Best Laid Plans

First Date

A/N: I think it's time for a double update! 

Perrie

Jade picks me up at six on the dot. When we're in the car she hands me a box. A ring box. No words, just the box. Swear to god, it was just sitting in a cup holder in the console between us when she picked it up and handed it to me like she was passing me a stick of gum.

It's the ring. Like, the ring.

"Jade, this is the exact ring I described to your sister and grandmother."

"I know. I hope it's what you really wanted because you're stuck with it now," she chuckles.

"I..." I stare at the ring nestled inside the box. Then I stare some more, because I have no idea what to say. 

The ring is absolutely gorgeous. So gorgeous that even if it was that clown Piers Morgan proposing to me with it, I would say yes. Or maybe not, but you know what I mean. It looks like it had probably cost a fortune. The huge diamond sparkles brightly in the sunlight; it will turn heads for sure.

"Unless you want to make up an elaborate story about something happening to this ring, we could pick out something else. If you prefer," Jade says hurriedly, probably taking my silence as a bad sign.

I'm still staring at the ring. She listened to me? She was actually listening to that crazy-pants story I told her grandmother? In detail? She listened and she committed the details to memory and then she went out and got the exact ring of my dreams?

Okay. Exhale.

Logically I know there are at least four things at hand that need to be dealt with right now. Things of importance. But I'm feeling weirdly emotional.

The fact that Jade changed before our date didn't help. And she did a full-on strip-tease with her clothes that got me all worked up. By which I mean she took them off like a normal human-being but damn, it was hot. Then she put on a pair of jeans, jeans which make her ass look so good, before rolling back the sleeves of her shirt, which we already know does things to me. Pregnancy hormones are no joke. Although I already had these naughty thoughts about her when I wasn't pregnant yet, so I maybe should stop blaming the pregnancy for everything.

Anyway.

My heart has swooned. It's flopped over into a full swoon. I imagine if I could see my heart right now it looks exactly like Tubbs looks when he rolls onto his back, belly exposed, paws in the air, like a morbidly obese sea otter.

"It's beautiful, Jade. Just like I pictured it in my head," I whisper in awe.

I take it out of the box and slip it onto my finger. Unreal. She even got the sizing correct on my fictional fantasy ring. Except wait a second. The box is bearing the name of a high-end jewelry store so I think this freaking ring might not be as fake as the story I told when I described it. "Wait a second." I wiggle the fingers on my left hand. "Is this real?"

"Of course it's real. Do you think I'd let my wife walk around with a fake ring? I'm always 'so extra', remember?"

For fuck's sake with that again. "I was making you look good," I remind her. "You just left this sitting in your car while you came upstairs to change?"

"Relax. It's insured. I know how that gets you off," she teased.

"A ring is a little presumptuous. And unnecessary. I haven't agreed to this."

"And yet I spent my day fielding congratulatory emails from colleagues due to your fiancée stunt at the party. Then I was late for a meeting due to an unannounced visit from my grandfather demanding to know if I was going to run his company into ruin with my erratic social life."