Buffy was up in her room thinking about when she was going to see Angel. The thought of him always made her happy and put a smile on her face. Then suddenly her phone rang and brought her out of her reverie.
“Hello.”
“Hey baby. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine, now that you called me.”
“Have you talked to your friends?” She thought for quite a while before answering.
“No, but I plan to.”
“Sweetie, you have to talk to them. They’re your friends. You can probably tell them things that you can’t tell me.”
“That’s not true. I can tell you anything.”
“Buffy, you know what I mean. They are girls and you can tell them personal stuff.”
“I guess. Though can we not talk about this anymore? I just don’t want to think about Parker or what he’s done to me.”
“Okay. So what would you like to talk about?”
“Us. Also what is my Christmas gift?” He laughed at her question.
“I’m not telling you anything. Besides it’s a surprise and I know that you’ll love it.”
“But if you really live me, you’ll tell me.”
“Oh, you’re good, but I’m better. I love you, Buffy, but I’m still not telling you,” he said smiling at the other of the line.
“Fine. Be that way,” she huffed in frustration.
“Oh, don’t get mad. I’ll give you one clue. It has the both of us in it.”
“Okay, now you’re confusing me.” Angel started laughing again.
“Let’s forget about it. I’ll see for Christmas. ‘Night Buffy.”
“’Night, Angel.”
~*~*~*~*~*
It was finally Christmas Day and everyone’s household was excited for this moment to come. Christmas the most joyous time of the year was finally here. Angel was thrilled with the idea of seeing his girlfriend Buffy. He missed her so much. So as he was about to make his way out of his room his mother called out to him.
“Angel?”
“Yeah, Mom.”
“When are you going to bring Buffy over?”
“I promise you, she’ll be here for New Year’s Eve.”
“Okay.” The truth of the matter was that Angel never told anyone that lived with him about Buffy’s rape. He figured that when she came over, that he’d tell them.
~*~*~*~*~*
Buffy was finishing the last minute touches on her hair. She wore a black knee length skirt, a red sleeveless blouse and her long blonde hair was twisted into a bun and was held with a black clip. As she looked at her appearance once more in the mirror, she actually smiled at the reflection before her. She wasn’t back to her old self, though she knew that in time with the support of family, friends and especially Angel that she’d be smiling and forget all about Parker Abrams. The doorbell rang downstairs, which disturbed Buffy’s thoughts, but she realized that it must have been Angel.
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Summers.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too. Come on in Angel.” He stepped inside the house as Buffy approached him.
“Merry Christmas, Angel. So what did you get me?” Angel laughed.
“Gee, I can sense why you wanted me here. My feelings have been hurt deeply.”
“Awe, poor baby. Let me kiss it and make it all better.” She stood on her tiptoes leaning up while his head went down until their lips finally met.
“A little, but could you try a little harder.”
“Angel, I can’t…” He stopped her with another kiss and led them over to the couch. His arms held her securely around her waist. Her fingers traveled up the spine of his back to the nape of his neck threading through the short strands of his brown hair. The kiss deepened even further as Angel gently slipped his tongue parting her lips finding that familiar place with her tongue just brought him to complete happiness.
“Much better,” he said grinning wickedly. She hit him playfully.
“By the way here’s your gift,” she said handing him a rectangular object. He looked at the nice wrapping paper, picked up the gift and started to shake it.
“It’s not ticking. That’s a good sign.” She hit him again.
“I can’t believe you. You are definitely acting like Xander now.” Angel laughed. He opened his gift and what revealed was an art book on Van Gogh. Van Gogh was his favorite artist and the smile on his face as he was flipping through the pages showed that he really loved the gift.
“Thank you, Buffy. I love it so much.” He then hugged and kissed her on the cheek. He then handed Buffy her gift. She looked at it and thought it was weird. It was small and rectangular. As she tore the paper, she noticed that it was a back of picture frame.
“You got me a picture frame?”
“Turn it around.” She did and what she saw was the both of them at car wash, Angel holding her while both of their eyes was locked with the other as if they were the only two people in the world. It was at that same moment that they decided to kiss one another.
“How did you get this?”
“Well one of the guys were taking pictures at the time and they snapped a shot of the both us. I have a copy in my room on campus. I thought that maybe you’d want one as well.” She smiled at the sentiment that he made.
“That’s what I’m here for. Oh, by the way Merry Christmas.”
16
The end of days of the year was coming. Angel decided to have all his friends over and his girlfriend Buffy to join the festivities of ringing in a new year. Angel had promised his mother that she’d meet Buffy. He also hoped that sister wouldn’t pull any tricks while Buffy was around. It was like she knew that Angel was talking about her and entered the room.
