Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 36987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
“Sure, Chris.” Best to let it go.
“I’ll talk to ya. Feliz Navidad, kid,” he said and hung up.
Letting my head fall back on the couch, I was surprised when there were fingers raking through my hair.
“Are you coming up to bed?” Kurt asked, then came around the couch and sat down beside me.
“Yeah. I was just checking with Chris, and he says we’re good. We can go back to the house. It’s all over.”
“Well, I’m not going anywhere in the morning. We’ll see how everyone else feels.”
We would do that as soon as we woke up.
NINE
Having never been around kids on a holiday, I had no idea that they woke up, and woke everyone else up, so early on Christmas morning. In foster care, there were never any gifts, so Christmas wasn’t special. For me, like for the other kids in the system, it had been a day to sleep in and when the food was better than usual. There had been no reason to be excited or joyful. But I understood that for Toby and Dennis, it was a big deal, and I enjoyed getting up and having coffee and watching the boys tear into their gifts.
Dennis got Switch games and a Hoverboard, and Toby got a laptop and games. Kurt did well for them with his Amazon cards since that way they got to pick what they wanted. Thomasin got a super-soft sweater she squealed over, a special Stanley cup that looked to me like a thermos with a straw in it, and an impressive diamond tennis bracelet. Brad was thrilled with the new watch she bought him, along with a percussive massage gun and a Bang & Olufsen speaker. They were all happy, so I was pleased for them. The fact that there were more gifts that they’d ordered seemed crazy to me, but I wasn’t really a thing guy. I had a really good watch for the field and a gorgeous vintage Rolex that was on my wrist when I was at home. Other than that, I didn’t need anything.
Kurt also got a Bang & Olufsen speaker from his sister, and he really liked it. But my gift to him, a new Apple watch since he’d destroyed his last one, he was really happy about. The fact that I’d already called our carrier, we had a phone plan together, and I’d set it up so he could make calls on the thing, made him deliriously happy. Setting things up was not something he enjoyed.
My box from him was suspiciously small.
“What’d you do?” I asked softly.
He took a breath. “You know.”
“I know?”
Quick nod.
The box was from Harry Winston, and inside was a platinum ring with diamonds.
“Kurt,” I barely got out.
“I know you’ll have to leave it at home with me when you go,” he whispered, “but when you’re home, with that Rolex of yours, I want you to wear your engagement ring.”
“And when we get married?”
“We’ll pick out mine together, but really, this is the important one. That’s why there are the two baguette diamonds there—one for me, one for you.”
“You don’t think they’re kind of big?”
“Yeah, but it needs to be big so people know you’re taken.”
I scoffed. “Nobody wants me but you.”
“That is fundamentally untrue, and if you’d noticed all the people looking at you every time we leave the house, you’d understand my need to put a ring on your finger.”
“You don’t have to. You know there’s only you.”
“Yes, I do know,” he said, staring into my eyes. “But this way everyone will know that unless they can top that ring, they need to keep walking.”
I shook my head at him even though my stomach was suddenly filled with butterflies.
“And those big brilliant-cut diamonds between the baguettes, there’s one for each dog, and the middle one is for Bubs.”
I chuckled over that. “I should tell people that?”
“If they ask, yes. This way they’ll know that the man who loves you gave you a ring with eight carats’ worth of diamonds.”
Thomasin gasped, and I looked over at her. “Is that a lot?”
“It’s pretty good,” she informed me. “I’m thinking it’s love.”
I looked back at Kurt.
“It’s love,” he promised me, taking the ring out of the box and sliding it onto my finger. It fit perfectly because that was how he was. He planned, and everything always turned out well because he left nothing to chance. “And you’re going to marry me, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, leaning in to kiss him.
“How do you feel about March?”
“Do you want a kiss or not?”
“Yes. But I also want to marry you in the spring.”
I smiled at him. “I will marry you in the spring.”
“For beginnings,” he said with a deep sigh.
“For beginnings,” I agreed and was still smiling when he launched himself at me and everyone started clapping.
Once he let me up, I announced to everyone that they were safe and we could all go back home.