CHAPTER 7
The next evening they enjoyed a wonderful Christmas dinner with Arizona's parents, and before they went to bed, they built Callie's first ever snow man in the dark garden.
When Arizona walked into the guest room after having helped her mom load up the dishwasher, Callie was undressing in the dark, a faint ray of moonshine lighting up the curves of her body.
The sight made Arizona's heart race.
Callie turned around, only wearing panties.
"Hey" Callie said unaware of her effect on the blonde.
"Hey" Arizona breathed out.
Callie got into bed, put on her reading glasses and started going through a budget report.
Arizona didn't move and just simply stared at the latina. She loved to see Callie working.
A minute passed, and then Callie looked up from her papers.
"Are you coming? Or are you just going to stand there and stare all night?" Callie asked the blonde with a crooked smile and pulled back the covers to make room for her girlfriend.
"I have something for you" Arizona blurted out. She took three determined steps across the room and got a small package out of her suitcase.
Then she crawled onto the bed and sat down next to Callie.
She looked down at the package as if she was contemplating whether to actually give it to the brunette or not. And then she handed it Callie.
"It's not diamonds, but it's still from the heart" she said.
Callie reached out and took the gift. She looked at Arizona.
"Isn't this breaking the Christmas rules? I thought we had to wait till the morning?"
"I want you to have it now" the blonde simply said.
Callie started opening the gift without taking her eyes off Arizona.
When the wrapping paper had come off, a small black box was revealed.
Callie opened it and squinted her eyes as she looked at what was in it.
She lifted out a long gold chain with a flat, square pendant, and studied what was engraved into the pendant. It only took her 10 seconds to realize, and even though the blonde could tell that Callie knew, she confirmed it to the brunette in words.
"It's the outline of the floor plan of the apartment in Queens. Where you lived with your parents"
Callie stared at the pendant. The gold felt cool in her hand, but inside her body she was close to combustion. She couldn't look the blonde in the eyes. She was afraid that the softness of Arizona's features, the arch of her upper lip, and the warm look in her blue eyes would make her fall to pieces.
She swallowed thickly.
Billionaire Callie was tough. Everything she did was carefully directed. She hardly ever made a wrong move in business because she always knew – by pure instinct – where to go and what to do.
The Callie who was in love with Arizona was also tough. But she had a softer side. A fragile side. A less collected side. And she had just been given the best and most meaningful present of her life. And the feelings it evoked were threatening to push her over the edge of tears.
She swallowed again.
"Thank you" she croaked "It's...I love it"
She finally gathered the courage to look up and meet Arizona's eyes.
The blonde gave her a loving smile.
It's what broke Callie.
The tears that escaped her eyes were burning hot against her skin, and she felt so much love in that moment.
Sitting in a small guestroom in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska with the amazing Arizona Robbins, she couldn't imagine anywhere else she would rather spend Christmas night.
