Their First Christmas Part 2
December 24th to 25th, 2016
Poulos & Smythe Family Homes
East York & Mississauga, ON
When Jon woke the next morning, the first thing he noticed was the lack of red head lying comfortably beside him. It wasn't the first time, there had been plenty of mornings where one of them was not next to the other when they woke, but for some strange reason it felt strange this morning. For one, he was in her old room at her parents' house, a room that he had only ever used to change before now, and for another, the room looked pretty bare in comparison to the photos he had seen of it. The shelves that had once donned the walls were no longer there, the posters were gone and the mirror that once held so many pictures of her childhood, now donned the mirror in the closet in her apartment that he tried not to enter for his own safety.
"Oh yay, you're up," Kaylee cheered, as she walked into the room, wrapped in a fluffy red robe, her Christmas present pyjama pants peaking through and the Santa's hat, she had donned for last night's round of gift giving on her head once more, "Luke has been whining for the past hour. He's dying to get a look at the gifts that are under the tree. I swear to you, my brother's normal, I just don't where the aliens took him that one time." Jon chuckled to himself as she handed him the cup of coffee that she held in her hands.
"Don't deny it, Red, you were probably just as bad as he is an hour ago," Jon laughed, before taking a sip of the coffee, "You wouldn't be up here with a spare cup of coffee in your hands if you weren't." Kaylee scowled at him and narrowed her eyes jokingly.
"I like Christmas morning, what are you going to do? Sue me? It's bad enough my parents were making us wait as long as they did, but with the added time of waiting for you to wake up was pure torture."
"Oh really," Jon chuckled, placing both cups of coffee on the nightstand next to her old bed, "Pure torture? Hmm, what would you say if I-" Quickly Jon pulled Kaylee into his arms and the covers over their head, earning himself a delightful little shriek. Wrapping her arms around Jon's neck, Kaylee couldn't help, but smile up at him. She loved this playful side of him. Sure, she got to see a lot of it when they were surrounded by his friends, but there was a special kind of playfulness when it was just them one on one.
"Morning beautiful," Jon hummed, leaning down to kiss her on the nose.
"Mmm, morning handsome," she hummed back in response, "Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas to you too," Jon chuckled, pulling her closer to him than she already was, "I have something for you-"
"All of the gifts are supposed to be under the tree," Kaylee chastised playfully, her eyes darting around for a sign of a gift that he may have hidden before they had fallen into bed the night before, "We're not supposed to be hiding up in my room when my brother is probably making my mother and father rip their-" Jon quickly cut her off with a kiss to the lips. Laughing into the kiss, Kaylee placed a delicate hand on his cheek. She loved mornings like this one. With his busy road and tour schedule, there were days that she missed these moments the most. It was tough not being on the road anymore; the matches, the interviews and the responsibilities keeping her mind off of how much she would miss him on a daily basis.
"I want you to travel with me," Jon whispered to her, "It's gotta be hard; stuck in your apartment all the time, thinking up errands to run just to get you out of the house and you already have the rehab exercises that your doctor wants you to do for your neck to get better, so come on. Come on the road with me, please?" Kaylee looked up at him wide eyed. Travel with him until she was cleared to get back in the ring?
"But, but, what about my other doctor appointments, Salem, the appearances that I, I, I," Kaylee stuttered up at him, her eyes still wide from what he was asking her, "Jon, I would love to go on the road with you and be with you every second of every day, but I-I can't." Jon smiled down at her and nodded all the same. He understood where she was coming from and he knew that she couldn't just pack up her things and go on the road with him. She wasn't like some of the other girls that the wrestlers were dating or were married to; she had a career and a life outside of their relationship and she wasn't privy to what he was planning to do the moment that he found that perfect ring to place on her finger.
"Then, Red, how about you move in with me," Jon tried, leaning down to press a chaste kiss to Kaylee's lips once more, "If you can't come on the road with me, than move in with me?" Kaylee looked up at him wide eyes once more. Sure, they had exchanged keys and made sure, that they both had a way into one another's apartment, but moving in together? They haven't even discussed it before now.
"Come on, Red," Jon chuckled, "We're practically living together anyway. I spend most of my time at your apartment or with you at mine and it doesn't matter who's apartment we actually live in, I just-I just want to be with you and spend whatever time I have off coming home to you instead of going back to an empty apartment until you get there or living out of a suitcase when I come to visit you." Kaylee bit her lip, but a smile came shining through. She wanted that too.
"You finally beat me at something," she whispered to him, causing Jon to look at her with a confused expression.
"My lease is up in June," Kaylee explained, her eyes shining up at him "And well, I was going to contact my real estate agent, so he could begin looking for a small starter home. I was going to ask if you wanted to start looking for a place that we could both call home, but if you want to stay in Vegas, I guess we could, um-" Jon cut the Canadian off with another kiss to the lips.
"I've become quite fond of Toronto," he told her, as he pulled away from her, "Think we could find somewhere in Toronto, that we both could make and call home?"
"As long as I'm with you, I think I could," she whispered to him, "Plus, I have six months to find somewhere and another six months to make it ours according to Dr. Walters at least. What do you think?"
"I think-"
"I think I sent you up here to wake your boyfriend, not make out with him," Luke interrupted, pulling the blankets off of his sister and her boyfriend, "Come on woman, there are presents to open and it's bad enough that Mom and Dad were making me wait, that I could deal with, but you, my own sister, who loves Christmas morning just as much as I do, making me wait. I consider that an act of betrayal."
"An act of betrayal," Kaylee repeated, looking at her brother before rolling her eyes, "Really?"
"Yes, really, now, let's go, let's go! This is not a drill people, there are presents under that Christmas tree and we have to be at Grandma's for two."
"You are worst than a little kid, you know that right?"
"How did you, but, I mean, no," Kaylee stuttered, as she continued to look at the shoes in the box Jon had given her as they all sat around the Christmas tree enjoying the gifts that they had just opened, "I've been looking for this specific pair Louboutins since I was eighteen. Where did you find them and how did you know about them?" Jon smiled placing his new wrestling boots with the 'Dean Ambrose' insignia on them, which had been one of the gifts from her, back on the floor.
"Jenn," he answered simply, "I was wondering what to get you because you know what do you buy the woman that has all the shoes she could ever ask for and refuses to start a handbag collection to go with them, and well, she mentioned the Louboutins with the silver snake heel. And as for where I found them, well, that'll be my little secret for now, maybe I'll let you in on it, maybe I won't, I mean if you have other shoes that have been escaping your grasp, I need to be able to buy you gifts." Kaylee laughed, while shaking her head. She really couldn't believe that in her hands was the one pair of Louboutin shoes that had been evading her since she saw them while doing some online browsing.
"You think maybe you'll lay off the shoes for a little bit," Jon asked, a hint of humor in his voice, "I mean, I know you have a lot of shoes and house hunting is going to be bad enough, but it's only going to get worse if we have to look for a home with a closet large enough to display all of your shoes-"
"Her apartment didn't even come with that closet," Luke interrupted, not bothering to look up from the small guitar model that he was polishing, "It was some sort of office or whatever and she had it converted into a place to hold all of her shoes."
"I could afford it, and I needed a bigger closet," Kaylee defended, looking at Jon after rolling her eyes, "You've seen how many shoes I have and that closet is bursting at the seams."
"It wasn't when you had it converted," Luke added, causing Kaylee to look at him pointedly, while Jon tried to his best to stifle his laughter. There was something about the way that Luke and Kaylee insisted on bickering whenever they got together that he found extremely amusing. Maybe it was the way, that it seemed like they still lived together or maybe it was the fact that their parents completely ignored them while they did it; all he knew was that he found amusing, and almost kind of endearing that they had that kind of relationship.
"Oh, I'm sorry, at least I don't just a room for my guitars, half of which you don't even use. You use one, one and that is it," Kaylee shot back at her brother, causing Jon to chuckle out loud, "I, at least, wear my shoes."
"Oh really," Luke argued, "Do you really want to talk about which shoes you wear because I am fairly sure that-"
"Enough," their father cut off, "Both of you need to start getting ready. We need to be at your grandmother's house in a couple of hours and I do not want to be there long, okay? When we get back, we'll have dinner and then we'll play some monopoly. Luke, I'm sure your sister wants to start using that new set that we bought her/" Luke and Kaylee nodded their argument stopping in its tracks before it could get any farther. Kissing Jon on cheek, Kaylee quick got to her feet and raced her way up the stairs and into the bathroom she and her brother had once shared before Luke could even comprehend what had happened and that he would have to wait until his sister was done with the bathroom before he could even start to get ready.
"So," Luke sighed, shooting a glare towards the stairs as he heard the shower start, "I thought you were going to propose this morning, but obviously not. Are you going to propose at dinner or at our grandmother's because-"
"I don't even have a ring yet," Jon answered, smiling to himself slightly, "I mean, she, uh, she deserves the best and I don't even know where to start looking. Joe and Colby are going to come with me when we all get back on the road, but-"
"Tiffany's," Luke offered, "When in doubt start at Tiffany's. My pain in the ass sister is a complete sucker for the classics-"
"Luke, she has a gold ear cuff that she wears on the daily just to piss certain people off," Alexia chuckled with an amused look at her husband, "I don't think you can describe an ear cuff as a classic." Jon sighed, and fiddled with his thumbs a little bit.
"I guess I'll just know it when I see it."
Kaylee yawned as she and Jon got ready for a quiet night in bed after coming home from dinner with her parents. It had been a long, exhausting day and if she was honest with herself, she just couldn't wait to climb into bed, cuddle up with her boyfriend and fall asleep to whatever Christmas movie was playing at that exact moment. Jon was already lying in bed in a pair of sweat pants that he kept in the top drawer of the dresser that she barely used anymore.
"Hey, uh, I got to ask you something," Jon started, flipping through the channels to find a Christmas movie that didn't involve the words White Christmas having enough of said movie the night before, "Colby's thinking about getting a promise ring for Saraya-"
"They've only been dating a couple of months," Kaylee commented, poking her head out of her closet as she took her jewelry off, "Why would he want to buy her a promise ring this soon in the relationship?"
"I don't know, I told him that it was a bad idea, but the so-called architect never listens to me," Jon answered, with a very obvious eye roll, "But, uh, the thing is, is she doesn't have any rings that she doesn't wear on a daily basis like you do, and he wants to get her one without her exactly being there-"
"So, he needs a ring to get the right measurement without her knowing," Kaylee finished for him, climbing into the bed under the covers beside him as he settled on the Jenny McCarthy movie Santa Baby, "What does this have to do with what you want to ask me?"
"Well, Saraya mentioned trying on a few of your rings at Harbor Wars 2015," Jon explained, running his hand up and down her arm as she shivered against the cold, "And he was wondering if maybe, I could bring one of the rings with me and he could use that for the size comparison." Kaylee thought about it for a moment. There was something in Jon's voice that was telling her that this promise ring story wasn't the entire reason behind why Colby wanted to borrow one of her rings, but she could also tell that Jon didn't want to or wasn't ready to tell her the entire story.
"I think I remember which ones she tried on," Kaylee reckoned, looking up at the American with a small, sleepy smile, "Just remind me to pack it in my suitcase for you before we leave. Oh, and since Mom and I aren't going Boxing Day shopping tomorrow, do you want to maybe start going over what we would want in a house?"
"A working furnace would be nice," Jon chuckled, wrapping his body tightly around the red head's as he felt her shiver against him once more. Kaylee chuckled as she pressed her face into the crook of his neck.
"That would be nice," she whispered softly, "With a large shoe closet, ooo, and maybe even a hot tub or a heated pool. I really like the idea of having somewhere warm to go right now. Maybe, we should have spent Christmas in Las Vegas. What do you think something we could do next year?"
"Whatever you want, Red, whatever you want."
"No, don't say that," Colby laughed, as he watched the couple continue their conversation, "Don't promise her whatever she wants, she'll, she'll, she'll-Joe, Claudio, help me out here."
"As long as you don't start handing over the credit card like Lopez does from time to time you should be just fine," Joe assured his friend as Jon looked at him wide eyed, "I'm fairly sure Leighla and Zahra had it on hand for whenever he stuck his foot in his mouth or did something he shouldn't have."
"Plus, I'm sure, Kaylee wouldn't want you going broke," Claudio insisted, "She seems like a very down to Earth girl that would prefer to spend her own money instead of somebody else's. I think your problem is going to be, making sure that she gets what she deserves or beating her to buying it." Xander laughed and shook his head as the men in front of him interacted. They were right; completely and utterly right?"
"So, X-Man, does Jonny Boy propose anytime soon," Colby asked, slapping a hard hand on the time traveller's shoulder, "I want to see how he does it and how she reacts to that bullshit story about me and a promise ring? It is a bullshit story right?" Xander rolled his eyes at the man beside him and just shook his head.
"You know, I never really understood that nickname," Xander commented, looking down at the watch as he set a new date and time, "I mean, yeah, sure, everybody calls me Xander, with the exception of when Mom and Dad use the full name on me when they're angry at something I did, but my actual name starts with an A."
"A-man," Colby tried before shaking his head, "Nah, X-man sounds a lot cooler."
A/N: No proposal yet, but I promise it'll happen…within the next six months. We have a few things that we need to get through first. New Years, The Royal Rumble, maybe an appearance at the Triathlon, maybe someone has to lose a title and a certain stable has split up, but I promise you, you will see a proposal. And they're moving in together, so don't send the lynch mob after me quite yet.
Still accepting entries for that Trailer contest; it's easy just create a trailer for 'Your Past, My Future' and PM me the link. Best of luck – winner announced on October 25th.
Don't forget to let me know what you think.
xo