Page 54 of Negotiating Tactics

Noah didn’t take the bait. “What you meant to say was, ‘Thank you Noah, I can’t wait to see what’s inside.’”

I took the box from his hands. “Thank you, Noah, I can’t wait to see what’s inside.”

And I couldn’t.

Quiet as kept, I loved presents.

Who didn’t?

That it came from Noah was only that much more exciting.

I shifted the box in my arms. “This is heavy. Did you get me a new law dictionary?”

“Do you want a new law dictionary?” Noah said.

“I mean, I don’t have the newest edition.” I giggled and went deeper into the living area.

I set the box on the two plastic bins I had turned into a coffee table and tried not to be annoyed that my renter’s insurance hadn’t paid out yet.

I pulled open the ribbon slowly, curiosity almost eating me up, but the fun of the moment helping me stay patient. I pulled off the lid and saw another box inside.

“Is this a box inside a box?” I asked, looking at him.

He laughed. “I was this close to having them wrap both.”

I laughed as I opened the second box, this one a long, glossy black rectangle.

I pulled off the top and peeled back the tissue paper to peer inside.

“Oh my fucking God!” I said on a whispered breath, not believing what I was seeing.

I looked in the box, then to Noah, then back in the box again.

“I take it that’s good,” he said, an unfamiliar note of uncertainty in his voice.

I couldn’t pay close attention to him, my focus riveted on what lay inside the box.

Knee-high lace-up boots in entirely impractical off-white suede.

The boots of my dreams.

“How did you…?”

I looked at Noah, then back at the boots. I hadn’t even told Birdie how much I loved them. But every time I walked past the boutique that sold them, I gawked.

Once, I’d tried to rid myself of the obsession and decided to try them on. I’d expected them to not have my size, or if they did, I’d expected the boots to look horrible.

Wrong on both accounts.

They’d carried my size in wide, medium, and narrow, and the boots made my long legs look longer and made my thighs look sexy as fuck.

I’d fallen even deeper in love.

Had had my heart broken by the mid-four-digit price tag.

At that memory, I looked up at Noah and saw the slightest furrow in his brow. “I saw you looking at them when we went to dinner a couple of weeks ago,” he said, answering my unasked question.

I let myself think back, then remembered when Noah had walked me home from work one evening since he’d had business near my office. We’d grabbed a quick dinner on the way back to my apartment.

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