phone out of the pocket of his Nike joggers.
“Well, this should be a fun conversation with his mother when she gets home,” Shepherd chirps brightly, with a tiny bit of fear on his face, before he gives me an encouraging smile. “Just do whatever feels right with Tess. But seriously, I gotta know by at least 1:30 about those sparkly stockings if we want to get them done and to FedEx in time.”
With a laugh and a quick goodbye to everyone, and a promise that we’ll let them know when we get on the road to head back to Summersweet, I try not to feel a little sad that tomorrow will be our last day here. It would have been kind of nice to have a small, quiet Christmas with Tess, since it’s our first one together. But I know she’s been spending the night on Christmas Eve with the Bennetts since the year her grandmother died, and there’s no way she’d want to miss it. At least I get to spend the night with her there and we’ll still be together, even if it will be loud and crazy.
Now, I just need to figure out which one of those ideas that were thrown at me feels right, like Shepherd said.
“Just a few more feet and we’ll be there,” I tell Tess, walking behind her outside in the dark with my hands covering her eyes, so freaking excited I can’t even handle it.
At least it stopped snowing for a little bit and the night sky above us is clear and filled with a billion stars.
“You’re lucky I’m still in a coma from that massage, followed by more napping, followed by eating the best pasta I’ve ever had in my life up in our room while we watched Netflix,” Tess mutters as I continue walking us out through the snow in the backyard of The Redinger House. Our destination is about a hundred yards away from the barn where they show Christmas movies every night. “Two surprises in one day? You’re so lucky I’m in a good mood.”
“I swear it’ll be worth it.”
Stopping right where Jason told me to, I remove my hands from Tess’s eyes and try not to bounce up and down next to her. As soon as I came up with the perfect idea, I knew I couldn’t do it alone, and I hunted down Jason to see if he could help. He was more than eager to assist me, making something I thought would be horribly complicated and impossible into something I’m able to do with just the touch of a button.
I don’t even know why I covered Tess’s eyes to walk her out here. It’s not like she can see everything Jason and I set up earlier in the day when the sun was out and she was napping. We’re far enough away from the house and right at the tree line that it’s almost pitch-black out here, aside from the soft glow of some multicolored Christmas lights lining the big red barn back behind us that let me see just enough while I was guiding Tess through the snow that we didn’t trip and fall.
“I know it’s cold, but I swear we won’t be out here long,” I reassure her, rubbing my hands up and down her black hoodie-covered arms while she rubs her hands together in front of her and bounces her knees a little to keep warm. Sliding one hand in my pocket, I wrap it around the small remote Jason gave me and rest my thumb over the button.
He assured me that everyone would be busy watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation in the barn, as long as we planned this for right around 8:00 p.m., and no one would come out here and see what’s about to happen. I don’t know the first damn thing about electrical wiring or any of that complicated shit, but thankfully Jason does. I took one of Shepherd’s Pinterest ideas and got a little creative with it to make it more Tess, including making sure there isn’t an audience. I think she’ll be much more agreeable without the pressure of a bunch of strangers watching. All we have is Jason, who’s hiding somewhere back behind us by the house, just in case anything goes wrong.
I’m going to ask the woman of my dreams to marry me the right way. Absolutely nothing will go wrong, because this was meant to be, and she’s going to fucking love it!
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