Mark

I rest a shoulder against the doorway and take in the scene in front of me, a smile playing on my lips.

My best friend really is an adorable idiot.

Rigby’s black head lifts when he sees me, little stub of a tail wagging wildly. I raise a finger to my lips telling the dog to stay quiet, and miraculously, he seems to understand.

He rests his head on his paw and stays where he is, plastered against Kelly’s sleeping form.

Easing into the room, I set the duffle bag on the floor and move toward her.

She’s wearing blue pajama pants with snowflakes, Grinch socks, and the atrociously ugly red sweater she insists on wearing every Christmas.

I reach out to wake her when I notice that instead of a pillow, she’s resting her head on her arm, and her arm is stretched across . . . a stack of white poster board?

What’s this sweet little weirdo gotten up to now?

I gently ease the posters out from under her arm, and though she makes a sleepy noise, stirring slightly, she doesn’t wake up.

I see large block writing, I know immediately what I’m looking at. A Love Actually situation.

I should wait for her to wake up, to do this her way. But when you’ve waited ten damn years . . . enough.

The first sign simply says Mark.

I slide it aside and read the posters that follow.

As I slide the last poster aside with a slightly shaky hand, I glance over at my best friend. Kelly’s awake. Watching me.

Her eyes are watering as she gives me a small smile. “Hi. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” I say, hoping she’ll think my voice is husky from lack of sleep, and not because my own eyes are dangerously close to watering.

She sits up and runs a hand through her messy hair. The right side of her face is lined from sleeping awkwardly on her arm, but she’s never looked more beautiful.

“Um . . .” She gestures toward the posters. “I was going to do this a little differently. Last night—”

“I didn’t get your messages until just now,” I say, clasping my hands between my knees as I stay crouched near her side. Near enough to touch her, but I don’t. Not yet.

“You were at your parents’?”

I nod.

“How are they?”

I smile. “You really want to talk about my parents right now?”

She laughs. “Well, no, I’d rather know what you think about what I said . . . what I wrote . . .” Kelly gestures to the posters again.

Instead of answering, I push up to my feet and stand. “I’ve got something for you.”

I rummage in the duffle I brought with me, pulling out both a fussy gift bag with red and gold stripes and another package, this one wrapped in ten-year-old newspaper.

I turn back to where she’s now sitting cross-legged by the Christmas tree, but before going to her, I push play on her iPhone, which is plugged into the speaker. Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra—hell, I never can tell the difference—starts singing about snow.

Returning to her side, I lower to a seated position beside her and hand her the newspaper bundle first.

She gives me a curious look. “What’s this?”

I glare at her, my command clear. Open it.

She does, carefully pulling back the old newsprint and staring down at the dry, brownish lump in her lap.

I clear my throat, feeling a little foolish. “It’s, ah, a corsage.”

She gingerly picks it up with two fingers. “Pretty. Um, how old is it?”

I smile. “Ten years.”

“Explains why the roses didn’t make it.”

“They were pink, back in the day. To match your dress.”

“To match . . .” Her voice trails off, and her eyes go from the corsage to me. “My prom dress?”

I shrug nervously, no longer convinced this was a good idea. “I worked up the courage for a month to ask you to go as my date. We were both single by then, and I thought it’d be as good a time as any to tell you how I felt.”

“But I insisted on going with my girlfriends,” she whispers, touching a dried petal gently.

I clear my throat. “Yeah. Well. I got this just in case, told myself I was going to come by your house, make the speech. . . .”

When she lifts her eyes to mine, they’re shiny again with unshed tears. “Oh, Mark, if you had—”

“Might have avoided this train wreck, huh?” I ask, nodding at the messy pile of posters.

She laughs and clutches the corsage to her chest. “I love it.”

“I was thinking . . .” I clear my throat again. God, I am so out of my element here. But she’s worth it. She’s always been worth it.

I jerk my chin toward the tree. “I know it’s small, but I was thinking it could be . . . you know. For the top.”

Her lips part in surprise, but the smile that follows is worth every moment of my awkward discomfort. “My tree topper.”

I shrug. “It’s not blue—”

“Aqua.”

I roll my eyes. “I know it’s not aqua or white, but—”

“It’s perfect,” she says, touching my hand. “Perfect.”

I swallow. One more to go . . .

I thrust the gift bag at her. “Your real gift.”

She tucks her hair behind her ear and lifts her eyebrows. “You wrapped it. That’s a first.”

I give a little shake of my head, and Kelly smiles. “Or, your mom wrapped it.”

“Wouldn’t let me leave the house until she found coordinating tissue paper.”

Kelly gingerly lifts said tissue paper from the bag and glances inside, then gives me a skeptical look. She reaches inside, pulls out a Magic 8 ball. “In case I lose the others?”

Here goes nothing. I scoot closer to her and slide a hand to the back of her head, my thumb drifting over her cheekbone.

Her eyes go warm, and though I want nothing more than to kiss her—hell, more than that—I nod at the Magic 8 ball. “Shake it.”

“What question should I ask it?”

I’m the one asking the question.

“Shake it,” I say again.

She does as I say, and I watch, heart in my throat, as she glances down at the little screen.

I already know what it says. I’ve spent the past God knows how many hours taking the damn thing apart and hacking it to say what I want it to say.

“Mark?” she lifts her eyes to mine.

She glances down again at the ball, and I do as well. Instead of the usual yes/no/maybe shit, it has two simple words:

Marry me.

I cup her face with both hands and say it out loud. “Marry me, Kelly. And don’t give me any shit about it being too soon, because if there are two people who know each other inside and out, it’s ones with ten years of history, most of that spent as neighbors and friends—”

“Best friends,” she corrects. “And co-parents of a fur baby.”

“Right. So if you don’t do it for me, do it for Rigby.”

Her eyes flit over my shoulder. “Your dog is by the door. He has to go to the bathroom.”

“Your dog can bloody wait, and that’s a hell of a topic for a time like this, Byrne. Answer the question. And remember all that cheesy stuff you wrote on the posters when you answer.”

She turns her head slightly, pressing a kiss to my hand. “Maybe I should ask the Magic 8 ball.”

I’m anticipating this. “Maybe you should.”

She blinks in surprise, then glances down at the ball still in her hands, gives it a shake.

I don’t bother looking down. I know what it says.

“Yes,” she reads. Then she laughs. “Is there a ‘no’ option?”

“Definitely not.”

“How’d you rig a Magic 8 ball?”

“Kelly . . .” I’m damn close to begging now.

She leans forward and kisses my mouth. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

My eyes close in relief. After a damn decade of waiting, I finally got what I want for Christmas. What I’ve wanted for every Christmas for the last ten years.

“I was thinking we’d buy you a ring together. In New York. After apartment hunting,” I say, in between kisses.

“I love that plan. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Oh, that reminds me.” She pulls back. “I saw the lady. The fortune-teller from the train station.”

“Oh yeah?”

Kelly nods. “Turns out I heard her wrong. She didn’t say The One was a past love, just that he’d been there all along. She was talking about you.”

I pull her close and kiss her forehead, smiling as I do so. “I know.”