Page 35 of Snowed In
“Are you lurking behind a curtain or something?”
“I’m hiding in the closet. Literally. Not metaphorically. Molly has freakishly good hearing.”
“But terrible taste in men, so it all balances out.”
“You said your new company does romantic getaways?”
“We might.”
“And is there a family discount on said getaways or—”
“A few weeks out from Santa time? You’re paying full rates, big brother.” I pull up our website, filtering through availability.
“I swear this isn’t that last minute,” he says, as I type. “I thought about doing it at the airport, but figure she’ll kill me if it’s in public. So, I thought I’d do it when we got back home. That way, she doesn’t hate me, but it’s still a surprise, and we can celebrate with everyone.”
“That’s assuming she’ll say yes.”
“Again, a hilarious joke.”
“There’s not a lot of options,” I say, looking through the places we still have left. It’s slim pickings, but we usually set a few to the side and hike up the prices for any last-minute bookers. Season of giving and all that. But there’s got to be some perks to being the boss. “I’ve got a penthouse in Dublin and a cottage and a cabin in Cork. Take your pick.”
“What would you choose?”
“The cabin is isolated, with minor horror movie vibes, but it’s the biggest and comes with a hot tub. The cottage is closest and small, but it looks the best and has a heated pool.”
“The cottage has apool?”
“Welcome to modern Ireland.”
“Alright. Then I’ll take the cottage with the pool.”
“The cabin is also five hundred quid cheaper.”
“Then I’ll take the horror movie cabin with the hot tub,” he says just as cheerfully. “What could go wrong? Don’t answer that.”
“It’s nice,” I assure him. “About two hours out from the house. I can throw in food and champagne as a welcome gift.”
“Well, Molly’s particular about food,” he muses. “And I’m sober. So again, I don’t see what could go wrong.”
“I’ll add it as a freebie. Just bring the stuff home. Rose petals?”
“Too much.”
Disagree, but I keep my mouth shut and add them in, anyway. The way I see it, if you’re going to propose to the love of your life, you might as well go all out.
“You’re going to need to pay in full,” I tell him. “Nonrefundable. It’s too short notice for just a deposit.”
“That’s fine. I’m ready. Got the ring and everything.”
“Got or picked out?”
“Got,” he says, sounding confused. “You’ve got to get the ring to propose.”
“No, you get a dummy ring,” I say. “Then you letthempick out the real one.”
Andrew makes a dismissive noise. “I know what she likes.”
“How? How do you know what she likes? She doesn’t even wear rings.”
