December 25, 2001 Tampa Florida

The paper was silver and covered in metallic candy canes and at least half a pound of tape holding it all on. The box was small and rectangular and definitely wouldn’t hold anything that was more than paper thin. As she held it in her hand Tina couldn’t figure out for the life of her why Nick couldn’t have given this to her in the morning and she hoped that after she opened it there would be an explanation.

At some point both of her parents had come into the house and Tina could tell they were lingering around the living room in the hopes of finding out what was going on. She glanced up quickly to see her father pass by the door with Parker and she wished for just a moment that they could be alone for once. She couldn’t remember the last time she and Nick were actually alone, not just shut away in their bedroom away from everyone.

“Open it,” Nick encouraged her. He was kneeling on the couch in front of where she was sitting, his hand lingering around the kangaroo pocket on his sweatshirt where the ring box was now.

Another swipe took care of the tears that were lingering around her eyes and she took a deep breath, trying to compose herself before she reached for the end of the paper.

“Wait! Don’t open it!”

Tina let out a frustrated cry and gave him a perplexed look, “Open it, don’t open it, what do you want me to do?” she asked curiously.

“I need to tell you something first,” Nick said with a heavy breath, “It’s important.”

“Nick,” the faucet had reopened on her tears and she reached forward to touch the red mark on his cheek from where she’d hit him; “Please just tell me. I don’t know if I can take much more of this. Just be honest.”

Taking a deep breath he clasped his hand over hers and turned quickly to kiss her palm, “I’ve never told you this before. Actually, I’ve never told anyone this. That weekend in Daytona all of your friends wanted to hook up with me. Before I even finished my first drink one of them had offered to blow me in the bathroom.”

She wasn’t sure what the point of this confession was, “I don’t understand...”

“Just,” he interrupted, “Let me finish okay?”

“Okay,” Tina whispered, using her free hand to push a strand of hair out of her face, “Go on.”

Nick nodded and with another breath he continued, still holding tightly onto her hand for reassurance, “It’s just that... it would have been so easy to just pick one of them up but then I saw you. At first glance I thought you were beautiful and once I started talking to you at that beach party you were even more perfect. You were funny, and smart, and pretty, and you asked me questions about myself that I thought for sure that nobody cared about. I had never given a girl my email and phone number before but I gave it to you because I wanted to wake up on the bus, check my email, and find something from you. I thought if I told the guys how I felt they would say I was a pussy for pining after you. That’s what I was doing though, pining. For three months I went to sleep and woke up thinking about you. I jerked off thinking about you, I dreamt about you, and I was only with you for a weekend! You just... got me. You never called though. You never wrote. When you finally did call me it was to tell me you were pregnant. I thought... that I had ruined your life. I figured you felt like you were stuck with me and I’ve never forgiven myself for ruining your dreams.”

Tina gasped, never having expected anything like that to come out of Nick’s mouth, “I didn’t think you really wanted me to email you. I thought I was just another fling.”

“I thought it was going to be a fling,” he admitted, “I wanted to have some fun. But things changed when I realized that you were it for me.”

“Why did you never tell me any of this before?” she asked, knowing that things could have been very different if he had just been upfront about his feelings from the start.

Nick didn’t answer; instead he gave her his signature half smile and squeezed her fingers quickly before letting go.

“You can open it now.”

Her chest was heaving with anxious breath as she pulled off the paper and broke the seal on the box. She lingered for a moment over opening it, her hands shaking slightly. With a deep breath she pulled open the flaps and looked inside.

Inside the box she saw the back of two magazines tied together with ribbon and an envelope, each numbered one and two. She picked up the envelope first, sliding her finger under the flap to easily open it up. Inside she found two items. Choosing the larger of the two she pulled out a cheque. It was made out to cash with Nick’s sweeping signature on the bottom. The first thing she noticed was that the amount had been left blank. The other item was a business card. Flipping it over it read the name of a wedding planner in the area and immediately she looked up to give him a quizzical look.

Nick encouraged her to keep going and she put the two items down on the couch beside her before reaching back into the box for the magazines. She had butterflies in her stomach now as she flipped them over to see that they were both bridal magazines. Upon further inspection there was a note stuck to the top magazine. It read, ‘Wedding in a box’, and was scratched out in Nick’s messy writing.

This time when she looked up she didn’t see Nick’s encouraging face, she saw Tiffany blue. He was now on one knee, holding out the trademark blue box. She watched, transfixed on it, as he opened it up with trembling fingers. Inside sat the most beautiful diamond ring Tina had ever seen.

It was a brilliantly clear, two carat, cushion cut diamond perched on platinum, the band embedded with tiny diamonds. Tina knew that later on she would probably try to count them all because it seemed like there were millions of tiny sparkles all over it.

“I’ve been a fool,” Nick finally spoke, pulling the ring out of the box, “I was so scared, so unsure about the future, that I didn’t think that this was important. I realize now that it doesn’t matter because it’s important to you. I want you to be happy and if this ring, and a wedding, is part of what goes into making you happy then I’m on board. I don’t want to be without you. I want us to be a family and part of that is making sure that you feel safe. I want to keep you safe; I want to give you everything. Marry me.”

She was still crying, but the reasons for her tears had changed. She had waited three years for this moment. He had fought and fought, giving her endless excuses as to why getting married didn’t matter so she had never expected for him to actually propose. Sure, he had told her that they could get married after Zoey was born but they hadn’t talked about it once after that moment and she had felt guilty for talking him into it. This was all him though, all his plans and ideas and she was ecstatic.

“I don’t know...” she said and Nick’s face dropped.

“What do you mean?” his breath caught in his throat and she had to fight back the smile that was lingering at the corners of her mouth.

Finally breaking into a grin she held out her left hand, “Gotcha! Finally I get you back for all of those mean jokes you’ve played on me. Of course I’ll marry you.”

Nick let out a sigh of relief and laughed, “You did get me,” he agreed, pretending to wipe sweat off his forehead, “You had me going there for a second.”

He slipped the ring onto her finger, both of them just staring for a moment, realizing that this was it and it was real.

“Perfect,” she said quietly, referring to how well the ring moulded to her finger.

“You’re perfect,” he told her, leaning forward for a kiss.

“You’re not wrong,” Tina teased just before his lips touched hers gently.

She couldn’t believe this was how the day was going to end. A few hours ago she was more than certain that this Christmas was going to go down in history as being the worst of her entire life. She was unhappy, was being greeted by a fight at every turn, and most of all thought that the person she loved didn’t care about her enough to get her something as simple as a Christmas gift. It wasn’t so much the materialistic side of her that cared; though knowing that Nick had a Guinness World Record hanging on his office wall for making more money in the previous year than any other musician in the world didn’t really help her mentally justify why there was nothing for her under the tree. It was mostly her pride that had been hurt, and she didn’t think that there was anything Nick could do to fix it. He had a knack for proving her wrong though.