Cupid Has a Heart-On (The Holidays #2) (15 page)

“Who are you?”

“I’m Tinder Tristan!” he says with a smile. “Don’t worry, I’m skipping the poetry tonight.”

Aunt Bobbie kisses his cheek, and I finally turn my head to face Sam. Sort of. I close my eyes and pretend like I’m in a galaxy far, far away. One that does not have a crazy train leaving every thirty seconds and one where I never lost the ring the love of my life gave me from his dearly departed mother.

I feel Sam wrap his hand around my left arm and start to tug it away from my body.

“Seriously, just give me your hand for a second,” he says in a low voice, still trying to pull my arm out from behind me.

“Oh, shit. We should all probably run right about now,” Nicholas says from his seat at the table.

“See? Now I don’t look so crazy, do I?” Alex replies to him.

“Will you two shut the fuck up?!” Sam growls. “Noel, please open your eyes.”

As slowly as I can, figuring I should probably get this over with since Valentine’s Day is pretty much ruined at this point, I lift one eyelid and see Sam holding exactly what I thought. A ring box.

An empty ring box because he wants the damn ring back!

With a sigh, I loosen my arm and let him pull it out from behind my back, taking a page out of Sam’s book and looking up at the ceiling instead of him so I don’t have to see the disappointment on his face when he notices my empty ring finger.

His hand slides down my arm and he squeezes my left hand. I hear the shuffling of his feet and something snap open and my heart skips a beat.

“I’m so sorry, Sam. I don’t know what happened and I’m sorry, and I know none of that means anything because I lost-”

“What the fuck? It’s not a key? I wrestled you like an alligator and you didn’t even have that dumb key in there?” Alex cuts me off with a complaint.

My head whips down and I stare wide-eyed into the ring box Sam is holding out to me, while down on one knee and still squeezing my left hand.

“Your mother’s ring!” I shout, finishing my previous sentence, but with a lot more relief than before.

“Jesus, man. Give us a little warning next time. I legit thought the key was still in there. Sorry about riding you like a bull,” Alex apologizes.

“What is all this key talk about?” Tinder Tristan asks quietly. “Is this a key party? Are we switching partners tonight? If so, I think I’d like to try the old guy down at the end.”

“Keep your dick in your pants. I am strictly exit only,” my father warns.

Sam sighs, pushing the ring box up a little higher.

“I swiped it off of your finger that night in the shower,” he tells me with a grin.

“What? How?” I ask in shock, staring wide-eyed at the ring nestled in the white satin.

“Well, you were a little preoccupied and the water helped keep it loose on your finger. Then, it was just a matter of hiding it under my tongue until we got out and I could stick it in my pants pocket when you left the bathroom.”

Aunt Bobbie whistles under her breath.

“I get
him
if this turns out to be a key party. I’d like a stab at that mouth and tongue. Pun intended,” she tells the room.

“Your idiot brother and my idiot best friend thought I was going to get down on my knee and give you a ring box with a key to my house in it, that’s why we had a little scuffle when Alex saw me pull the box out of my pocket,” Sam explains.

I laugh and shake my head at him. “I would have totally kicked you in the balls if you did that!”

Alex and Nicholas reach across the table to give each other high-fives.

“Yeah, I kind of figured that might happen. After I got my head out of my ass, I got to thinking and I realized you never really got a proper proposal,” he tells me.

“Bullshit! My idea!” Scheva suddenly says in between a few loud coughs.

“Okay, fine. I had a little help with this idea.”

I shoot a little glare in Scheva’s direction, knowing damn well she must have told Sam my crazy thoughts about how maybe our previous engagement wasn’t quite so real.

She grabs her wine glass and tilts it in my direction. “Cheers, bitch! And, you’re welcome.”

Scheva downs the entire glass, smacking it back onto the table as I focus back to Sam.

“Don’t be mad at her, I may have called her in a panic, thinking you wanted to break up with me. There was a lot of cursing and yelling. She had no choice,” Sam informs me.

“And I’ve forgiven you for the
twat
comment. Now, please proceed so I can get more wine,” Scheva says.

Sam takes a deep breath and lifts the ring box closer to me. “Take the ring out.”

With a shaky hand, I gently pull it out of the box and I notice something new about it now that I’m holding it that it I didn’t see when I was so busy freaking out.

“I had the jeweler solder a band to it to make it a little wider. Look inside the ring.”

The simple, gold band with a one-carat, princess-cut diamond in the center, now has a beautiful diamond-studded, gold band attached to it. Turning it in my fingers, I look inside the ring and the tears immediately start to fall when I see what’s been engraved inside.

“My heart started beating at an airport…” I read aloud.

“You know I meant everything I said to you when I got down on one knee Christmas Eve and first gave you that ring, but I realize now that I should have done it again. For real. When neither of us are pretending and when we’re both on the same page,” Sam says, tossing the ring box to the side and holding my left hand in both of his.

I can’t stop the tears from falling as Sam repeats all of the same words he said to me on Christmas Eve.

“I wanted to wait until the perfect moment to do this, because
you
are perfect. But I realized it doesn’t matter where or when I do this, just that I do it.”

He leans forward and kisses the top of my hand as he continues, my heart melting inside my chest.

“I think I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you, and every moment I’ve spent with you since then has just gotten better and better. I love your smile, I love your laugh, and I love the way you love your family, so unconditionally that you would do anything for them. Marry me, Noel Holiday. Marry me and never leave. Love me forever, and I will do everything I can to keep that smile on your face and the laughter in your voice.”

Just like the first time he said these words, my mother’s sniffles and soft sobbing is audible from the other side of the table as Sam gets up from his knees and stands in front of me, resting his hands on my hips.

“So, what do you say? Do you want to get hitched and be crazy together for the rest of our lives?”

Bringing my hands up between us, I slip the newly-enhanced ring onto my finger and slide my palms up his chest, draping my arms over his shoulders.

“Yes. One hundred percent yes!” I laugh as he pulls me tighter and presses his lips to mine.

“Jesus Christ, it’s about time. Can we eat now?” my father complains as Sam and I ignore everyone in the room.

“So, we’re
not
exchanging keys?” Tinder Tristan questions.

“How can any of you think about food and keys at a time like this?!” my mother shouts. “We have a wedding to plan, venues to look at, food to order, decorations to decorate, dresses to try on, family to call, and a bachelorette party to think about! Someone get Pinky on the phone!”

Sam and I pull apart, and I grin up at him.

“Are you sure you really want to do this? My mother is going to be crazier than ever now,” I tell him softly.

“I’m sure. But are you sure you’re okay doing this when you don’t have a job yet? No more freaking out about living with me and me taking care of you until that happens. Promise me,” he demands quietly.

“Oh, no need to worry about that whole job thing,” my mother suddenly pipes up, taking a pause in her wedding planning.

Sam and I watch as she grabs a piece of paper from next to her plate and walks it around the table, holding it out to me. I take it from her hands and my jaw drops when I read what is printed on it.

“You remember the two women who did the sex toy party for us?” my mother asks as I continue to read, unable to believe what I’m seeing. “Well, I called Liz, the one who runs the sex toy part of the business and told her about those fun greeting cards you came up with when you were high as a kite.”

I hand Sam the email when I’m finished reading it to let him take a look at it.

“Holy shit,” he whispers. “They want to hire you to develop your own line of greeting cards for all the Seduction and Snacks stores, worldwide.”

I nod in shock, unable to speak.

“Liz said you can literally put anything you want on those cards!” my mother explains. “Herpes? Great! Tiny penis jokes? Excellent! Pussy punch and twat taps, whatever those are? Go for it! The more horrible the better. Happy Valentine’s Day, honey, Mommy got you a job!”

Sam lets go of me so I can wrap my arms around my mother and give her a hug.

“I love you, Mom. You’re insane, but I love you. Thank you for doing this,” I tell her as she squeezes me back.

“Well, I didn’t do it
all
for you. Your father and I love having you stay with us, but we need our empty house back. Now that I know he’s not cheating on me, and now that he’s been studying up on Sam’s dirty books, we’ve got some catching up to do,” she divulges as I pull out of her embrace.

“Jesus, woman, we’re caught up! And stop telling people about the books. Everyone will think I’m a gay for reading them,” my father complains.

“Oh! That reminds me,” I tell Sam with a smile, moving to the side table in the room and opening the top drawer to pull out the present I stuck inside earlier today.

I hand him the box, wrapped in red paper with little pink hearts all over it. “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

He takes the present and quickly unwraps it, laughing when he sees what’s inside.

“Awwww, you got me a Kindle!”

“I even loaded it up with all of those author’s books you carried around with you before my dad stole them,” I tell him.

“They didn’t even have any pictures in them. What a waste,” my dad grumbles.

“Alright, everyone sit down so we can finally eat!” my mom orders. “We can wedding plan while you’re stuffing your faces.”

The scraping of chairs and the low hum of conversation fills the room as Sam pulls me away from the madness and into the doorway.

“I hope all of this was okay. You know, being sneaky with the ring and doing this in front of your family,” he says softly. “Being alone for most of my life, I’ve never been very good at voicing my feelings, or hell, even showing them. But you make me want to wear my heart on my sleeve, Noel.”

I wrap my arms around his shoulders and smile up at him, the tears beginning to fall all over again.

“So, you’re saying you have a heart-on for me?” I ask with a laugh in between the tears.

He grabs my hips and pulls my body up against his.

“Yes, yes I do,” he smiles. “Always and forever.”

I rest my head on his chest, right over his heart and smile.

“Let the wedding planning commence,” I tell him softly.

“God help us all,” he laughs.

The End…for now.

As always, the biggest THANK YOU in the world to my beta readers, Michelle Kannan and Stephanie Johnson. Thank you for always being okay with getting one chapter at a time and thank you for not kicking my ass when I take too long to send you the next chapter. I love both your faces!

Thank you to Scheva Hurm for bidding in an auction at the
A Christmas Prayer for Patty
event and winning the shittiest prize ever of having a character named after you in one of my books. Sorry I made you kind of a slut, but at least you got to be sarcastic and have sex with a hot Marine, so there’s that.

Without my awesome readers, Cupid Has a Heart-On would never have happened. Thank you so much for loving the crazy Holiday family in The Stocking Was Hung and demanding more from these idiots!

Thank you to my husband for convincing me that using the word
moist
in the title might not be a wise decision, and for coming up with something much better and awesomely punny.

Last, but not least, thank you to my Backdoor Comedy Club ladies – Meghan Quinn, Debra Anastasia, Helena Hunting and Katherine Stevens. You ladies make me strive to be funnier than you, which is damn near impossible, but at least it gives me something to live for and, like, goals and shit. Also, thank you for letting me make fun of you in this book. I know you didn’t really have a choice, but let’s all pretend you did so this doesn’t get awkward.