~*~

The next week was pretty hectic for me. It was the week leading up to Christmas, which meant that the lines were long and the customers' tempers were short.

I had a short temper, too, after dealing with so many impatient customers. I had been working a few days of long shifts at Wal-Mart by this point, so I was really, really frustrated and exhausted.

Jimmy and I had gotten to hang out a few times this week after work, but for the most part, I had been working my ass off and then going right to sleep. The only thing that was getting me through this shift was knowing that I got to see Jimmy as soon as I got home.

I was only four hours in to a twelve hour shift, so sadly, I wouldn't be seeing him for a while.

I was excited, though, as we had some fun plans for the upcoming holiday. The guys had all organized and invited me to a get-together with them at a restaurant for Christmas Eve. And then, in addition, Jimmy had invited me to his family's house for their Christmas dinner, which was kind of crazy as I'd never met Jimmy's family before.

That was still several days away, though, but at least it gave me something to look forward to.

Even though I normally didn't work on the cash register, my manager had pulled me up front for a bit to help out with the crazy lines since someone needed to take their lunch break.

My line was endless, but luckily, there was only about ten minutes left before my coworker got back from lunch, which meant that I could go on my lunch break, too.

For every customer, I kept saying, "hello, how are you today?" on autopilot as I started scanning their items without even really looking at their faces.

It was only after I heard a familiar laugh that I looked up to see that Jimmy was next in my line, carrying a pack of mints that he had clearly grabbed at the last second in my checkout line.

I laughed. "What are you doing?"

"I'm a paying customer," he said, placing the pack of mints down on the conveyor belt. "There's also Chinese food that I ordered for you for lunch--your favorite--so I hope you didn't eat lunch yet."

I couldn't believe him... he was so thoughtful to surprise me with my favorite food during such a stressful work week. "You're amazing. I'm about to eat lunch soon, so that's perfect."

He grinned, putting his card in the reader. "Anytime."

~*~

The Chinese food was the perfect pick-me-up, and for the rest of my shift, I kept thinking about Jimmy and how sweet he was.

There was definitely a difference between the personality he had in his videos and the personality that he had in person: he was a very generous person overall (obviously), but in his videos, he seemed very confident and funny, but in person, he just seemed so down-to-earth and sweet... and also funny, of course.

Our date had been a week ago at this point; although we both said how much fun we had, we hadn't really planned another one.

However, him inviting me to his family's Christmas dinner--even if it was just out of kindness since I didn't really have anywhere else to go--was a step in the right direction.

When I got back to Jimmy's house after work, I went straight upstairs and was planning on collapsing into bed.

Jimmy's bedroom door was open, so I peeked into the room. He was sitting at his computer, playing some video game. He had his headphones on, so I don't think that he heard me come back from work.

He hadn't noticed me yet, so I snuck into the room quietly and was planning on scaring him.

Just as I was right behind him and about to scare him, he turned around. "Boo!" he screamed.

I jumped. Clearly he had heard me come in, so scaring him didn't go as planned.

He paused his game, took off his headphones, and then stood up. He was smiling evilly.

"That was mean," I grumbled, but there was a hint of a smile on my face.

"It would've been funny if you scared me instead though, right?" he mused.

"Correct."

He chuckled. "How was work?"

"Awful, but it was a lot better after the Chinese food. Thanks for that."

"It's no problem." He paused for a moment, looking like he was debating whether or not to say something. "Do you work tomorrow?"

I groaned. "Yeah, for twelve hours, but then I have the rest of the week off, thank goodness."

"I have an idea for something fun--if you want."

I was skeptical, since this could go in so many different directions. "What is it?"

"What do you think of snowtubing?"

I paused for a moment as my brain caught up to what he had asked me. Where did that come from? "Um... it's fun, I guess. I haven't really gone since I was a kid."

He looked a little nervous, but he explained. "There's some ski resorts a few hours away. I was thinking that it might be fun to go snowtubing... or skiing or snowboarding, if you're into that. We could spend a day or two down there in a hotel to make the drive worth it, and then we could be back just in time for Christmas Eve."

That sounded so fun, especially since it was supposed to be really cold for the next week, so the weather would be perfect for it.

However, the idea of spending a few days with Jimmy alone in a hotel room made my heart beat faster. I know we were basically living together right now, but this was different: we had our own bedrooms here, but in a hotel, we'd be sharing the room, alone, and I wasn't sure how many beds he was planning on getting.

I had a gut feeling that something romantic had to happen between us on a trip like this as it was the perfect romantic getaway. It seemed like a freaking movie. How had this become my life?

Regardless, I said, "Let's do it!"

~*~

After I got done with work the next day, we got some shopping done for our trip. We needed to get some warm, snow-appropriate clothing for snowtubing; we had hats, gloves, and a winter coat already, but we still needed some snow pants and boots.

By this point, Jimmy had booked a fancy hotel at one of the resorts for check-in tomorrow, and we'd be there together for two nights, and then leave the following day, which was Christmas Eve.

Everything was falling into place, and it was crazy how spontaneous this trip was, but I kind of loved it. I also felt like it really wasn't that spontaneous on Jimmy's part, since it felt like he had been thinking about taking this trip for a while, but didn't know how to ask.

It must be nice to have so much money to book a spontaneous trip to a fancy ski resort.

We loaded up most of the stuff in the car the night before, so that way we could just pack any last-minute items and then leave the following morning.

I felt some intense butterflies in my stomach. This definitely didn't seem like a trip for "friends", since he didn't invite any of the guys with us. It was the perfect romantic getaway, but I wasn't sure if he was thinking the same thing. He had to be, right? This was definitely a huge step up from our "movie date".

That night, I started having fantasies of us--of how things could go on this trip, if things went right between us and he felt the same way that I did.

I started blushing. Jesus Christ.

As anyone could imagine, I had trouble sleeping that night.

~*~