My eyes met hers. I couldn’t tell her my whole plan. If I told her my whole plan, then she would laugh me out of the house. If I told her about the future I’d envisioned, she might run away like Deidre did.
“Come on, Cole. I know you have a plan. You always have a plan.”
I looked away. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”
“Or maybe I’lllikethe plan.”
“It’s too much.”
She patted the spot on the couch beside her. I walked over to the tree instead.
“It’s a plan. It’s not like we can’t change it if we need to,” she said.
Change the plan? Sacrilege.
Besides, if I told her my plan, she might think I was just putting her in Deidre’s place when, in reality, Deidre had been inherplace. I just hadn’t known it at the time. All of those hopes and dreams fell into place in perfect clarity. This time Aubrey had the starring role.
“But what if I’m wrong?” I asked, even though every fiber of my being screamed,No. This time you have it right.
“Then you have it wrong. And you start again,” she said. “Trust me, I know a few things about making mistakes.”
“I will kiss you again if you keep talking bad about yourself.”
“Promises, promises,” she said with a sigh. After a beat, she added, “Come on, Frost, tell me about your plans.”
She said it with the same kind of purr that another woman might use in inquiring about my fantasies. The two were beginning to run together.
I took a deep breath. “Step one was to get you the perfect Christmas present.”
“Well done! What was step two?”
“Figure out a way to ask you out on a date.”
“Good, good. We’ve already been on a date.”
“We have?”
“The Christmas party. We got dressed up. We ate together. We kissed. That incorporates most of the elements of a date, yes?”
She had a point.
“Okay, well, after a couple of dates I was going to ask if you would…”
“Yes?”
“Be my girlfriend.”
She bit her lip to keep from laughing. It did sound silly when I said it like that, but that didn’t stop my whole body from stiffening in anticipation of her answer.
“The answer is yes.”
Breathe. Yes, I needed to breathe. “That was easy.”
“You’re a very persuasive guy when you want to be.”
“Somewhere in there was going to be sex.”
“Obviously.”
