Alex's PoV

It was Christmas morning and I had already started on the stuffed chickens. Reggie and Bobby were still fast asleep in their hotel rooms but I was wide awake by six in the morning. We had pulled into a hotel for the night after hitting some bars but it wasn't far from where we lived and I couldn't sleep any more as I was excited to get going. So I jogged home quickly and started cooking around seven. I also was rather concerned about Julie's well being, Reggie hadn't seen what Luke had planned but I had caught him in the act of setting up the spa room a few nights ago. He promised he would listen to her if she said no but I still couldn't help worrying as an older brother. She loved him and I knew she would say yes for him and not think about herself.

I was currently tenderizing some steak which was rather appropriate for my mood at the moment. The two chickens were downstairs roasting and the turkey was to my left roasting away. I was beginning to set up the seafood and steak for Reggie when he came home, I figured we could have a Christmas lunch instead.

I heard Julie come down the stairs, her footsteps were always lighter and slower than Luke's thundering feet that were so childlike, Reggie's were always quick and light. I washed my hands and poured her a coffee.
"Merry Christmas Alex! Do you need help at all?" she asked sleepily as she came over to hug me gently and take a sip of her coffee.
"Merry Christmas Julie, no i'm fine. Look I know what happened last night and I just wanted to know that you're okay? Do I need to go murder Luke? I told him not to but he insisted that he would listen to you" I said staring her full on. She looked away blushing scarlet red before meeting my eyes again.
"No it's fine, he listened and it was actually the best night ever, I've never felt that much before, he was very gentle" she mumbled.
"Alright good, you just look like hell is all" I smirked, relaxing a little at her words.
"Yeah everything is very sore, I don't know how he has that much stamina!" she said, sinking to the floor against the cupboard with her coffee.
I passed her a plate with some of her cookies and brownies on top and sat down next to her with a coffee of my own.
"Well if he is too much and doesn't listen to you, me and Reggie can talk to him or we can disappear more often?" I asked with another smirk on my face.
"Maybe disappear more often?" she said with a small blush in her cheeks.
"Alright then, why don't you go sit on the couch and watch some TV?" I asked.
"I'm good down here, it was hard enough getting down the stairs, i'll just sit here for a bit if that's okay?" "Here, give me those" I said gently, pulling her coffee and plate away and placing them on the floor. I then scooped her up and carried her to the breakfast bar despite her giggles and returned with her coffee and cookies.

I continued preparing meat while we chatted freely about a number of topics. Julie was probably the only girl I had ever really talked to before and she was very non judgmental so I tried to be the same with her also. It meant we could easily delve into conversations about her and Luke.
"Oh my gosh what did he think of the outfit? You've had that forever!" I asked excitedly, causing her to giggle.
"He liked it a lot, I was thinking we should try to find a dark purple or bright red one next?" she said wickedly.
"Oh we should go shopping tomorrow on boxing day then! Oh and there's a toy that does what Luke did to you but to him that I think you would be interested in as pay back. Here let me wash my hands and I'll go find it on my phone"
Julie snickered at my idea and was happy with the picture that I showed her once she realized she could strap it on and he couldn't escape if he was correctly shackled.
"You could then walk away and take a shower or watch a movie while tormenting him like he did to you!" I said. It had taken her around ten minutes to wake up fully then she had spilled the beans in great detail of what he had done not that I couldn't have guessed as much from what I had seen in the steam room. I was very tempted to remind him that he should be more of a gentleman and romantic but then when she filled me in on how he took care of her afterwards melted my heart.

Reggie eventually came in with Bobby trailing behind and after a quick hello and Merry Christmas wishes, they went off to shower. I had pulled the chickens out down stairs and replaced the oven with some roasted vegetables with garlic then went to go base the Turkey. It had to be based every now and then although I had never cooked one before so that should be a fun adventure. Reggie eventually came back down and took over what was left of skewing the meat ready to cook on the barbecue. I helped Julie off of the bar stool while Reggie wasn't looking and we made our way to the couch to watch a Christmas movie called The Muppet Christmas Carol which was one I was familiar with. I made sure she had a bottle of water and a blanket before I sat down next to her.

I felt my phone buzz after a minute and looked at it, it was from Reggie.

Is Julie okay? - R
Yeah she's just sore, Luke wore her out like a fifteen year old is all -A
Do I need to murder him? -R
Nah, she said she actually had the best night thankfully. Lets just make sure Luke lets her rest for a few days? -A
Oh slumber party in the lounge, hell ye! -R
If she can walk, I'm taking her shopping tomorrow by the way. -A
If she can walk? She can't walk? That's it, I'm going to have a chat with him. -R
Keep it discrete, I already told her I wouldn't -A
Fine, Slumber party for half a week then. -R
Sounds good -A

Thankfully Julie had begun to doze off and had paid no attention to me texting back and forth with Reggie. I carefully sneaked out from under her legs and pulled the blankets up around her shoulders. I then helped Reggie finish up in the kitchen before he headed out to the deck to BBQ away. I was going to help him take the hot food back inside so it would stay hot and Bobby helped by assisting with the turkey and taking out the vegetables when they were done.

Luke eventually slunked downstairs half awake and wished us all Merry Christmas as we made our way inside with the last of the food. Julie was sitting up having barely woken up and was drinking some of her water. All that needed to come out now was the turkey and the slow cooked lamb so I started working on the three gravies and made Luke come assist. One was going to be a lamb gravy, another a chicken and another turkey. All had the juices of the meat and it was going to be mouth watering. Reggie and Bobby helped set up the table with plates and the food we had covered up to keep warm. We had made so many dishes that we had to extend the table to fit all the food. I saw that Julie managed to stand and walk to sit down at the table and Reggie passed her a glass of wine which she gratefully downed. I turned on some Christmas music to play softly in the background starting with classic Michael Bublè.

A few minutes later we were carrying the last of the items to the table sitting down. I sat next to Julie and Luke sat on the other end after a chaste kiss good morning to her temple. Bobby and Reggie sat opposite us and soon we were passing food around. The chicken with stuffing was beautiful next to the slow cooked lamb with seafood and meat skewers. We had lobster tail, satay chicken skewers, steak and mushroom skewers, shrimp and muscle skewers, smoked salmon, fried salmon, crab legs and several pitchers of wine. Everything was mouth watering. Reggie and I had decided not to do rice or bread and just do more meat since it was more what everyone enjoyed anyway. There were roast vegetables and we figured that would be enough. We ate our fill then made our way to the Christmas tree to open presents. Luke had gotten Julie a beautiful heart shaped locket that had a picture of her mother on one side and another picture of Julie and Luke on the other. It was engraved around the edge of the picture of Julie and Luke "I will always love you". It was very cute and Julie gave him a quick kiss and let him put it around her neck then gave him another hug.

Next Julie gave Luke his present which was a new notebook, some guitar strings, a vinyl record player from the eighties with some of his favorite old records that were very hard to find, and noise canceling headphones. Julie then opened the present from me and Reggie. We had given her a very expensive wolf necklace of a wolf snarling with rubies for its eyes, as it was one of her favorite animals and we made sure it hung low enough that she could wear both gifts if she wanted to. It went with a viking style wolf bangle that had matching ruby eyes and had two wolf heads. There was also a wolf throw blanket to go with the ensemble. "Ohmigosh thank you guys sooo much!" she said as she got up bear hugging me first around the neck and then Reggie.

We then opened our presents next, Julie had given me a few of Taylor swift's albums, some noise canceling headphones, a massive Taylor swift poster that was already framed and signed as well as a hoodie from her clothing line. I had to get up and hug Julie as it was perfect and exactly what I wanted. Reggie had opened guitar strings, a new amp since his one was beginning to die and some new flannel shirts and hoodies that I had helped her pick out.

"Aww thank you Julie, this is perfect!" He said as he came over to give her a hug. Bobby had given Julie some new clothes that I had helped him pick out and had given Reggie and Luke, guitar strings and new pedals that made rad sounds with their guitars. He gave me a keypad that I apparently could build music with. He said he would show me later so I was super excited to see how this would work. We had decided on giving him collectively the only thing we could give someone that could buy the world, a signed CD of our music that we had written together. We had managed to record it secretly and he would be the only person to have the CD for at least a few months.

After presents were done we decided to move onto some desert while popping crackers between us that had further small gifts. There was so much dessert, pavlova, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, eclairs, rum balls, fruit cake, fruit pies. My personal favorite was the chocolate log with mint whipped cream with chocolate chunks in the middle dusted with icing sugar on top.

When everyone was done eating I helped Reggie pack everything else away and Bobby helped also. We would be eating leftovers for some time and Reggie carved half the turkey up and froze it for soup later. Julie and Luke were working on carrying the plates over to the dishwasher.

It was around four in the afternoon and the sun was beginning to set so Bobby headed out with Reggie to start working on building a fire in our fire pit, while I set out the chairs and found the marshmallows and biscuits. I sent Luke off to the garage to find the pokers and outside blankets.

I turned off the Christmas music that had been quietly playing in the background and grabbed a few of our acoustic guitars and my Cajon. We thankfully had taken everything out of the cave before the move since we knew we wouldn't be going back there any time soon.

Once we were all sitting around the bonfire and it was steadily growing, I started handing out drinks of whisky or eggnog with baileys and we soon started singing some campfire songs. It was a magical way to start the evening and soon we were roasting some marshmallows and making smores. Bobby loved Julie's reactions as she devoured her first few and was informed it was something she hadn't done till recently. But she shrugged it off and smiled happily which brightened his mood.

Later that evening we had set off some fireworks before heading inside for some hot chocolate and movies in front of the fireplace. Eventually around midnight Bobby retired to his room to sleep while the rest of us went to our rooms to get into pajamas. However we had previously discussed with Julie that we were going to do a slumber party so she promptly got dressed in her room before heading down stairs and joining me and Reggie in front of the TV to watch more Christmas movies. It took Luke a few minutes to realize we were down here and Julie was already fast asleep curled into my side, her head on my collar bone, her arm resting on my chest, with my arm around her shoulders. The couch pulled out into a king size bed so we were both lying down but propped up on some pillows, Reggie had moved over to make room for Luke to squeeze between him and Julie not that it mattered as she was passed out and snoring away. Luke didn't even try to wake her, just left her where she was.
"Don't feel bad Luke, she fell asleep as soon as the movie started, she's been exhausted all day" I said, to try make Luke feel better since he was pouting slightly.
"Did she say something?" he asked softly.
"Oh she told me everything Luke, every single detail" I said enjoying the wince that showed on his face.
After some time of silence I decided to be nice.
"She loved every moment Luke, she's just exhausted is all"
Luke smiled like a kid who just was given a chocolate cake to eat.
"However if you touch her again without letting her rest properly, you and I are having some discussions Luke" said Reggie as he gently patted his shoulder.
Luke just nodded politely and settled down next to Julie to watch the movie. He kept his hands to himself and I couldn't help but smile to myself. How did Reggie and I become the father roles here?