Author's Note: Thanks so much to Captain Crunk, the best beta ever, who inspired me to take what might have been a lonely little one-shot and turn it into... well, something a little longer that I hope you all like.
"When we're married...merry! Merry Christmas!"
He knows what she said. His eyesight may be crappy, what's on his driver's license notwithstanding, but he's got damn good hearing.
And he's not an idiot.
And he knows this girl. He can read her like a book. Even when she does things that are weird and silly and surprising and generally unexpected but always kind of awesome, the real stuff about her - the important stuff - he's got that down cold. He knows she's the kind of girl who's probably had her wedding planned out since she was five years old. That she's picked out the flowers and the pattern of her dress (and that she may very well sew it herself). That she's just been waiting for the right guy to plug into her scenario and – boom – one dream wedding come true.
He knows she's probably envisioned being married to every guy she's dated for a significant length of time. That's just how her mind operates. Therefore she may very well have been imagining marriage to him– well, possibly since Mexico. Maybe even before that, but her frame of mind between the time they first got together and the wedding is still a little vague to him, and then there was her Dad showing up and him being stupid and their calling it off and he doesn't like to think about that part very much.
Instead he thinks about how they've never spent a night apart since they drove off in her Volvo. How they never had any awkward morning-after conversations about morning breath or bed-head or having to be somewhere else. How happy he is. How happy she is. And how much he never wants this to end.
He knows where this - what they have - is headed, and in what seems to weirdly make sense, his brain, instead of setting off every panic signal his body is capable of emitting, is doing the opposite. And it's only at the thought of not having this, with her, that he feels like freaking out.
It was a clever cover, though, he'll give her that. And part of him wishes he'd called her on it, partly because it really is fun to make her squirm, just a little, and partly because he would have made it up to her afterwards by actually having that conversation. And then he would have made it up to her in other ways. Which might also involve making her squirm.
But sometime soon, he's going to tell her... everything. And then he's going to ask her… just one thing. In the meantime, as he's internally debating the pros and cons of asking her the question "Will you Merry Christmas?" next month (just to see her reaction), he comes up with the perfect scheme. Because Jess is so damn fun to provoke that sometimes he can't help himself, and this time, he'd have a really, really good reason to do it. If she doesn't kill him first.
He starts planning it out in his head. If all goes well, he'll have a couple of months to put everything into practice, which is good, because he needs to start looking for a ring. Which means he's going to have to get his work life figured out, and fast, because that's a whole lot of money he doesn't have. Fortunately, it's not necessary to surreptitiously start investigating ring preferences, since he's been filing away that information from the beginning - he can't help playing with any jewelry she still has on when everything else is off and they're just lying together, happy and sated.
It's clear, though, that as much as she's been thinking about it, she didn't mean for that word to slip out. And he's not sure if it's because she's not ready to have that conversation, or because she thinks he isn't. So for now, until he's ready to start making that other, bigger move (which kind of feels like he's preparing for one of his pranking shenanigans, except it's something good, that will make her happy, and how weird is it that he's excited at the thought?), he's going to wait it out. Keep his cards close, even though he's pretty sure he's got a winning hand.
Because he already placed his bet, back in that Volvo.
All in.