It was just before noon when Rhett walked out the door, camera around his neck and notebook tucked under his arm. He was off to meet with Macy for a wedding that was scheduled for sunset at the vineyard. What sort of person decided to get married the weekend before Christmas, Cole thought, strolling through the expansive front part of the house toward the kitchen in the back.

Lucy, Rhett’s fern, sat happily on the windowsill over the sink, and Cole scoffed at himself. How could a plant be happy? Or sad, for that matter. It was a plant. Whether it had a name or not. Lucy was a fern.

Cole cast a sidelong glance to the corner of his dining room where the remaining boxes of leftover Christmas decorations were stacked. A few days earlier, he and Rhett had bought a Christmas tree, fit it into the corner of the living room near the fireplace and set to decorating it.

They’d spent hours together, going through Cole’s family ornaments, ones that had been passed down to him from his parents and grandparents, and ones he’d picked up along the way on his own. Rhett had darted out to the garage, returning with an armful of tissue paper wrapped baubles that they carefully opened and added to the tree.

The decorations were a mashup of classic ball ornaments and mismatched heirlooms. Their tree, with its colors and clear twinkle lights, made Cole smile every time he looked at it.

He carefully picked Lucy up from the windowsill, tucked her under his arm, and walked her to the living room, kicking one of the cardboard boxes of leftover lights in front of him. Cole cleared a place for Lucy on the mantle and set her down, fluffing her leaves with his fingers. He squatted on the ground and opened the box, digging around until he found a small string of battery-operated lights.

Cole had another box in his pocket, a small, velvet one, that he removed and set on the mantle beside Lucy’s black pot. He patted the top of the box then turned his attention back to the fern, carefully stringing the lights between her leaves.

“It’s time we had a talk, Lucy,” he told the fern, conversationally.

Cole flipped the small switch on the battery box at the end of the light string and they lit up, illuminating Lucy so she matched the tree. Cole chuckled, wondering why Rhett hadn’t thought to name the tree itself. He picked the velvet box up again and flipped the lid open, displaying the contents to the plant.

“Lucy, I want to marry your dad. I hope that’s okay.”

Cole turned the box around so he could see its contents and he fingered the thin white gold band that sat nestled inside. He’d known when he saw it, inlaid with a delicate looking vine filigree, that it was perfect for Rhett. He hoped Lucy would approve of the acknowledgement.

He had agreed months ago that he would give Rhett the proposal he wanted, with the Santa hats and the Christmas lights, but ring specifications weren’t something they’d ever discussed. He traced his thumb over the vines and leaves that looped the ring and smiled, thinking how perfect it would look against Rhett’s skin.

The past months had been...spectacular, his fascination with Rhett not even close to waning. Bringing Rhett on at the vineyard had been a wise business decision. Rhett was working with Elena toward the launch of Mallory Bubbly Wines on New Year’s Eve, and as an added bonus, Cole got to fuck on his lunch break at least once a week. He was nearly obsessed with Rhett, eager and ready to explore every inch of him from his skin to his soul.

Cole tucked the ring back into the box and snapped it closed, sliding it into his pocket. He patted it, just to make sure it was safe. His phone vibrated in his other pocket and he pulled it out, seeing a text from Ryan.

Ryan: Open up, bitch.

Cole shoved the phone back in his pocket and opened the front door, revealing his best friend standing on his porch with a pizza in his hands.

“You know pizza doesn’t go with mulled wine, right?” Cole laughed, letting him inside.

“Pizza goes with everything,” Ryan argued, kicking the door closed behind him.

“No, wine goes with everything,” Cole countered, trailing Ryan into the dining room.

“Where’s my brother?” he asked, trying to look around the house as casually as he could manage.

“At work with Macy.”

“Why is he still doing work with her?” Ryan asked, flipping the box open. “Are you not fulfilling him during the day?”

Cole scrunched his nose. “Is that where we are now? Making innuendos about whether I can sexually satisfy your brother?”

Ryan mimicked Cole’s face then stuck his tongue out in disgust. “You’re a pervert. I meant career-wise. Jesus, Cole, I don’t even know why I’m friends with you sometimes.”

“You’re friends with me because I’m the coolest person you know,” Cole reminded him, biting into a slice of pizza.

“I’m friends with you because you own a never ending supply of alcohol,” Ryan countered, reaching across the table for the thermos of mulled wine Cole had set out earlier.

“I don’t own it.”

“Yet.”

“Yet,” Cole agreed.

Fact of the matter was, Kristen was due back from her honeymoon in a couple days and the whole family was going to do Christmas Day together at Cole’s parents’ house. He was hopeful he’d hear news about the ownership transfer soon, especially since his parents had brought it up to begin with back in the fall. He also anticipated his sister returning from her world traveling pregnant, ever intent on being the center of attention.

“So,” Cole asked, wiping his hands on his jeans, “you’re coming to the bubbly launch, right?”

“Rhett would murder me if I didn’t,” Ryan answered with a laugh.

Cole smiled. “He’s been working really hard on the whole thing. He wants it all to be perfect. He’s doing math? I don’t know, like trying to calculate how many bottles we need available for the toast and the casual drinking, and he’s just really into the whole thing.”

“Three point four glasses, plus toast,” Ryan remarked, an eerie echo from the number Rhett had been rambling about in the days prior.

“Has he been talking your ear off about it, too?”

“No.” Ryan finished his first slice of pizza and washed it down with a large swallow of wine. “It’s some calculation he came up with when we were in college, trying to help plan the frat liquor purchases more cost effectively.”

“That is….” Cole trailed off, shaking his head, “very much Rhett.”

Rhett’s little idiosyncrasies had grown on Cole over the time they’d lived together, from his meticulous food measuring on the times that Cole had let him cook dinner, to things like the drink per person average that he’d apparently been fine-tuning since college.

Every day there was something new, something more about Rhett that served to remind Cole he was the luckiest man on the planet. And lucky in more ways than one. What if Rhett hadn’t been the one to stumble into him at Tubby’s when he had? What if Cole had done something ridiculous like try to fake-marry Ryan, or worse, a stranger?

Cole glanced behind him at Lucy, sitting proud and twinkling on the mantle as if she’d belonged there all along.

“I need to tell you something,” Cole blurted, turning his attention back to Ryan, who poured himself a second mug of mulled wine.

Cole snagged it from his hand and took a drink, the warmth of cloves and cinnamon settling against his tongue. Ryan snatched it back and grumbled about Cole needing to get his own.

“What?” Ryan asked, mouth full of another bite of pizza.

“Just, uh, wait a second,” Cole said, scratching the top of his lip. He hopped up and jogged to the front door, pulling it open just before Penny was able to knock.

“Cole,” she greeted with a warm smile and a baby strapped to her chest.

“Thanks for coming,” he said with a smile, letting her inside.

“Of course,” she said, pulling her jacket off and tossing it on the side table.

Cole looked down at Tyson, who was sound asleep, head at what Cole assumed had to be a terribly painful angle. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Oh, no,” she said with a quiet laugh. “Their bones are like jelly at this age.”

“Where’s David?” Cole asked, leading Penny through the house.

“Oh, he’s sleeping.”

“That’s nice of you to not wake him up and leave Tyson at home,” Cole laughed. “Do you want some pizza?”

“Yeah, but, oh, is that wine?” she sniffed the air and gestured toward the mug and thermos in front of Ryan.

“It is. Let me get you a glass.” Cole walked into the kitchen, getting a mug for him and another for Penny.

“How’s the wee lad?” Ryan asked, stroking his hand down the outside of the baby carrier without touching Tyson.

“Are you Scottish now?” Penny scoffed, taking Ryan’s wine and making it her own. Cole slid one of the empty mugs toward Ryan, who filled them both.

“Is your son a brand of chicken?” Ryan asked, pursing his lips and shaking his head.

“You’re a dick. I wish Rhett could disown you,” Penny snarked.

“You definitely don’t wish that at all. You love me.”

“I know,” Penny agreed, lifting the mug above Tyson’s head and taking a sip. “This is divine, Cole.”

“Thanks,” Cole replied, a prideful blush coloring his cheeks.

“Speaking of delicious Mallory vintages, how excited is Rhett about the bubbly launch?” Penny grinned, setting the mug down and grabbing a slice of pizza, maneuvering it carefully over Tyson’s head and taking a bite.

“Terribly excited in his normal calculated way,” Cole answered, taking a deep breath. “But that’s not what I invited you guys over for.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Ryan said, his eyes narrowing in accusation. “What did you have to say? Are you and Rhett breaking up or something? Because I just got used to this and I don’t want things to be weird again.”

“No!” Cole waved his hands in front of him in a denial. “We’re not breaking up. Actually, I just...God, this is nerve-wracking. I’m going to ask him to marry me.”

“What?” Ryan barked out, choking on a pepperoni that he quickly washed down with a gulp of wine.

Penny squinted and bit her lips between her teeth. She stroked a free hand over Tyson’s tuft of hair and sniffled.

“I’m going to propose to Rhett. On Christmas Eve.” Cole dug the ring box out of his pocket and slid it across the table toward where Penny and Ryan sat.

“You son of a bitch,” Ryan said, though not angrily. “With the Santa hats?”

“How did you know about the Santa hats?” Cole asked in shock.

Penny reached for the ring box and flipped the lid open, sucking in a pleased breath when she saw the ring he’d bought for Rhett. There was an identical one upstairs for himself, assuming everything went as planned when he popped the question.

“Oh, Cole,” she murmured, tracing the vine detail on the ring. She looked up at him and smiled. “Everyone knows about the Santa hats.”

“Rhett has dreamed about his Christmas proposal since he was a kid,” Ryan answered. “He used to watch those sappy movies with Mom before she died.”

Cole swallowed, making a note of that very important detail that Rhett had neglected to tell him about.

“You’re sure about this?” Penny asked, snapping the box closed and dropping it back onto the table. “You haven’t been together that long. It seems so soon.”

“I know,” Cole agreed, his voice thick with emotion and unspoken love, “and this isn’t what either of us intended when we got involved with each other, but now I can’t imagine it being any other way.”