  "What? What is it?"

What was I supposed to say? 

Had had gotten a boner when I was thirteen while watching the 1964 Diary of a Chambermaid movie? Maybe. But at that age a breeze in the right direction would be enough to give any guy a boner, so Josh really should be cutting me some slack.

I shook my head, because she would know soon enough. "Just open it, you'll see."

Lexi finally did, taking out a fancy looking French maid outfit. 

I started to ramble to fill in the sudden awkward silence. "I can't believe he bought that. I don't even know how much that cost him..."

I was glad to see I wasn't the only one slightly uncomfortable here, because Lexi's cheeks were turning pink. 

Yeah, that was more like it. That was a more proper reaction to a present by Josh.

"Josh is unbelievable," Lexi mumbled, not looking in my eyes.

"Tell me about it. Just put it back in the box and I'll give it back to him next time I see him," I rambled on again, just wanting to put this whole stupid present behind us. 

Lexi wasn't doing anything though, just still holding on to the dress, staring at it, like she was thinking very hard about something.

Finally, her eyes turned to me, and now she was kind of studying me. Oh, oh. No, no, this was not something I wanted to explain today.  "Do you like it?"

I was pretty sure there was a short circuit in my brain for a second there. "What?"

"Do you like it?" Lexi repeated.

I blinked slowly, worried about where she was going with this. "Is this a trick question?"

Her smile turned into a smirk. "You naughty boy, you like it!"

"That's not the point," I whined, which made Lexi laugh.

This was no allowed. How dare she mess with me like this?

"Yeah, I'm keeping it," Lexi replied with a little nod, still chuckling. 

"Really?" I said, without thinking about it. 

Lexi patted my cheek, looking absolutely amused as she put the dress back in its box. "Yes, but I'm not putting it on."

"Ever?" I asked automatically and almost slapped my hand over my mouth for it. God, I was an idiot. 

This made my girlfriend bust into laughter again.  "No, just for now," she said, shaking her head at me, amused. 

"This is not amusing, you know?" I grumbled, arms crossed over my chest.

"For me it really is," my Pumpkin kept chuckling, and pressed a quick kiss to my cheek, before laying her head down on my lap, and picking up her book again.

"I've really been a bad influence on you," I pointed out, running a hand through her hair. 

Lexi looked up from her book, rolling her yes at me, "Please, you think I was a prude before meeting you?"

"You never played along with my jokes before," I pointed out.

Lexi scoffed. "That was because you annoyed me."

I gasped, pressed a hand to my chest. "Ouch, my heart."

My Pumpkin rolled her eyes, and patted my cheek once again. "Don't worry, you don't annoy me that much anymore."

I let my head fall back on the backrest, clasping at my chest now, being very dramatic. "Ah, the pain, the paaaaain."

Lexi snorted, slapping my stomach with the back of her hand. "Shut up Blakey Boy."

I complied, grinning down at her. "As you wish."

Lexi grinned too, understanding the reference. 

I grabbed a book within arms reach as to not disturb my girlfriend, trying to read too, but I was mostly distracted by her, spending more time running my hand through her hair rather than reading.  

And she was conveniently ignoring me, which was impressive. I assumed the book was that good. I knew this about Lexi. She got very engrossed into her reading. I'd noticed it many times before, when we were at school and she was completely ignoring teachers while reading a book during class. 

Eventually I started to see that she was getting sleepier by the second, and I tried really hard not to shake with laughter and disturb her, as she was almost dropping the book in her face.

When she did eventually fall asleep, I caught her book before it could do any damage.

"Ah, what am I going to do with you Pumpkin," I whispered, smiling down at her, my hand cupping the side of her head, my thumb brushing her temple. 

When I was looking at her like this, it was easier to focus on the good things. For so long, I'd wanted to suffer, and made myself only look at the bad things in my life.

But the truth was, even with all the bad, there was a lot of good. I'd just never let myself see it. I had rather be sad and mad. 

I didn't want to do that anymore. 

I wanted to focus on all the good things I did have. I wanted to be happy.

And I wanted the people around me to be happy too. 

I looked at my Pumpkin, still stroking her hair as she slept on my lap. I hoped she had enjoyed her birthday. I hoped she hadn't missed her mother too much. 

I hoped that today would be a good memory for her, one she would cherish like I would. 

I could have stayed sitting like this for a while, but assumed Lexi would hurt her neck sleeping like this, so I managed to get up from the couch without waking up my girlfriend, and then picked her up and took her to my bed. 

She snuggled automatically one of my pillows the second I set her down, making me chuckle soundlessly. 

I left her there and went to take a quick shower before snuggling back into bed beside her. 

Her hands found me before I even had time to grab onto her.

I hadn't known before, that I liked cuddling in bed. I never had anyone to hold while I slept. It was nice to know this little tidbit of information about myself now. 

"I really really love you Lexi. I know I say it a lot, but it doesn't make it any less true," I whispered to her, her head tucked under my chin.

I kissed the top of her head, and the fell asleep with a smile on my face. 

__________________________

Happy Monday my little Pumpkins! <3

I wrote this chapter during my trip to New York and actually like, lost all of it. Everything I wrote while on the plane and in between flights didn't save for some reason. So I had to re-write it. It pissed me off immensely, so hopefully you like it. 

That losing chapter shit is not gonna happen again when I go to England in a couple of weeks. I got better equipped. XD

Anyway! Starting from next week things are getting... spicy. Lexi has been denied for long enough. I prefer to warn y'all. MOUHAHAHAHA. I'm debating on how spicy we're getting on Patreon right now actually. XD (at patreon.com/kariannegiard if you're curious) Anyway, yeah, the heavier stuff is mostly done. It's pretty much all fluff till the accident now. Few sad moments here and there with Jayden's death anniversary and some more conversations with Blake's parents, but for the most part, I think we've touched upon most of the more traumatic things we hadn't had time to deal with in the previous stories. 

I hope you're enjoying how the story is going so far and where it's heading. This book is for you guys after all, so I'm always happy to hear your thoughts on everything. 

Alrighty. Gonna write some more and then try to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. XD

Thank you so much for reading this chapter! I love you guys! See you all next week! :D