Page 43 of Pining for You

But I had another way of celebrating. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her against me. “So, Mrs. Office Manager, how about we ask Ellie if we can paint this place? Then I can take you down to the hardware store and you can pick up a bunch of paint swatches?”

Chloe’s face lit up. “Do you think she will let us?”

I knew the blandness of her apartment wasn’t a reflection of her and I loved seeing her excitement. I pulled out my second surprise from my pocket and handed it to her. “I was going to save this for next Saturday—” the six month anniversary of our first date. “But I can’t wait.”

Puzzlement filling her eyes, Chloe opened the envelope. And gasped. “What is this?” Her gaze shot up to mine.

“It’s the confirmation that we’re going on a trip to Paris.”

“Paris, France? What have you done? We can’t afford this.”

“Yes, we can.” I settled beside her, unsure if my gesture was as grand as I’d hoped it would be when I’d submitted my first entry. “I won it.”

“Oh.”

Yeah, not so grand.

“Wait a minute. What contest?”

“You know that morning show I like watch before work?”

“The one where they call someone every day and the person has to answer with a phrase of the day?”

“That station, yes. They had a contest last month where the funniest animal video won. So I entered it.” Twenty-seven times. With twenty-seven different videos. Most of them of me making an idiot of myself.

“And you won,” she said slowly.

“That’s right.”

“What was your video about?”

I pulled up the video on my phone and handed it to Chloe. “Hit play.”

By the time she finished watching the video, Chloe was laughing so hard, tears streaked down her cheek and she was holding her stomach. She immediately hit “play again” and watched it four more times. “Whose ideas was it to do a fashion show for chickens? And where did you get all those outfits for them? Did you write the commentary?”

“Shelly made some of them. Cynthia made some of the others. Joy, Cynthia, and Malcolm helped me write the commentary.”

Her eyes widened. “They were all in on it? And no one said a word to me?”

“I swore them to secrecy.” I had great sisters, and a great friend, because none of them had leaked a single word of my asinine project to Chloe or anyone else. Even Marilyn had managed to keep my secret.

Chloe hit play again, and once again laughed all the way through it. “It must have taken you forever to do all those costumes changes and get the shots!”

“About a month.”

She climbed on my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She pulled back for a moment. “This is why you’ve been at Marilyn’s so much lately, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s why I’ve been over at Marilyn’s so much. And I didn’t tell you because I wanted to surprise you.” I caught her mouth with mine, glad to finally be free of my secret. When we came up for air, I also admitted, “I’ve wanted to take you on a trip but with trying to save money to buy PRP, I knew this might be the only way we could go anywhere fancy for years.”

“When do we leave?”

“Whenever you want. It’s time to dust off that passport of yours, Chloe Pogue. I’m taking you to Paris!”