Shane's POV
Me and Claire sat downstairs on the couch waiting for Carrie to finish up in the bathroom. I had my arm around Claire's waist and my chin rested on the top of her head. I was happy. Something I never thought I'd ever be again before I met Claire. But here I was, married for almost nineteen years with a sixteen-going-on-seventeen-year-old daughter. My little girl. Not so little anymore, but she'd inherited some of Claire's shortness, so she technically was still my 'little' girl. Although, she hated me pointing that out to her.
We both looked up at the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. For a small girl, she sounded like a herd of elephants. Gotta love her. She came and sat down on my lap, pretty much shoving Claire out of the way. Claire grunted and pushed her back. They were more like best friends or sisters than mother and daughter.
"Hey! Ladies, calm down! Or at least, wait until I'm not in the middle," I said, putting myself between them. They both rolled their eyes and laughed at me. They never really fought or argued, which was surprising. Especially with Carrie being a teenager and all.
We heard a car door slam outside and a few seconds later there was a pounding on the door. Eve and Michael were here! Carrie got up and ran, almost vampire speed, to the door. She swung it open, revealing mine and Claire's best friends. We were all soon hugging and Eve was squealing. Huh, Carrie thought I was bad. I smiled to myself and welcomed my friends with hugs.
"Oh my God it's Christmas!" Eve practically yelled in my ear when I hugged her, I could feel the jittery excitement in her and I knew she was fighting hard to not be jumping up and down; I could feel the tension in her muscles. I saw Carrie roll her eyes over Eve's shoulder.
"I know!" I yelled back, doing my best little kid impression, - jumping up and down included - just to get another eye roll from Carrie. I got one.
Satisfied, we all walked into the living room where Claire was talking to Michael about Morganville and how him and Eve had been since we last saw them. It had been quite a while. Me and Claire moved out of Morganville just before Carrie was born. I refused to bring up my child in that godforsaken town, and it didn't take much convincing to get Claire to move either. We'd moved to a town that was about a three hour drive from Morganville, so we only saw Michael and Eve a few times a year, usually on birthdays and Christmas. As much as I missed my best friends, I knew we'd made the right choice as soon as I saw my baby girl for the first time. Her bright blue eyes staring up at me as I held her in my arms, promising to always keep her safe from any dangers that might ever come her way.
Someone was waving a hand in front of my face, causing me to snap out of my thought bubble. It was Carrie.
"Hellooo, earth to daddy! Anyone in there?" I smiled, still staring off into space. "Nope, he's officially gone crazy. Look," she waved her hand in front of me again. "See? No response at all." She'd turned her back to me to talk to the others, so I took the opportunity to pick her up, throw her over my shoulder and carry her out into to snow-covered garden. I dropped her – gently – onto a pile of snow, where she sat pouting. Michael came out after me and burst out laughing when he saw her facial expression. I had to admit, it was funny. She folded her arms across her chest, mainly because she was trying to act like she was angry, but also because she was sat in the snow and she was cold.
After a few minutes I took pity on her and held out my hand to help her up. She took it and pulled me down so I ended up with a face full of snow. You should've seen that one coming, Shane. I told myself. She was stood up now, laughing with Michael. I balled up some snow and threw it at her, but it missed and hit Michael instead. He stopped laughing and stared at me, a smile forming on his lips. He reached down and picked up some snow to throw back at me, again missing and hitting Carrie. We ended up having a huge snowball fight that lasted almost half an hour before Carrie started shivering and complaining of the cold.
When we went in, Claire and Eve took one look at the three of us and told us to get changed. Our clothes were soaked through with ice-cold water from the melted snow. We all dropped our heads like naughty kids do and made our way upstairs like little troopers. Carrie tripped over some decorations that had fallen from the bottom branches of the over-sized Christmas tree on her way to the stairs and threw them at the nearest wall. She was so much like me it scared me. She hadn't thrown the decorations out of anger or frustration. She'd thrown them because they got in her way and she needed to get revenge. So much like me. She got a laugh out of me and Michael and eventually gave in to the fact that it was funny and started laughing with us.
This was going to be an unforgettable Christmas, I could just tell.
