Chapter 12: All I Want For Christmas Is You

I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree.

I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you

—All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey

Olivia was organizing things in her locker, chugging down her coffee in attempt to wake herself up because she hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before, but she got the perfect wakeup call when she heard, "LIV!" Being hollered across the hallway by Abby, causing several people to give her annoyed glances, but that didn't stop her from scurrying over to Olivia with the giddiest of smiles on her face.

"What's up?" Olivia asks.

"You won't believe what I just saw while reading GQ magazine. You're going to love it!"

"Abby, I don't care for the shirtless men in GQ…" Olivia tells her like she has a thousand times since Abby seemed to have affinity for gay models with great abs.

"Would you stop being a stuck up bitch for a second and hear me out? This is going to blow your mind!"

"Fine. Show me," Olivia says, giving up.

Abby flips the magazine open to the page where her thumb is acting as a bookmark and shows Olivia what she's talking about.

"Yeah, he has some great pecs but I don't see—oh, my gosh…is that—?" She says, pointing a shaky finger at the model.

"Mmhmm!" Abby squeals. "Can you believe it? Mr. Grant—a model!"

Olivia takes the magazine from Abby and looks carefully, not believing what her eyes are seeing. She takes in the four different images of Fitz, all with him shirtless and wearing a pair of jeans—the first has him laying down, propping himself up by his elbows on a wooden deck and looking at the camera intensely. The second has him reaching behind his head and holding the nape of his neck, facing the camera as he bites down on his bottom lip. The third is of him leaning against a car at the beach, it seems with wet curls and smiling devilishly at the camera. And the fourth and most sensual of them all has him standing under a doorframe, with one hand high above his head, holding onto the top of the frame and the other tucked into one of the pockets of his unbuttoned jeans, which are riding low on the "V" of his waist and mercilessly teasing at what's below. She bites her lip, feeling a wetness between her thighs as she gazes into his rich, grayish blue eyes and wonders how this is real. It was increasingly becoming more and more impossible for her to resist him.

"Hey, what's that?" Kenny asks, making Olivia flinch as he comes up behind her. Olivia quickly closes the magazine, feeling like she's been caught red-handed when in fact she's really done nothing wrong.

"Nothing," she tells him, spinning around and facing him.

"Oh, it's something alright!" Abby grabs the magazine out of Olivia's hands, finds the page, and shows it to Kenny.

He cringes. "Is that Mr. Grant?"

"Mmhmm…Olivia didn't just didn't want to show you because you guys are a thing."

"Wow, someone's full of himself…what a douche," Kenny scoffs.

"It's not that bad," Olivia says, rushing to Fitz's defense.

"You like it?" Kenny asks, looking slightly hurt.

"No," she rushes to say then sighs. "Who cares? It's none of anyone's business." The bell rings and she takes Kenny's hand. "Let's go before we're late," she says, desperately wanting to move on from the Fitz topic. It was pretty much just a few several senior and junior girls who knew about it and she thought that it would die down, but she was terribly wrong because by the last period of the day, it was all anyone was talking about. She could only imagine how Fitz was handling it but by the annoyed look on his face as she walked into his classroom at the end of the day and for their afterschool session, she had a pretty good idea.

"Someone seems annoyed," she says, taking a seat in front of him.

"I'm not annoyed at all," he responds sarcastically. "I can't get any of my female students to concentrate on what I'm saying and now all of my male students think I'm a gay model on the side."

"Well, are you?" She asks smartly.

He narrows his eyes at her and she smirks. "Obviously not," he mutters, looking at her and knowing that she got the double message.

She glances away briefly then says, "Why do you model anyway? I never saw you as the type."

"There's a type?" He asks with a cocked eyebrow.

"Well, kind of—a pretty boy."

"I am not a pretty boy."

She stifles a laugh at his pouty expression as he says, "I got into modeling to pay off my college loans and afterwards I kind of just stuck with it for the extra money. And besides, this shoot was just for modeling blue jeans, that's it."

He was modeling a lot more than jeans, if you ask me, Olivia thinks as the image of him in unbuttoned jeans comes to mind. She pushes the thought aside and says, "It's not a bad thing. All the girls think you're even hotter now and you can use that to your advantage as a teacher, like you can say that your favorite students are the ones who do well in school and that might make some of them actually study."

He nods and smiles. "That's not a bad idea. But, for now I don't want to think or talk about it. Let's focus on you right now. You told me you wanted to own your own restaurant chain someday, right?"

She shrugs. "Yeah, but I don't think that I'm cut out for it."

"And why do you say that?" Fitz says, gripping his chin in a deep-thinker kind of way.

"Would you stop trying to act like a therapist?" She tells with a smirk.

"I'm not. But like I was saying, give me your reasoning for not being cut out for it."

"You're doing it again."

Fitz sighs. "Liv."

"Okay, sorry…I don't know," she says shrugging. "You say that I'm smart but I don't think that I'd be smart enough to run a business, even with proper 'training' in college."

"Then what do you want to do?"

"I don't know. I'm probably going to go to a community college not too far from here—Pearson or something. Abby and I are already making plans to move into an apartment together after we find some more jobs."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "So, you're going to find more minimum wage jobs while attending some unknown local college around here?"

"Yeah, and I want to work at McDonald's for the rest of my life," she says sardonically, glaring at him. "There's nothing wrong with community college, plenty of people go that way. You sound just like my dad right now…"

He nods with an apologetic expression. "Okay, I didn't mean to be rude. Let's try this differently. Why do you feel like you're not smart enough? I know that you're more than capable of doing anything you want."

She sighs. "Well…intelligence isn't really the issue. I just don't feel like I'll be able to achieve a goal that big. It's the same reason why I haven't really kept up with my schoolwork—it's all meaningless if it doesn't amount to anything and they're so many people that are great at what they do that I'm afraid it won't."

"You're quitting before you even try. Liv, I know that failure is a scary thing but you can't let it rule over your life. You have no way of knowing if you'll be great at it if you don't try and I know that if you put your mind to anything you can achieve it because you're brilliant, Olivia. You just need to have a little faith," he says with a reassuring smile.

Olivia was always amazed at how much faith he had in her and just this alone was starting to give her the faith to believe in herself. She wasn't completely swayed but now she was at least considering what he had to say.

"And I would help you, with anything, starting with getting into a good college. But I'll be there with you every step of the way. You just have to try and give it a shot."

She sees the sincerity in his eyes and slowly nods. "Maybe…I'll think about it."

Olivia was glad that Christmas vacation had finally come but at the same time there were things that she didn't like, one of them being the unlimited amount of time she had to spend with her family. She had tried to be a good sport and hang out with them but in the end, just like always, her two younger brothers had ended up getting on her nerves, and now she was upstairs in her room reading a book and listening to Christmas music. She could've been somewhere else for holiday. Kenny was spending his Christmas and New Year's Day in New York with his parents and had asked Olivia if she was interested in coming but she had declined. She had to admit that it would've probably been really fun and romantic to walk the streets of New York hand-in-hand and share a kiss in Time Square at the stroke of midnight of the new year, but she just wasn't feeling up to it. She knew it was time to break things off with him. She knew that his feelings for her were deep but she couldn't give him the love that he gave her and it was unfair to him for her to keep stringing him along when she knew things would never change. If he had come into her life several months ago then she probably would've been head over hills for him because he was a great guy, but her heart already belonged to someone else and he was all she wanted. Hopefully she and Kenny could still be friends.

"Olivia! Sammy is here!" She hears her father call from downstairs. She sighs, setting aside her book and getting off her bed, then heads down.

She hadn't seen Sammy since the family's vacation to Hawaii because he was busy at college. Out of all her brothers, he was the one that she argued with the most. She thought that he was full of himself because he liked to lord the fact that he was the first out of she and her brothers to go to college over them and it made him feel special. He and Olivia also shared a strong personality but unlike her, he hated to be wrong about anything and it fueled many of their disputes.

"Hey, Sammy," she says with a small smile as she hugs him.

"Hey, little sis, how's your last year of high school treating you?" He asks, slightly patting her on the head.

She resists the urge to smack his hand away and answers with a fake smile, "It's great."

"Well, you might as well enjoy it while you have it. College is nothing like you would've imagined. You are still going to college, right?" He asks with an arrogant smirk. "Dad told me that your grades aren't very up to par. And believe me when I say that those are very important."

She glares at him and then shoots a look at her dad, who in defense says, "Olivia, I never said it like that…"

Everyone in this family is so two-faced, she thinks as she rolls her eyes and sighs. "I don't care. Can I go back upstairs and forget about this completely unnecessary and demeaning conversation?"

She turns around and heads for the stairs before waiting for a response but before she reaches the first step she hears Becca say, "Oh, Liv! I have something for you."

"What is it?" She asks annoyed.

Becca disappears around the corner for a second and then comes back with a small rectangular box that looks like it might hold a book inside. "I don't know who it's from—the sender decided to remain anonymous but it has your name on it. Maybe Kenny decided to something secretly," she says with a wink.

"Who's Kenny?" Sammy asks with an edge in his voice.

"No one," Olivia tells him, taking the package from Becca and heading upstairs.

She shuts her door and tears open the box, wondering who would send her a package. The sender was anonymous but it was sent from within the state. Maybe it's Abby trying to play some weird trick or maybe it really was Kenny sending her a gift before he left. She gets the last part of the box lid open and reaches inside, feeling a book like she guessed. She slides it out and is surprised at what she finds.

It was cooking book, but what shocks her is that it's one that she's wanted for the longest time and it cost at least one hundred dollars. She wonders if someone is playing a joke on her or if she signed up for some contest and won the book as a prize, but when she flips it open, she gets her answer on the back of the front cover: You told me a while ago that you had wanted this book for a long time, so…Merry Christmas. I know that this won't solidify things, but I hope that by me giving this to you, it helps you at least consider your dream. Because I believe in you and I just want you to do the same. — FTGIII

She can't believe he had gone out of his way to show her how much faith he had in her. This was the best gift she had ever gotten, not just because of the gift itself but mostly because of the meaning behind it. Maybe she could actually be successful someday and do something more with her life than get a mediocre job and live a mediocre life. She could make her dream a reality and she would not only do it for herself but do it to make Fitz proud because he was the first person to believe in her.

She has to see him now. She wants to thank him and give him a gift of her own in person. She springs off of her bed and fishes around in her drawer until she finds what she's looking for, knowing he'd love it. She puts it in her pocket, takes the cookbook and heads downstairs with another surprise in mind for him.

Fitz was in his car driving back from the grocery store when his phone started ringing.

"Hello," he answers, putting the call on speakerphone.

"Hey, little brother. How are you?" His sister Lindsey responds in a chipper voice.

"Hey, Linds, doing good. Are you coming to the party at mom's tonight?" He asks, referring to the Christmas party their mom threw every Christmas Eve whenever their family or friends were in town.

"You know it. I was just about to ask you the same. Mom would have both of our heads on a stick if neither of us showed."

"I know, especially since we both haven't visited in ages. I'm wondering if I should bring something else, all I have is apple pie.

"Well, a pie is good. As long as you didn't make because no offense, Fitzy, but we both know that you can't cook to save your life," she says cheekily.

He rolls his eyes, knowing it's true but not wanting to admit it. "Yeah, whatever…" He pulls into his neighborhood but as he approaches his house, he's shocked to see what looks like Olivia waiting on his porch. He thinks that his eyes are tricking him but as he gets closer he sees that it is indeed her. He tells his sister that he'll talk to her later then hangs up. He pulls into his driveway and gets out of the car, with one of his grocery bags. "Liv? What are you doing here? Having you been waiting here?"

"It's only been five minutes," she says, getting up from the porch step and walking towards him with a full plastic bag in one hand and a book in the other—the cookbook he had sent her.

"You sent this to me…" she says, showing it to him.

He nods. "It's the right one, right? I was 100 percent positive that it was before I got it."

"Yes, it is and thanks. You don't know how much this means to me," she says with the sincerest look in her eyes.

He smiles, glad that she had taken the gift the way he hoped. He had been afraid that by giving her the book, she would think that he was pushing her too much and tell him to back off and then he'd lose her again when they'd just started re-patching things up between them. "You're welcome. Does this mean that you'll consider what we talked about?"

She looks at him for a long moment and then nods. "Yes, in fact, I want to do it. I'm all in and I'll do whatever it takes to make this dream possible…if you'll help me start up."

"Liv, I'll be there for you whenever you need me," he tells her because in truth he never wanted to leave her side.

She smiles at him and he can see her eyes becoming glassy but she quickly looks away and shakes her head. "Um, are you doing anything right now or expecting anyone?"

He shakes his head. "No, not at the moment, but I do have to be at a Christmas party in a few hours."

"That's more than enough time," she mumbles and then says to him, "I wanted to give you a gift of my own and make something in this book for you…if that's fine with you. If not, I can just—"

He walks up to her, silencing her and takes her hand before she changes her mind. He loved these cute moments when she would become coy. "I'd love that, Liv. Come on," he says, guiding them to the door.

Olivia had ended up making some ginger cookies for him to take to his family gathering, along with eggnog cheesecake with some supplies and ingredients she had brought from her house and a few of his, and even though Fitz had never been a fan of eggnog, he had to admit that what she made was out of this world.

"This is amazing, Liv," he says, scarfing down the last bite of his second serving. "Are you sure you don't want any?"

She smiles at him and shakes her head. "No, it's all yours, and by the looks of it, it seems that you'll have it finished by the end of the night."

"And I just might because it's so good, though, my Grandma June won't take it well if I show up to this family party full and don't eat any of her food. Thanks for the cookies, though."

"You're welcome. I felt like you needed something better than just a measly apple pie from the store."

"Yeah, hopefully, now my sister and my cousins won't harp on me too much. Ever since I almost burned down my mom's house a few years ago when I microwaved something for too long, I've been pinned as the family's worst cook and they never cease to not remind me of the incident."

"That's why I hate family gatherings. People always feel the need to bring up something from the past or something completely irrelevant to what's going on."

"You also have family members visiting?"

"Just my tool of a brother Sammy."

"The one in college?" He asks, remembering she told him that.

"Yeah, but—oh, I love this song!" she says, with an excited expression, springing up from her chair as "Jingle Bell Rock" starts to play. She turns the volume on the stereo up and starts to sway to the music.

"Dance with me," she tells him as she twirls around.

He chuckles but doesn't make a move to stand up, much rather preferring to continue to watch her.

"Come on, Fitzy!" She says, going over to him then pulling him up by his hands and guiding him closer to the stereo. A wide smile takes over his face as she continues to bounce around with a goofy grin on her face. She places a hand on his shoulder and matches up their hands in ballroom-position, then sways them in motion with the song as they prance around the room. She attempts to twirl him around so he has to crouch down a little in a silly way to make it work, causing them to erupt in laughter. He does the same to her, watching as she spins out of control and giggles maniacally. He would never get over how beautiful she was.

"What's wrong?" She asks, combing her hair behind her ears as she stops dancing, making him notice that he had also stopped and was now just staring at her.

"Nothing," he says, walking closer to her and continuing to gaze into her eyes.

Just when he thinks the moment is turning serious, she reaches behind him and dabs his cheek with whip cream from the cheesecake, then smiles devilishly at him, licking the remainder off her finger.

"Oh, you're going to pay for that one," he says, wiping the cream off with his thumb and licking it.

"What are you going to do to me?" She asks with a dark, daring look in her eyes and a tone that makes him growl.

She scurries away from him as he goes after her and she doesn't get far before he scoops her up by her waist and puts her in a fireman's carry, making her squeal. "Fitz!" she cries out repeatedly in the middle of her giggling. "Let me down. I'm sorry!"

"Are you sure about that?" He asks with a grin.

"Yes!" He sets her down but she keeps her arms slung around his neck as their eyes meet again. He feels his breathing increase rapidly as she runs her hands down his chest and bites her lip. He bends his head down, putting his forehead to hers and brushing their noses against each other. He feels her breath on his lips as she grips his shirt tightly and pulls him closer, pressing her lips to his in a swift motion. She bites down on his bottom lip, letting it slide between her teeth, making him let out a deep moan. He comes at her with the same intensity, driving his tongue into her mouth as his sucks on her lip. He grips her waist and backs her up until the back of her knees hit the couch and she sits down. She falls back onto the armrest, taking him with her. He hovers over her, gripping her face and kissing her with everything he had been holding back for so many months. He feels her gliding her dainty fingers under his shirt along his chest, creating chills throughout his entire body as he starts to caress his way down her neck.

"Mmm, Fitz…" she moans out, affecting him profusely as he feels himself starting to harden.

He feels his mind going foggy as he buries his face into her chest, leaving wet, sloppy kisses along her skin. "Fitz…I-I can't…"

It takes everything in him to pull back because he knows where things would lead to if he didn't stop and she sensed it, too. He wanted her badly but he didn't want to let it happen like this. When he made love to her for the first time, he not only wanted her to be his but to have her without any interruption or rush.

He stays hovering over her as they catch their breaths. He stares into her eyes, sweeping a strand of her hair out of the way so that he can fully take in her beautiful face. He rubs his thumbs along her soft cheeks and delicately kisses each one. "I love you, Livvie," he says softly into her ear. "I meant it two months ago and I still mean it now. I know that you're not mine but that will never change the way I feel about you. I love you."

She opens her mouth to seemingly say something but she remains speechless and he can tell that she's conflicted. He sits up and takes her hands, pulling her up too. "It's okay. You don't have to do or say anything. Just be here with me in this moment."

She stares at him for a while before nodding and laying her head on his chest. He puts his arms around her and just holds her, grateful to have her in his arms again after so long. He wanted her to choose him but he wasn't going to put pressure on her to do it. Even if they were to have a relationship, they could only be together in the shadows for the next six months and he didn't know how much of a toll that would have on their relationship. They wouldn't be able to tell anyone about them because even though she was now a legal adult, everyone would frown upon what they were doing. He could lose his job but most of all, he could ruin her chances of getting into a good school if her grades in his class were ever called into question because of their relationship. And he wanted to show her off, not hide her in the shadows. She also deserved to get to enjoy her last year of high school without having to worry about them getting caught together. Right now just wasn't the right time, but he would wait for her no matter how long it took.

"I have another gift for you—your real gift," she tells him, leaning away from him and digging something out of her front pocket. She takes it out and opens her palm, revealing a pin with the American flag on it.

"It was Eisenhower's—the actual president Eisenhower. It only has 48 stars on it so it's very rare," she tells him, handing it to him. "I wanted you to have it."

Fitz raises his eyebrows in absolute shock, his eyes darting back and forth between the pin and Olivia. "Wh-where did you get this?"

"I went on vacation with my mom several years back to England and we went to this store that had a wide collection of rare trinkets like this one. It was during some politics and government phase I was going through at the time so I just had to have it, but I never really had much interest in it afterwards. But I thought you would like it since you're into that stuff. Do you like it?" She asks coyly.

He takes it from her and smiles thankfully at her. "Livvie, I love it. Eisenhower is one of my favorite presidents. This is probably the best gift that I've ever received. Thank you."

She smiles brightly back at him. "You're welcome." It grows quiet and that's when Fitz notices that the playlist on his phone must've ended. "Well, I should get going since you have your party soon," she says, glancing away from him and standing up.

He wants to tell her not to leave and wishes that they could just stay like that with her in his arms for the rest of the night but he knows that won't happen and that he should get leaving soon for the party. He nods and gets up with her and they head towards the door.

He gets the feeling that she walked to his house since their houses were only about eight minutes away and even though they live in a safe neighborhood, he couldn't comfortably let walk home alone when it was already so dark. But he didn't really even need to ask to walk with her because it was something they had done before so many times and was a given. As they walk, she clings onto his arm for warmth but she remains quiet and he has a pretty good guess as to what she's thinking so deeply about but he doesn't say anything.

They stop about twenty feet away from her house in the spot where they used to always say their goodbyes. "Goodnight, Livvie," he tells her, pulling her in for a quick kiss on the forehead. She smiles at him and he returns the gesture before turning around and heading back down the street. But as he takes the first couple of steps in the other direction, he hears her say, "I love you, too."

He turns back around and looks at her as she continues, "I always will, no matter what happens in the future. I love you, Fitz."

He walks back over to her and lays a simple kiss on her lips. He pulls back before they can deepen it and says, "Merry Christmas, Livvie."

She smiles. "Merry Christmas, Fitz."

So, I hope you all enjoyed that chapter. Our couple is growing closer and closer together. What did you think of Fitz being a model lol? That will come up again later. What did you think of Olitz's Christmas Eve together? Other thoughts? Thanks for reading and have yourself a Merry Christmas!