Jingle Bells

Silver Bells pt. 2

He tries to calm his heartbeat. You're not even doing it until after dinner. Calm down.

"Are you sure you're okay?" She asks him, handing him a plate of four perfectly stacked chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream and maple syrup.

"I'm positive. You worry too much."

"You stress too much."

"I'm happy, remember?"

"Yeah, but-"

"And I'm gonna try to start taking your advice. Enjoy life and all that."

She raises her eyebrows. "Really?"

He nods. "Yeah. But forget that right now. I'm starving."

She giggles a bit and rolls her eyes, reaching up to tousle his hair. He narrows his eyes at her playfully and steals a strawberry off her pancake stack before sitting down at the table.

"Oh, you'll pay for that," she tells him. "You will pay for that."

"Is that so?" He asks her challengingly.

"Mhmm. Just you wait. You won't even see it coming."

He smiles and shrugs, taking a bite of his food.

A couple hours later, they're finished eating and curled up on the couch, just talking. Normally, he likes nights like these, where they hang out and simply enjoy each other's company and conversation. But tonight's a little different. Tonight, he wishes they were doing something, anything that might distract him from his building nerves.

"When we have kids, we aren't gonna have room for all those ornaments plus all their homemade ones," Nini notes after a few beats of silence, staring at the tree.

He looks over at her. "We're gonna have kids?"

She looks at him, swallowing. "If. If we have kids."

"When. I want all of that with you."

She exhales a sigh of what sounds like relief. "Oh. Good. I want it too. With you, of course. I don't know why-"

"That future we talked about. I want it," he says before he can stop himself, interrupting what was probably gonna be one of her awkward rambles.

She nods. "Me too."

He turns on the couch to face her more and grabs her hands. "I know I'm... hard to deal with. I know I'm argumentative and cold and always stressed and most of the time I don't seem happy at all."

She frowns. "Hey, stop it-"

He shakes his head. "But I want you to know I'm happy with you." His heart pounds against his chest and suddenly he starts talking in a rush. "You make me so happy; I can't even put it into words. Before I met you, I had nothing to live for, except the company. But then you came into my life with your peppermint hot chocolate and ear-piercing Christmas music and your peppiness and excitement and everything about you, and you just... you turned everything completely upside down for me."

Her cheeks tint pink. "You make me so happy, too, you know."

"I know that. I don't know how, but I know that I do. But Nini, you... you light up every single room you walk in to. You're like this- this embodiment of pure sunlight, and everyone revolves around you because they want to, because they love you. And I know I'm rambling, and you probably think I've lost my mind, but I just... can't comprehend how lucky I am to have you."

She smiles a bit, her eyes glistening. "You're gonna make me cry," she says with a giggle, her voice shaking with the tears she's holding back. "Especially because I know you're being serious if you can say all this when I'm wearing a ridiculous reindeer onesie."