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“So, I thought we should probably nail down the details of our engagement,” Cami says when the presentation is over. “Make sure our stories line up.”

My forehead wrinkles. “What do you mean?”

“Well.” She clears her throat, glances down at her hand. “I mean, I should probably get a ring of some sort.” Apparently reading something on my face, she adds quickly, “Not to keep! Just, you know, when you propose to someone, you usually give them a ring.”

Duh. How did I not think about that?

“Give me one moment.”

Standing, I go to my bedroom, open the closet door, and dig into the back for the two small boxes I kept after my parents passed. From my mother’s box, I pull a small engagement ring. From my father’s, the same, but just the band.

Returning to the living room, I stop just in front of Cami, not sure how to present her with this.

“Here.” I thrust it out in my palm. She reaches out, her warm fingers brushing over my hand as she picks it up. I stifle a shiver at the feeling.

“Patrick, wow,” she says, blinking rapidly as she turns the ring from side to side, taking in the size of the diamond, the intricate carving on the band. “This is beautiful. Where did you get this?”

“It was my mother’s,” I say, not looking at Cami as I slide my own band on, ignoring the emotions that rise up and push at the bottom of my throat. This is my father’s band, on my finger. “They belonged to my parents.”

“Oh.” Cami pauses, still holding the ring pinched between her fingers, like it’s too precious to do anything else with.

Stepping forward, I take the ring and hold my hand out for her palm. She looks up at me with those wide kaleidoscope eyes, flashing with something I can’t put a name to. She holds her hand out to me, and I slide the ring onto her finger.

We have to push through this. Not think about it.

“Patrick—”

“There’s more to figure out,” I say, clearing my throat and pushing back, away from her, up onto the couch. Sitting casually, throwing my arm up over the back of it, I say, “Like you said—I proposed, right? So what should we say? A nice restaurant downtown? The ring-in-the-dessert thing?”

Cami’s brow pulls down instantly, and she makes a face that’s caught somewhere between pain and disgust. “No. That’s tacky. Overdone.” Her voice is thick with a level of vitriol that I’ve never heard from her before.

And, stupidly, it makes me laugh.

Her eyes fly up to mine, her brows jumping, her anger shifting to amusement. “Excuse me? That’s funny to you?”

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t know you had such strong feelings about proposals.”

“I have strong feelings about plenty of things.”

“I’ve yet to see evidence of that.”

Cami clears her throat, and I realize that throughout this conversation, we’ve drifted closer and closer to one another, both of us leaning in and decreasing the space between us. I move back, too, resuming my casual pose. What was that? I’m never out of control like that in conversations. I’ve always been very aware of my body language.

But just now, I was moving toward her without thinking.

And I don’t like it one bit.

“That’s not true, I suppose,” I manage, pushing out words to soften the awkward silence here. “You have strong feelings about Christmas decorations.”

Cami sits up straighter and smiles at me, with a confidence to the curve of her mouth. “I do. My entire family is crazy about Christmas. We also kind of come from a Christmas-y town.”

“Christmas-y town. What does that mean?”

“Like, our mayor makes a big speech right after Thanksgiving. We do a tree-lighting ceremony every year.”

I start to shrug, because that sounds like every other town I’ve heard of. But Cami goes on, listing off items on her fingers.

“All our shops downtown take on new names during the season. People bus in from all over the place to see our Christmas lights, and the town has just over two thousand residents. Last year, they voted to put up solar panels to offset the impact of all the displays.”