14 Christmas Present

Right before finals, Emily nervously opened the email that would tell her whether or not she got the scholarship and whooped with glee when she saw the results. She immediately called her mother.

"Mom!! Guess what!!"

"What is it, sweetie?"

Chaos reigned in the background (probably her siblings fighting again) and her mother sounded tired. This news should perk her up.

"Remember how you were worried about me going into so much debt for school? I got a scholarship! It completely covers tuition for the rest of my time here! I still have to pay for books and living expenses but that's so much cheaper! I still have to pay off the loan from my first semester here but that's it!"

Emily bounced in her chair as she shared the news.

Her mother gasped. "Emily, that's amazing! I thought you weren't able to get financial aid because your dad makes too much?"

That was the dumb loophole. Her dad barely paid the legal minimum of child support and certainly wasn't helping his oldest child go to college but he made too much money for her to be considered in financial need just because they were related.

"Apparently, this scholarship is privately funded by someone who thinks the loopholes are unfair. Applicants had to show their original financial aid application and tell why they were disqualified in addition to writing a personal essay but I got picked!"

"I'm so happy to hear that," her mother sighed in relief. "I'm glad you don't have to worry about so much debt at such a young age. We'll have to celebrate somehow when you come home for Christmas."

Mother and daughter chatted a while longer before the kids needed to be fed and her mother hung up.

Life really was going great lately. She kept finding money she had forgotten about in random places in her backpack, Justin bought her pizza during the chaos of midterms, and now she had a free ride for the rest of college.

She wanted to do something nice for Justin before they both went home for Christmas. But what? She could barely afford buying Christmas presents for her family.

What did someone like Justin even like? After all this time in the car together she still didn't know much about him.

He had a cat back at his parents' house…he liked computers…he was funny…That wasn't much to go off of, especially where gifts were concerned.

Emily found the perfect gift entirely by chance. Her only wooden spoon broke in half when she stirred some cookie dough too hard so she went to the store for a new one.

There, in the kitchenware aisle, she saw it. A white mug with a doodle of an angry cat popping its head in front of a laptop with the caption 'You are not paying attention to me. This is unacceptable.'

Both of the things she knew he liked in one item! And it was only $10. She had to.

She borrowed a little box and wrapping paper from Amy, who was already done wrapping the dozens of presents she had bought for various friends, and put a red bow on top of it. She decided to surprise him at home instead of waiting for their daily ride to school and walked up the stairs to apartment 405.

To her surprise, the door was answered by an unfamiliar man wearing sweatpants and no shirt. He seemed supremely unconcerned by this fact even though there was a girl at the door. This must be the absentee roommate.

"Um, is Justin home?"

"When isn't he," the guy muttered before hollering behind him. "Justin! Door for you!"

"I'm in the middle of something, who is it?" Justin yelled back.

The roommate turned back to her. "What's your name?"

"Emily."

"Emily!" the roommate shouted towards the bedrooms.

Emily immediately heard a crashing noise coming from Justin's room and he scrambled out in a pair of plaid pajama pants and an oversized UCLA shirt. Realizing what he was wearing, he turned bright red.

"Emily, what are you doing here?"

She felt guilty. "Is this a bad time?"

"No! I'm happy to see you! I was just doing coding homework. Please, come in!"

He wildly gestured towards the couch. The roommate had already disappeared back into his own room.

Emily smiled as she came in. Typical Justin. So easily flustered.

Looking around the room, she didn't notice a single decorative item. Just a TV, some remotes, and a stack of books and DVDs on a table by the couch. Two men definitely lived here.

"Is your room like this too?" she couldn't help but ask, thinking of her own well-decorated apartment.

He blushed. "I have a picture frame with pictures of my family and my cat but that's about it."

She shook her head in mock disgust. "Boys. My roommate already had tons of decorations on the walls by the time I moved in."

Justin cleared his throat. "Um, is there something specific you came here for? Aside from discussing the décor?"

"Oh!" she pulled out the little box from behind her back. "Here, I got this for you. Finals are next week and I wasn't sure if I'd see you since our schedules are different so…Merry Christmas!"

He looked like a confused little puppy. "This is for me?"

"Who else would it be for?" she teased.

"Okay, dumb question."

"Open it!" Emily said excitedly. She really wanted to see what he thought.

Gingerly, Justin pulled open the wrapping paper to find the mug. At first he only saw the white side so she urged him to turn it around.

When he saw the little doodle he burst out laughing. "This doodle could be of Cookie! He always got so mad when I ignored him to work on coding projects and usually ended up walking across the keyboard and messing everything up. This is great!"

She grinned. Guess she had been right about it being the perfect gift after all.

"I'm glad you like it! Wait, your cat's name is Cookie?"

He seemed embarrassed. "Ah, well, my cousin named him…she was three at the time and thought he looked like a chocolate sandwich cookie because he's white with black patches but didn't know what they were called so she just called him Cookie and the name stuck."

"I didn't think something that cutesy would be your style."

Why did that sound familiar though…wasn't there an InstaFace account she followed back in high school that was entirely made up of pictures of a cat named Cookie? Justin's cousin couldn't be the only unoriginal kid in the world though.

"It's not but I have no idea what I would have named him. I've never named anything in my life."

Emily was shocked. "Ever? Did you never have any other pets?"

"Nope. Cookie was a stray we found when my cousins were visiting about five years ago. They wanted to take him so bad but my aunt said no so I did it instead."

He smiled fondly. "My mom says he misses me and still sends me pictures of him every week. I'm sure when I go home for Christmas he'll sit on my computer every time I bring it out."

"I miss my cats too," she sighed. "I used to have three but one ran away shortly before we moved to Montana. The other two—Daisy and Midnight—are still with my mom."

"Let me guess…Midnight is all black," he said thoughtfully.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Yes, but my little brother named her, not me. I'm excellent at naming things."

"So you named Daisy then."

"Yep! She's a brown tabby that looks absolutely nothing like a flower. I named her after a video game character."

Justin's lips quirked up into a half smile. "I think I've played the game you're talking about. My cousin likes playing that character."

"Is this the one who named your cat?"

"Nah, she's the one who thinks she's so much smarter than me because she's popular," he laughed. "She frequently calls me hopeless."

"How kind of her," she said sarcastically.

"She's not that bad. To be honest, she's one of my closest friends. I'll probably see her over Christmas break and have her grill me about my lack of social life in college."

Emily laughed. "Well, at the very least you can tell her that you were someone's chauffeur. That's probably more than she was expecting."

Justin sighed dramatically. "True."

She glanced at the clock. "Wow, I've taken up a lot of your time…you better get back to your homework."

"I probably should," he said reluctantly. "But feel free to take up my time whenever you want. It was fun. And thanks again for the present! I'll have to take a picture and send it to my parents. They'll think it's hilarious."

She smiled sweetly at him before wishing him goodnight and heading back to her apartment. The $10 she spent was definitely worth the look on his face when he first saw the mug.

Come to think of it, that may have been the first time she had seen him laugh so hard. Justin may turn red at any given moment but aside from that he was actually pretty hard to get a read on. What went on in that guy's head?