Page 32 of A Gift of Time
My chest swelled with pride at having made him laugh.
When Caden laughed, it was honest. When he smiled, his kind heart reflected in the gleam of his eyes. I wanted to spend the rest of my life ensuring that smile never faltered. It was a moment similar to that one when I’d proposed to him.
On Christmas the year before, we’d been sitting by the fireplace and looking at the falling snow. I had cracked a joke about chestnuts, calling themdeez nuts, and he’d giggled so hard, he’d snorted. I’d slid off the couch and into the floor, taking his hands in mine before bringing them up so I could kiss his knuckles. He’d watched me with a curious expression, and then had started crying when I’d popped the question.
My sudden silence caused him to stop laughing and tilt his head.
“Everything okay?” he asked, pulling me from the memory.
I nodded, not trusting my voice enough to speak. A lump wedged in my throat, and I cleared it as I looked the other way.
As we walked past the stores, I wanted to take his hand, but I stopped myself.
He’d opened up to me some the past four days, but that didn’t mean he viewed me as anything more than a friend. Things had stayed strictly friendly between us, although I’d caught him looking at me sometimes with that same bashful smile he used to give me in our old life—one where he’d glance away before looking back.
He still hadn’t mentioned his last relationship. Not that I wanted to hear about him with another guy, but I hated the thought of him being hurt.
“Can we go in here?” Caden asked, stopping in front of a fabric store.
We went inside, and I watched him as he walked down each aisle, gliding his hands along the sheets of fabric and giving his opinion on each one. He beamed like a kid in a candy store.
The store wasn’t my kind of thing, but anything that made him smile likethatwas worth it. He looked around for about thirty minutes before we left.
Back outside, we stirred up conversation again.
It took a while for me to snap out of my somber mood from earlier, but once I did, the laughing returned and we even went into one of the toy stores on the strip and made asses of ourselves, putting onHulkhands and chasing each other down the aisles. Just being silly. Yeah, I was too old to behave like a damn teenager, but whatever.
It was perfect.
When it was time for lunch, we popped into Hannah’s for a burger and fries. My stomach hurt from laughing so hard, but once I took that first bite of beefy, cheesy goodness, I groaned and all jokes were put aside until my plate had nothing but a few crumbs.
“I didn’t know a fancy businessman could be so awesome,” Caden said before wiping his mouth and sitting back in his chair, rubbing his stomach. “This is the most fun I’ve had in forever.”
“Me too. But it’s not over yet.”
“True.” He glanced at his phone, and the smile faded.
I didn’t want to be nosy, but I tilted my head a fraction to see his screen. A text message. But it was too far away for me to read. When he looked back up, I darted my gaze to something else.
“The painters should be done now, if you want to head back to the apartment,” he said, attempting to cover whatever hurt that’d been in his eyes.
“Great.”
I paid for our meal before we walked outside. A gut feeling told me the text was from his ex-boyfriend. Only something like that would’ve caused his change in attitude.
Seeing a sign for the Christmas tree farm, an idea struck.
“You know… I still don’t have a tree,” I pointed out, shoving my hands in my pockets and looking at him. “And Christmas is only a little over a week away.”
“I’ve noticed,” he said. “Do you want to get one?”
Caden loved real trees; not the artificial ones. The thought of shopping for one together and putting it up in my apartment excited me, because I knew it’d make him happy, taking away whatever sadness that had flashed through his eyes when he saw that text.
“I’d love to. I don’t think I have any decorations for it, though.”
He smiled. “Looks like we have some shopping to do then.”
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