Page 7 of The Nutcracker

He saw me across the room and quickly stopped texting and buried his phone in his pocket.

I was happy it was gone.

I didn’t want the beeping and buzzing of his busy phone to interrupt our moment.

“Hey babe,” he said, kissing me as I sat down. “You want a drink? I wasn’t sure how late you were gonna be so I just got myself a whisky while I waited. You want one?”

I hated whisky but I would drink anything Liam bought me. “In a minute. First, I want to give you something.”

He beamed. “You got me a Christmas present? What is it?”

Without hesitating I pulled the small box from my pocket and placed it on the table.

For a moment he was taken aback.

He actually inched backward in his chair when he saw it.

I laughed nervously. “It’s okay. You can relax. It’s not a wedding ring.” My heart broke a little as I wondered how he might react when one day I did propose.

He let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank God. I’m not sure I’m ready for… you know, for the whole wedding thing… I mean, we’re both so busy with our careers and…”

His voice trailed off.

“Of course. Yeah, absolutely,” I nodded, letting him off any wedding hooks he seemed so worried might bait him. “It’s not a ring. You can breathe easy.”

He grinned. “That’s good. I’m happy we’re both on the same page with that. So… what is it?”

“Open it.”

He reached for the box and warily tugged at the ribbon.

He opened the lid and looked inside.

I watched him excitedly, nervously now, as he set eyes on—

“A key?”

“A-ha. To my place.”

“Your place?”

I nodded. I didn’t think I would need to do this much explaining. “It’s so you can… you know…”

“Oh, you mean I can leave some stuff there. I can just let myself in and grab my stuff, is that it?”

I shrugged. “Well… no, not exactly that. I guess… I guess I was thinking that maybe… maybe you might wanna move in with me.”

His eyebrows reached for the sky. “Oh.”

I panicked. “It’s not like you have to if you don’t want to. It’s just that my place is close to your work and there’s plenty of room and I thought maybe it’d be nice to see each other more often.”

“Like all the time?”

I smiled. He seemed to get the idea. “Yeah… like all the time.”

His brow creased. I could see we weren’t on the same page at all. “Like…allthe time?”

“I thought it might be—”

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