I Never Told You

Christmas Eve was running along smoothly. After Gabe and I had let it out to his family that we were “seeing each other,” we all had a great brunch followed by a small movie marathon, which. Cecelia went into the kitchen to start on dinner when Gabe and I were left alone in the living room with Bea and Tony. We all looked at each other in silence. It felt like it was straight out of a horror flick, one of us just waiting to see who the trigger’s going to be pulled on. I looked over at Gabe and saw that he was giving Bea a look. Looking over at Bea, I saw the looked mirrored on her face. I didn’t know what was going on, but before I could break the silence, Tony cleared his throat.

“Well, I’m going to go help your mother in the kitchen. You kids be good, huh?”

We all nodded and Bea shot me a slight smirk. I shook my head and bit back a chuckle.

“So, what do you girls want to do?”

Bea shrugged her shoulders. “I’m kinda tired, so I think I’m going to take a nap before dinner.”

Gabe smirked over at her. “Okay, well you go do that,” he looked over at me with a raised eyebrow, “and what about you?”

I shrugged my shoulders as well. “I don’t know. I’m not that tired, but I don’t really know what to do. This is your place, why don’t you pick what we do?”

He smiled at me. “I have an idea.”

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Gabe’s POV

I had convinced Katy to go outside. I didn’t really know what I had planned. All I knew is that I wanted to get away from my family for a bit and have some alone time with Katy before she goes back to Sweden. We were walking down the street and saw a small path that lead into what looked like a forest. If the sun had gone down, I wouldn’t have attempted to go down the path. However, since it was still light out and the trees looked beautiful covered in snow. I laced my fingers through Katy’s and pulled her with me.

“Gabe, I don’t want to walk anymore. Why are we here?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Is it a crime to want to go for a walk with your…..girlfriend?”

She raised her eyebrow at me. “Girlfriend? Am I your….girlfriend?”

I turned to face her and held both of her hands in mine.

“If you want to be.”

“I do, but I don’t want you to ask me just because your family found out about us…doing whatever it is we’re doing.”

I looked into her eyes and saw a hint of fear and doubt. Before I could think of words to say, I pulled her into me and placed my lips on hers. She was caught a bit off guard, but I felt her lean into me a little more and kiss back. When I pulled away, she had a smile on her face. I placed my forehead on hers and looked into her eyes once more.

“I’m asking you because I want you to be.” I smiled at her. “I know it’s going to be hard, what with us being half a world apart and all, but I believe in this; in us.”

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Katy’s POV

I smiled at Gabe. As much as I wanted to believe him, I found myself thinking back to the phone call with my mom. I sighed and closed my eyes.

“Why does it have to be like this? All this pressure is making me bonkers. I just want to enjoy this time together.”

I opened my eyes and looked up at him. I could see his smile faltered a little bit. “I guess I should’ve thought twice about the mistletoe thing.”

I scoffed. “No! That’s not what I meant. That was sweet. I just wish that your mom didn’t know. Or at least if she did, she wouldn’t have said some things that made my head spin.”

“Well, what did she say that bothered you? Was it the stuff she said in your room?”

I didn’t know if I wanted to tell him. I was worried it would make him more scared than I was. I shook my head, thus informing him that stuff was said after he had left the kitchen. He rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Katy, this isn’t going to go very far if we don’t talk about things.”

I hung my head and sighed. “She talked about grandchildren and how I was sent to your family for a reason. It just brought on so much pressure. Like, am I supposed to be with you just because your mom says she sees me as the girl you can have a long future with?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Katy, I don’t really know what to say. I am happy that my mom likes you, but I don’t see that as the only reason for us to be together.”

“But are we even together? Sure, we had a small fling in the summer. Which, by the way, made me realize that I will never do ‘flings’ ever again. Then now, we text and kissed in front of your mom. Oh, and your family is in an uproar about us. They have more faith in this relationship than we do.”

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Gabe’s POV

As Katy’s words sunk in, I could see where she was coming from. But, I didn’t take her out of the apartment for a walk to argue. I wanted to talk, away from my family, preferably. I guess that was what we were doing, just not in the fashion I wanted to.

“Well, I don’t know what you want me to say, but I do want to be with you. I’m sorry about all of the pressure from my family. They mean well, I’m sure. Why don’t we just enjoy these last few days that you’re here and go from there, yeah?”

I heard her sigh as she hung her head and looked at her feet. She was shifting on the balls of her feet while she thought about my question. Just when I thought that she was going to walk away from me, she grabbed a hold of one of my hands and laced her fingers through mine. I moved my gaze and locked my eyes with hers. She smiled and stepped closer to me. Reaching up, she placed a hand behind my neck. Closing the gap between us, she placed her lips on mine. Pulling away, a smile stayed on her face and one word escaped her mouth. I never knew how many emotions rested on four little letters. As she saw the smile grow on my face, the small word escaped her lips.

“Okay.”

I lightly pecked her lips and keeping her hand in mine, walked her further into the trees. I began to slow my pace down almost to the point that I was just lightly shuffling my boots in the snow. Katy squeezed my hand and I looked down at her.

“Hey, you okay?” She asked me with a look of slight concern.

“Yeah,” I nodded, “I’m great, why?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, you slowed right down, so I thought there was a problem.”

“No. No problem.”

She gave me a slightly confused look, but continued walking alongside me.

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Katy’s POV

I was a little taken aback by Gabe slowing down, but when he told me it was nothing, I just shrugged it off. A part of me thought it was a little sweet. Almost as though he wanted to slow down so the walk would last longer. We walked for about five minutes before I heard Gabe’s shuffling come to a stop. I was taking in the scenery around us to notice really. I had taken a few extra steps, but felt his hand pull me back slightly. I looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

“What’s up?”

He nodded his head towards whatever was in front of him. I shifted my gaze to his face to where he had his eyes focused on. When I took it all in, I couldn’t hide the smile on my face. I looked back over to Gabe, who had a beaming smile on his face.

“Did you plan this?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I had some help.”

I thought about it for a second, then it clicked. “Bea. This is why she left while we watched movies, wasn’t it?”

He nodded his head and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Please don’t look at this as my family pressuring us. I went to Bea for this myself. I wanted to do this. It was actually hard to get Bea to agree. She loves the Christmas movie marathon.”

I looked around me as he spoke. Taking in the entire scene. In my entire life, I never thought I would see a winter picnic as romantic. But seeing as how beautiful the trees looked as the snow clung to the branches and it lightly covered the ground, it made everything look beautiful. I walked around the blanket and looked up at Gabe.

“You didn’t have to do this, you know.”

He sighed and sat down on the beautiful. I grabbed it and he pulled me into his lap. “I know, but I wanted to. I wanted to spend some time with you. Is it a crime that I wanted to make it a little romantic?”

I was happy that there was a slight chill in the air, so Gabe couldn’t see how much I was blushing. “No, I guess not.”

He reached up and placed a hand on my cheek. With his hand, I moved my face towards his. I closed the gap between us, once again making the first move, placing my lips on his. “This is perfect.” I whispered as I pulled away.

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Gabe’s POV

Katy and I had arrived back at the house just in time for dinner. It wasn’t a long “date,” if you could call it that, but it was nice. We both walked back into my apartment with smile plastered on our faces. When Katy spotted Bea, she immediately walked over to her and enveloped her in a hug. I wasn’t expecting that, but it was nice to see. I smiled t the interaction, and looked over at my mom. She had a slight smirk on her face. I didn’t bother asking what it was about, I just smiled back.

Yeah, this Christmas is gonna be great.