Our apartment above Bite Me looked like Christmas had arrived, panicked, and dropped its purse. A half-decorated tree leaned near the window overlooking the boardwalk. My mother’s mistletoe clip box sat beside Nico’s spreadsheets. Cookie tins, unopened ornaments, ribbon, and one lifeguard whistle covered the little table we both pretended wasn’t a desk.
Nico set the ornament on a branch near the front.
I moved it two branches to the side.
He turned to me.
“What?” I said. “Your family ornament needs humility.”
“It survived my family. It has humility.”
I took the paper star from the table and reached for the top of the tree. At five-two, ambition wasn’t a ladder.
Nico came behind me and lifted me by the waist.
“Nico,” I said, laughing. “If you drop Mrs. Claus, Christmas is canceled.”
“I’d never drop Mrs. Claus.”
I set the star crooked on top. “Perfect.”
“It’s leaning.”
“So are we. It’s thematic.”
He lowered me to my feet but didn’t let go. For a second, we stood in the window glow with Bite Me shining below us and the ocean moving beyond the lights.
Then Nico stepped back.
He took off the hat.
The joking line of his mouth disappeared.
My fingers tightened around the ribbon in my hand. “Why do you look like you’re about to do accounting at me?”
“I’m not.”
“That’s good, because I’m emotionally unavailable for spreadsheets after midnight.”
He went down on one knee on my cheap rug, still in the ridiculous red jacket, with the bow on his watch and my cranberry sugar on his sleeve.
I stopped breathing.
Nico opened a small black box.
The ring inside caught the tree lights, bright and simple, with a tiny blue stone tucked beside the diamond like the ocean had gotten involved and demanded credit.
“This isn’t about Bite Me,” he said.
My eyes burned. “Good, because my bar rejects hostile holiday takeovers.”
“I don’t want to own your bar.” His voice went rough. “I want to come home to you. I want the life we have in this place: your loud family, my complicated one, receipts on the table, customers who should be supervised by federal law, and every morning when you tell me where to stand. I love you, Nella. Marry me.”
I held his gaze through the blur.
Then I pointed one finger at the red jacket. “You wore this to propose to me?”
“You approved it.”
