Chapter 128 - Ocean – Decorating Part 1

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Ocean

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I was completely shocked last night. Makai hadn't forgotten about our two month anniversary at all. He had remembered and he had even gotten a gift. And it was a gift that I never would have expected either.

There was also the super embarrassing part where I put the ring on him like we were getting married or something. That was really stupid of me, I shouldn't have done that. How idiotic could I be? Then he went and put the other ring on me, making it even more like a wedding or something.

And here is the real kicker, when I took the ring off for school this morning, it was like my hand was already used to wearing it and I felt weird not having it on. I mean, I was still wearing it, but only as a charm on a white gold chain that Makai had gotten so it would match. I would wear it at school all day except for during swim practice, which, by the way, was over for the season now.. 

We were still expected to swim at either school, the community center, or our homes if we had an indoor pool, but we didn't have daily practices anymore. That freed up some time for us to do things in the afternoon now. 

Right as we were leaving school that day, I heard someone call out to me from the parking lot.

"Hey, Ocean." It was Justin, not my favorite person on the team, but I would tolerate him as best as I could.

"Yeah, what's up Justin?"

"How come you and Kai always come to school together now? When did that happen? And why?" He was looking at me with eyes filled with suspicions.

"I don't know, we just do. It's better for the environment to carpool anyway, don't you think? We're hardly the only friends to carpool either."

"Yeah, but it's not like you guys live all that close to each other. Isn't it a hassle to drive out of the way just to go to each other's houses every day?" He wasn't dropping it like I hoped he would.

"I don't think it's all that much of a hassle." Makai shrugged his shoulders. I mean, he gives me gas money and I pick him up. This way only one car is being used and like Ocean said, we all have to do our part to save the environment."

"Whatever, you two are just plain weird." Justin still didn't seem satisfied with our responses.

"What's the big deal?" Ryan asked him as he walked over to us. "Ben and I ride to school together pretty much every day. I don't see what your issue is."

"You two have been doing that for years though, they just started out of nowhere. Don't you find that strange? It's like they're dating or something. It's not normal." That almost instantly made my heart race with anxiety, but I kept myself in control and didn't panic.

"That's just plain stupid." Ryan snapped at him. "You looking at it and seeing way too much into it is what's not normal. Just mind your own business and leave them alone, you moron."

"Fuck you, Ryan!"

"No Justin, fuck you. You're being a fucking idiot about this. Now just shut up and drop it." Ryan stepped in between Makai and I and threw his arms over our shoulders, then started walking us away from the guy that he called an idiot. "You coming, Ben?" Ryan didn't look at him, he just called out to him as he ignored the guy that was causing a scene.

"Yup."

"So, what do you guys say to a video game night this weekend? I haven't been to Kai's house yet and I hear that it's massive. So I say we all hang out over there this weekend and binge on some games and junk food. It's the start of our break, so I say it's a good way to start it."

"I think that sounds like a good plan." Makai grinned at him. "You guys can all come over anytime that you want to." I started to panic again. Would Ryan find out about us? What would he say? This could be good or bad depending on those two things.

"Good, text me the address and I will bring Ben with me on Saturday. Ocean, I am sure you will find your own way there." He laughed and I wondered for a moment if he already knew. Though, when I looked at Ben with a raised brow, he shook his head as if to say, 'I haven't told him anything'. I knew that I had to trust him, and hope that it would all work out.

When Ryan slid his arms off of us and we got into the car, Makai turned to look at me with laughter filling his eyes.

"Well, that could have been worse. I'm glad that it was all settled quickly and easily."

"Me too."

We chatted a little as Makai drove and at first, I wasn't paying attention to where we were going. I thought we would be going straight home, but he was driving us to the store instead.

"What are we doing here?" I asked him as he pulled into a space in the massive parking lot.

"We need to buy some things."

"Like what?" I hurried out of my seat as he quickly shut his door.

"You'll see. Come on."

Once we were in the store, Makai went straight to the seasonal department. This was where they kept all the decorations for different holidays.

"What is going on?" I was so fucking confused right now.

"We're getting some stuff to decorate the house." He was grinning. "Come on baby, it's our first Christmas together." He whispered the last part so only I could hear it.

"You're an idiot." I rolled my eyes at him, but secretly I was happy. I loved Christmas and had been wanting to decorate.

"Are we getting a tree?" I know that my eyes have already lit up.

"I asked Janice and Yvette to get one for me this morning. It should be waiting for us when we get there."

"Really?" I heard that my voice had gone up an octave when I asked that.

"Yup, now come on. I don't have anything to decorate the house."

He started to push the cart through the aisles, and we picked out different things that we both liked. We made sure to keep our voices low and watch our surroundings. We didn't want more people to think that we were a couple like Justin was already suspecting. We made sure not to look or act like a couple. And if someone were to ask, we would simply say that since Makai lived alone and he just wanted me to help him pick some stuff out.

"Ooh, this one looks so cute, you should get this one." I made sure to phrase it all as if it were just for Makai to have for his place and that it had nothing to do with me.

"You think so? Yeah, I like it, put it in the cart." He would grin, answer as if he was thinking about it and then tell me to get it.

"Oh, this ornament is cool. What kind of theme did you want on your tree?" I so wanted to just get what I wanted but I had to do this as if I had nothing to do with it at all.

I don't know. What do you think I should do?" The way that he turned all my questions back on me made it seem like he could never make up his mind. To everyone else, he must have seemed scatterbrained and super slow.

"I think that you should pick a color scheme for the main part of it, but you can add whatever ornaments that you want aside from that. That is a really good way to go about it."

"Oh, so you mean that I could get these blue lights that make me think of my favorite person ever and make that my theme?" He wasn't even looking at me as he started to put boxes of said lights into the cart.

"Yeah, I guess that is possible." I was laughing at him.

We ended up with way more stuff than we had planned on. We had to get a second cart just to carry it all. There were lawn decorations, wreaths, lights, ornaments, giant candy canes to line the driveway and sidewalk, there was a lot.

"When are we going to put all of this up?" Those words were the first to come out of my mouth as soon as we were back in the car. I wanted to decorate everything all right away.

"I guess some fast food for dinner and then a whole night of decorating might be the best option." His smile was full of love as he answered me.

True to his words, Makai swung through a drive thru  to get us some quick dinner and we ate most of it in the car as we drove the rest of the way home.

The first thing that I saw when we got inside was the massive tree that the two women had gotten. I have no idea how they managed to get this and set it up in the house by themselves. Though when I mentioned that to Makai, I learned that there was also a gardener that worked on the property and came when he was needed. He had probably helped them with it.

This tree truly was massive, though. It was nearly ten feet tall and perfectly shaped. There were no bare spots or gaps in the branches. I don't even know how they managed to find such a pristine tree, but I was glad they did.

"Let's do the stuff outside then we will do the tree. We want to get most of the stuff done before it gets dark, right?" My suggestion was met with a nod of approval and we set to work immediately.

We worked together to get most of the outdoor decorations done in no time at all. The candy canes came first, lining the side of the driveway and sidewalk. I took half of them and held them in one arm while pushing them into the ground at equal intervals. Makai was on the opposite side doing the same thing. After that, we ran a string of lights down each side of the driveway and sidewalk. By the time that they were all down it almost looked like a candy lined runway, but it was cute, so that was fine.

We had gotten an inflatable snowman family, a light up reindeer, there was even a Santa Claus that inflated and waved. All of those were quick and easy to set up, we just needed to stake them to the ground and plug them into the extension cords.

When we started on the house, we decided not to put lights on the roof since neither of us were used to that, we didn't want to fall. We did, however, put lights on the door, the bushes, and wrapped around the columns outside the house.

We put a wreath on the outside of the door and then on the inside of the front windows on the main floor. We decided that we needed a little bit more than we had already, so we went back outside, took the lights off the columns, and wrapped them with a large ribbon with a little spacing as it went down so that it looked like a candy cane as well. Then we put the lights back onto them.

Now that all of that was done, we put up a few decorations inside, but the primary interior decoration was going to be the massive tree. To fully decorate the tree, one of us was going to need to be up on the balcony, or on a ladder. There was just no way to get it all done without something to give us some more height.