There was something so romantically cliché about the fact that she’d actually gotten Cindy to sit down on the big fluffy carpet in front of the fireplace with her that Lindsay was kind of surprised when her girlfriend, never one for missing an opportunity to mercilessly tease, didn’t turn the whole scenario into a parody and start spouting off lines that sounded straight out of a lesbian romance novel. Instead, Cindy was remarkably tame, reclining back on her elbows, legs stretched out before her, looking totally relaxed in a way that Lindsay had never really seen her.

Reaching one long arm across the expanse between them, Lindsay wiped the slowly melting chocolate from Cindy’s lower lip, laughing when Cindy’s tongue darted out to swipe the sweet sauce off of her finger before it got away from her completely.

“You did not make that,” Cindy accused, tonguing the residue from her lip.

“I did so.” Lindsay picked up the last dark chocolate covered raspberry and tried to tempt Cindy into it. Cindy waved it off, though her expression suggested she would have eaten it in a heartbeat if she didn’t want to watch Lindsay do it. Lindsay popped the raspberry into her mouth, sucking the chocolate from her finger longer and harder than was necessary for Cindy’s benefit and smiled. It was true. She was exceedingly awesome, and her now famous chocolate raspberry torte could win several major awards. Never again would Cindy doubt the fact that she, Lindsay Boxer, could do whatever she set her mind to, including whipping up one truly kickass dessert.

“In that case, I think you should become the full-time cook at home.”

Lindsay paused in her self-congratulation. The internal debate of whether she would prefer to be known for her magnificence or come home to Cindy’s impromptu delicacies several times a month lasted only a matter of seconds before she put on a look of utmost shame. “Okay, you’re right. I bought it.”

“Liar,” Cindy responded instantly with a broad, knowing grin.

Lindsay grinned back as she got to her feet to take the plate sitting on the floor between them to the sink. Stopping mid-stride, she glanced back at Cindy just in case she got a mind to relocate.

“Don’t move.”

“Do I look motivated to you?” Cindy returned.

Lindsay tried not to groan. All night long, Cindy had looked a whole host of things. Motivated hadn’t yet been one of them.

Continuing on her mission, Lindsay deposited everything into the sink and returned with a second bottle of wine. Topping off their glasses, she left the bottle at rug’s edge before abandoning Cindy once again to her state of leisure. Though Cindy’s eyes lacked the ability to ever be completely at rest. As if they were tethered to her, those always curious eyes moved with Lindsay around the room as she fished all of the hidden treasures from their respective hiding places. The first was the most important. Having carried it around with her the majority of time for several months now, leaving it in Jacobi’s possession when she thought that Cindy might get snoopy, and keeping mum with Jill and Claire, it still somehow managed to feel like the beginning of a crescendo as she retrieved it from a mug on the top shelf that she knew she needn’t worry about Cindy being able to reach. With a little smile at that fact, Lindsay draped an unused cloth napkin over the box as if she was a magician about to make it disappear.

Cradling the concealed item to her chest with one hand, she detoured to the bookshelf, retrieving item number two on her way to the final item in the bottom drawer of the TV cabinet.

“Look what I found,” she said, walking back to an exceedingly curious Cindy and waving the last two of the three procured items around.

“Presents?” Cindy asked. Her look was somewhere between irritation and enthusiasm as she stared down the two pieces wrapped in matching solid silver paper.

“Merry Christmas,” Lindsay said, easing back down by Cindy’s side and holding the first gift out. It was a real struggle to keep her smirk at least somewhat subdued. “From Jill and Claire.”

Cindy’s head tilted in reaction and her expression skewed in favor of irritation. “I am going to kill you.”

Lindsay laughed harder than she probably should have given Cindy’s fairly earnest threat . “Not tonight you’re not. Open it.”

Mood shifting quite rapidly back toward enthusiasm, Cindy ripped into the wrapping paper like she’d never harbored a moment’s ill will. In lieu of going for her camera, which seemed much too far away at the moment, Lindsay committed the slowly transpiring reaction to memory, from the slight blanching of Cindy’s cheeks to the way she moved her lips without sound as if she couldn’t quite remember how to make words happen. When she finally looked up, it was with an openly affected expression she didn’t try to hide.

“Is this a first edition?” she asked.

“You think Jill and Claire would cheap out on you?”

Cindy’s fingertips ghosted over the soft leather cover. The reverence with which she did it would have made Lindsay fall a little more if there were any further to fall.

“Every time my Dad used to take me camping, we would sit next to the fire and we would read this book aloud,” Cindy reminisced.

“I know,” Lindsay returned. “Your mom told me.”

Cindy looked up at her, eyes dark and damp in the firelight.

“No crying,” Lindsay declared. “You need to save up all your tears. When I do my dramatic reading for you tomorrow, you will want to weep for my tour-de-force performance.”

Succeeding in turning Cindy’s tears into immediate laughter, Lindsay held out the other package. “Here.”

“This one’s mine too?”

“Actually that one is mine,” Lindsay amended. “But I want you to open it.”

Giving her a quizzical look, Cindy did as requested. Popping the lid off the box, she pulled out a short lacy blue number that made a feral grin spread across Lindsay’s face.

“I thought this one was yours,” Cindy scanned the tag.

“It is.”

“It’s in my size.”

“I told you I brought what I wanted you to wear.”

Shaking her head as if she should have known, Cindy smiled anyway. She held the barely there fabric up against her and Lindsay licked her lips in approval. Exhibition over, Cindy dropped the lingerie back into the box. “Let me go out on a limb. Mostly Claire,” she indicated the book still in her hand. “Mostly Jill,” she nudged the box of blue lace with her knee.

The certainly accurate deduction made Lindsay laugh out loud. “I imagine it worked out that way,” she agreed.

Cindy stared at her, her smile fading into something more sober and introspective. “But you planned all of this.”

“Yeah,” Lindsay shrugged self-consciously, trying not to let her nerves get the better of her. “But I planned it all before our anniversary disagreement,” she teased. “So, you may want to do all of this again next week.”

Cindy smiled, but didn’t quite give in to Lindsay’s attempt to lighten the suddenly emotionally-dense atmosphere. “This is amazing. I mean, off the charts amazing.” Cindy emphasized the extent of the amazingness with her hands. “But it’s a lot. Why did you do all this?”

Lindsay stared into Cindy’s eyes without as much discomfort as she really expected to feel. Though there was some. She knew her reasoning. She knew it far too well. She just wasn’t sure how much of it she could actually say. She glanced down, eyes locking on the rug, fingertips nervously twirling her glass. “I want to give you everything that you need,” she quietly admitted. But that wasn’t all. Her jaw tightened and she felt helpless not to confess everything. “…so you never have a reason to leave me.”

Cindy murmured her name and just the sound of her voice boosted Lindsay’s courage enough to look up into light brown eyes both captivated and concerned by her revelation. “I have never felt anything like this before… ever.” She wasn’t sure she could make that point clear enough. “I have never needed anyone the way that I…”

“Shh, Linds. Don’t,” Cindy soothed, her hand reaching out to rest over Lindsay’s. “I know.”

Lindsay’s hand turned up and she glanced down as she captured Cindy’s smaller one. “You’re letting me off the hook.”

“Yeah,” Cindy admitted. “I have a tendency to do that with you.”

“Not tonight. Tonight, I really need to say…” Lindsay swallowed, palm rubbing against Cindy’s as she searched for the right words, coming up with only, “you drove me completely crazy.” It was only when Cindy’s wide-eyed shock turned into a giggle that Lindsay felt that she should trudge on. “You did. You drove me insane. You were always around and in my business and knowing things before I knew them and asking prying questions. It was really incredibly annoying.”

“Thanks,” Cindy chuckled.

“And I couldn’t resist it,” Lindsay said, the admission drying any remaining laughter on Cindy’s lips. “I couldn’t resist you. God knows I tried. But I couldn’t. And now…” she faltered, not because it wasn’t true but because it was overwhelmingly so, “I really want to keep you.”

“Good,” Cindy swallowed audibly. “I want to stay.”

“Good.” Lindsay breathed. She pulled the small box from its hiding place beneath the napkin beside her and balanced it between them. It remained there for a long time, Cindy just staring at it as if it was a display in a museum instead of something that had belonged to her since the instant Lindsay bought it. When she finally reached out for it, Cindy’s hands were shaking so badly, Lindsay almost felt bad. She did all that she could to aid in the process by removing the lid from the exterior box and dumping the velvet box inside out into her palm before placing it between Cindy’s waiting hands. When she was certain that Cindy had a decent enough hold, she covered Cindy’s hands with her own and helped her ease back the lid. Fingers glued to the backs of Cindy’s and gaze locked on Cindy’s face, Lindsay watched her just stare into the box for the longest time. “You can take this however you want to. I just really want you to have it.”

“What does that mean?” Cindy finally broke from her trance after a long, silent moment and met Lindsay’s eyes. “I can take it however I want to?”

Her own words repeated back to her, Lindsay realized how regrettably unpoetic she’d just managed to be.

“I just mean…,” she clarified. “There’s no pressure… now.”

Cindy knew her better than anyone. She got her. That’s probably why she looked both buoyant and baffled at the same time. Somewhere, deep down, Cindy had to know what she was saying. She was just doing a rather lackluster job of saying it. “When I bought it,” Lindsay explained straight out, “we could get married.” The stunned expression that came over Cindy’s face rushed Lindsay through the rest of her thought. “I still want you to have it, to wear it… if you want it. I want you to at least consider yourself off-the-market… if that’s okay with you.”

Cindy burst into laughter, which would have been pretty demoralizing and somewhat insulting if she didn’t simultaneously burst into tears. They stayed locked, unmoving, in that moment, their hands joined around the ring box, Cindy both laughing and crying and Lindsay waiting for some kind – any kind – of response.

“Was this your original presentation?” Cindy finally asked, her laughter tapering off, but the tears persisting. “Here’s a ring. Take it as you will.”

“No,” Lindsay shook her head. Oh God, she sucked at this. “Like I said, things have changed.”

Cindy’s eyes dropped to the ring before rising back up to stare straight through Lindsay. “I want to wear it.”

“You do?” Lindsay breathed.

Cindy nodded slowly, eyes never straying, and Lindsay felt as if she’d just fallen into an inquisition. “But before I can do that, I need you to tell me what you were going to say. You know… before things changed.”

Of course she did. Heart suddenly thumping against her ribcage, Lindsay forced a weak smile. “I thought we were letting me off the hook.”

“I changed my mind,” Cindy responded in a low, deceptively calm voice that made Lindsay ridiculously weak. “I do that too.”

Knowing better than to expect a reprieve from the situation, Lindsay took a deep, calming breath.

She could do this.

She had planned to do this.

Pulling the velvet box from Cindy’s grasp, Lindsay transferred it back and forth between her hands so she could wipe her sweaty palms one-at-a-time. She looked up to meet Cindy’s expectant gaze and decided, if she was going to do this, she’d better damn well do it right.

“I didn’t think that I would be doing this again anytime soon,” she breathed. “Even if I had entertained the notion, I certainly didn’t think I would be the one doing the asking.” Lindsay looked for affirmation in Cindy’s expression, but Cindy somehow succeeded in holding her gaze without revealing a thing. “And I know that it might seem sudden. Not so much for you, but for me. And maybe it is sudden for me. I just can’t seem to help rushing into things with you.” Cindy’s teeth closed over her lower lip, gnawing gently, and it made it that much easier for Lindsay to go on. “I am committed to you. I’m all in. I’ve been all in. I didn’t need anything more than that. Yet, for some reason I haven’t been able to walk by a jewelry store without ring shopping. Apparently, some part of me really wanted to marry you.” One teardrop chased another down Cindy’s left cheek. “I want to marry you,” Lindsay added to avoid any confusion over the past-tenseness. Right hand clutching the velvet box like a lifeline, her left drifted up to Cindy’s face. “I want to marry you,” she whispered again, feeling the sting of tears in her own eyes as Cindy’s now spilled at a pace too brisk to keep count. “I can’t,” Lindsay swallowed, “but I want to.”

Cindy’s face turned into her hand, but her gaze never faltered. As if making an offering, and to Lindsay there was no offering greater, Cindy raised her left hand. It floated in the air between them, naked and needy. Now she was the one doing all of the shaking, Lindsay realized as she pulled the ring from its box and transferred it to its permanent home. Token in place, Lindsay kissed Cindy’s knuckles, looking up to find that Cindy’s tears has slowed but not ceased.

“And should the laws change again,” she husked, “maybe we can renegotiate.”

Cindy smiled and barely gave Lindsay a chance to smile back before launching forward onto her lips. It seemed she’d found her motivation. Impossibly warm hands came to Lindsay’s neck and Lindsay felt the cool contrast of the metal on Cindy’s left hand.

“I love you,” Lindsay breathed against Cindy’s lips.

“You know what I love?” Cindy pulled back just long enough to ask.

“What?” Lindsay managed between the next kiss and the one that followed.

“I love that you call me in the middle of the day without a real reason even though you’re busy.” Cindy punctuated the thought with a nibble on Lindsay’s lower lip.

“I love that you answer your phone even though you’re busy,” Lindsay responded, the tip of her tongue flicking against Cindy’s front teeth.

“I love this divot,” Cindy’s lips moved down to Lindsay’s chin.

“I love that you call it a divot,” Lindsay replied, leaning forward until Cindy surrendered and sunk back into the thick rug.

When her lips abandoned Cindy’s and trailed down Cindy’s neck, tongue dipping into the hollow at the base of Cindy’s throat, neither of them had anything else to say. Lindsay was rushing just a little, because she couldn’t stand not to rush. Mouth trailing ravenously over pale skin, her left hand dipped inside Cindy’s loosely fitted yoga pants and went straight for a spot that she knew produced many pleasant a thing.

“And I love,” Cindy gasped, “when you do that.”

Lindsay smiled against Cindy’s chest and Cindy arched into her hand, silently soliciting more. Lindsay gave in to the unspoken request and somehow felt as if she were the one on the receiving end. Every ragged breath that left Cindy’s lips was her own struggle to breathe, every soft moan was her own pleasure. And when Cindy opened her eyes and stared up at her, her eyes dark and stormy, and Cindy’s fingers came to her lips, shaky fingertips brushing over them in a caress, Lindsay was the one who desperately needed to be kissed. She cupped her free hand at the back of Cindy’s neck, Cindy met her half way and they kissed as if it was the first time.

But it wasn’t.

This time it was so much more.