“You’re amazing,” Nick murmured against Annie’s lips as they crossed the threshold around two AM. Just across the yard, a figure shrouded in black hid behind the mature pine tree near the driveway.
“You too, Mr. Producer.” Annie looked up at him and smiled, her cheeks flushed with the excitement of the night, and her green eyes bright with happiness.
“You tired?” Nick asked, hopeful. After the night she’d had, he expected she’d say no. He knew that adrenaline surge feeling quite well. Not only had they snagged the award for Song of The Year, but Annie had also walked away with Best New Artist, and tied for Female Vocalist of the Year.
Annie smiled and placed the three awards she held in her arms on the table in the foyer. “I’m sure I am, but I don’t expect sleep to come for a while.”
“Let’s keep celebrating, then.” Nick gave her a quick kiss on the tip of her nose, unwrapped his arms from around her waist, and jogged into the kitchen, where he retrieved a bottle of champagne from the wine cooler under the counter. Annie came into the kitchen and leaned against the doorway as she watched him pull a couple of champagne flutes out of a cabinet above his head. He grasped them carefully, crossing the crystal stems over each other with the fingers of one hand while he grasped the neck of the bottle of Annie’s favorite champagne in the other. “I’m not used to coming home from awards show after parties sober,” he admitted with a sheepish grin, as a shadow passed by the kitchen window unnoticed.
“Well, the Gospel Music Association frowns on that sort of thing,” she replied. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Nick answered with an affirmative nod.
Annie didn’t necessarily disagree with the hardcore conservative Christians’ stance on alcohol, but she didn’t particularly agree with them either. As a doctor, she knew the value of having a glass of red wine every night, and wasn’t opposed to having a cocktail while out to dinner, either. She did like to abide by the biblical principle of “do not be a drunkard,” but that wasn’t to say she’d never done it. The last time she’d been bonafide drunk, though, had ended with disastrous results, and she’d vowed to never go there again. Still, the idea of celebrating with a glass of her favorite champagne seemed like a perfect way to relax at the end of the night. “How’d you know we’d be celebrating, anyway?” she asked Nick, her eyebrow raised in an amused smirk.
Nick shrugged as he crossed the tile floor to stand in front of her.. “Well, Best New Artist and Female Vocalist of the Year were in the bag. Song of The Year had me a little nervous though. It’s often that a Christian artist goes up against the likes of Steven Curtis Chapman and wins. Plus, you were singing with Brian.”
Annie rolled her eyes and gave him a playful little shove. “Be nice!” she scolded.
“Aren’t I always?” He batted his eyelashes innocently and smiled as he bent down to give her yet another kiss, sad that his hands were full and he couldn’t touch her again at the moment. After pulling his lips away, he gestured towards the stairs. “Mi’lady.” He bowed reverently and she giggled as she turned and started jogging up them, but not before first kicking off her heels on the hardwood floor at the bottom. Nick followed close behind her, and bit his lip and smiled as he watched her bypass her own bedroom and head straight for his. She went straight for the almost floor-length window by his bed and flung the curtains out of her way, then unlatched the lock and pushed it open. She hiked up the skirt of her navy blue satin gown and climbed not-so-gracefully onto the rooftop, where she found an old quilt spread out across the shingles and a hammered steel ice bucket beside it.
“You’re sneaky,” she remarked as she lowered herself to a seated position on the quilt.
Nick shrugged nonchalantly as he clambered through the window as best he could while his hands were full. “I knew we’d be celebrating,” he said as he sat down beside her and handed her the champagne flutes. “I might have given Brian a key so he could fill the ice bucket before we got home.” He grinned sheepishly as he put his own flute down and started working with the stopper on top of the champagne bottle. He popped it off with a grunt and it went flying through the air, bouncing down the slanted rooftop and into a bush down below while champagne foamed out of the bottle and into his lap. “Oops.”
Annie threw her head back and laughed as she held out her glass and waited for him to pour the bubbly liquid into it. He obliged and poured a glassful of his own before he placed the bottle into the bucket and scooted over until he was behind her. He spread his legs and inched up towards her back, then enveloped her with his free arm as he took a long swig of his champagne. Annie sighed happily as she leaned back against his chest. They sat there in comfortable silence while they sipped their champagne and watched the occasional car or 18-wheeler pass by on the neighboring highway above and in front of them. The roof over Nick’s covered porch outside his bedroom window had become Annie’s sanctuary shortly after she moved to Nashville, and before she and Nick started officially dating. She loved that even though he was in a small neighborhood, there were no houses facing the front of Nick’s house, so no one could see her up there.
The leaves on a nearby tree rustled in the cool September morning breeze, and Annie shivered, prompting Nick to put his now empty champagne flute down and wrap the edges of the jacket he was still wearing around her bare shoulders, pulling her in closer. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and rested his chin against it while they basked in the moonlight and she finished her own glass of champagne. Nick could feel his heart pounding hard in his chest, and prayed she didn’t notice. Her medical training made her quick to pick up on that sort of thing, so he basically had to wear his heart on his sleeve around her. She knew him well enough to know when he was nervous, and her uncanny ability to recognize the physical signs didn’t help matters. She tipped her head back to finish off her own serving of champagne, then wiggled out of his grasp and got up on her knees so that she could reach the still more than half-full champagne bottle. When she turned with the bottle in her hand to ask Nick if he wanted another glass, he was leaning forward with his elbows on his bent knees and smiling warmly at her. “Marry me.”
