Christmas and Wrapping Paper

I rolled my eyes, "What happened to my choice?"

He smiled a goofy, gorgeous smile. "Well, that was before, when I thought you would except my offer."

"But then when I didn't, you thought you could take away my rights, it's a free country, you know." I was teasing him and his amber eyes sparkled with delight.

"Okay, to make it up to you how about I act like a complete gentleman."

"That works," I giggled at his silliness.

"Well Miss, how about that tour? Oh, and how about I bow down and kiss your feet?" He could barely keep from laughing as he said this.

"And while your at it, why don't you polish my shoes." I was laughing by now.

"Alright Miss, let's take a tour." He said taking my delicate hand in his and whisked me away.

Looking in all directions, I began to speak. "Why is she called Wrapping Paper?" I lowered my voice so no one could hear me except for the boy at my side. It didn't really matter anyway because the hall we were in was deserted.

Nick furrowed his brow in worry. "She arrived here when she was very young, a baby actually, but old enough to remember her own name. There was no card to identify her so she was the only one who knew. She refused to say what it was so we had to call her something."

"Yeah, but Wrapping Paper is a horrible nickname." I was so confused.

"She arrived on our doorstep on Christmas. This is the kitchen," he said interrupting his own thought. "Anyways, she was wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper, it was really sad. I was working on getting her to disclose her name to me, but one of the little brats called her Wrapping Paper."

"So if it was just one of the kids then what did the rest o them call her?" I inquired trying to rack up as much information about the bizarre little girl as possible.

"This is the living room," he persisted with the tour even though I was clearly not interested. "Orphanages are just like schools, when one person says something it spreads like wildfire. I think after a while I would have gotten her name out of her, but with something else to be called she refused to tell anyone." He seemed just as concerned about her as I was.

"That's so sad." It was one of those, duh, statements, but I just couldn't keep it from slipping out.

Nick stopped abruptly and I stopped with him, I had no choice, I just realized our hands were still adjoined. "Yes, it is. And I want it fixed, I bet if she had a normal name she wouldn't be bullied. These kids are mean, just because they've had bad lives doesn't mean they aren't vicious. They tear her apart and just because she blows it off doesn't mean it doesn't hurt her on the inside." His eyes were so full of affection, I never realized guys actually had emotions. I just thought they were like the shallow, over privileged guys I grew up with.

He seemed so protective and sweet that it was a struggle for me to keep myself from kissing him right there. "I'll do my best to help her, okay." I was looking up into his eyes, he had to bend down pretty far to talk to me because he was so tall. Looking into his face I saw so many emotions, most of them I couldn't identify, but all of them good.

"We should keep going," He declared.

What was that? It was a moment, but a moment of what? Questions flooded my brain, none of them I could answer and I wasn't about to ask Nick. As I pondered, we continued my tour of the creaky old building.