Happy Merry Everything (Charlie Barber)

Now What?

He came over to you and wrapped his arms around you, his chin coming to rest on your shoulder. You still weren't used to the way Charlie towered over you. Sometimes you wondered how his back felt from the act of hugging you alone. All of that bending over seemed taxing.

"I love you so much." His lips planted soft kisses against your neck and breathed you in. "You always smell so good." He moved to gently kiss your lips. "Are we okay?"

You smiled against his lips and kissed him back. "We're fine, promise." You could feel his body relaxing against yours.

You peered behind him at the large gift wrapped item in the floor. "What's that?"

Charlie face wrinkled in a grimace. "Should I not have asked?" His eyes met yours.

"It's-- a wedding gift." There was no controlling it. You scrunched up your face at the thought.

"I don't understand."

Charlie moved away to pick up the wrapped package and set it on the coffee table. "I'm guessing Nicole was one of many who picked up on the printing faux pas from yesterday. Whatever's in here will definitely let me know if she took it literally or not."

You inspected the wrapping, flipping open the card attached to the bow. "This is a potential gag gift from Nicole?"

"Or a real one. I don't know. I don't want to get into it."

"Should we open it?"

Charlie crossed to sit in the armchair. "Better not. I don't want to risk it. It might be loaded."

"What?"

He half chuckled. "I'm only kidding."

"That shit's not funny, Charlie."

"Hey, we're not married anymore for a reason. Well, several, but there's really no telling what's in there."

"So...open it?"

Charlie's mouth was in a tight smile.

"Doesn't opening it say we're choosing and accepting our printed fate? If that's the case, I'm not so sure that's a good idea...especially since someone wasn't too keen on even having a hypothetical baby with me last night."

You rolled your eyes and plopped down on the couch. "You're never going to let that go are you?"

"Not until we're actually married and you're three months pregnant, no."

You tried to ignore the gravitas of his words. Instead, your hands fiddled with the ribbon on the outside of the gift. "If she went through the trouble of bringing it over, she might actually want us to open it. She did wrap it after all."

Charlie was silent, unsure if he wanted anything to do with the idea.

"How did you not know sooner by the way?"
"What do you mean?" He perked up.
"You said people emailed and texted you saying 'congratulations'. How did you not know?"
"I thought they were congratulating me on the show, so I didn't read them because we said we'd read the reviews together. I walked around with about 45 unread texts and who knows how many emails."