It had been a few months since Kate and Noel had had their marriage and babies conversation - a few months since she’d told him she wasn’t sure she could give him an answer on when they could get married. And while she’d meant that when she’d said it, the more she’d been thinking about having children with him, and their shared desire to be married before their children arrived, the more she knew what she wanted to do. Yes, being married had negative connotations for her, but the only way to do away with those connotations was to have some good memories to associate with marriage. And with Noel, she knew that married life would be full of good memories to pull from.
There hadn’t been any school today, so Kate hadn’t had to work. Instead, she’d put all of her focus into making tonight perfect as she shared the news with Noel that she was finally ready to commit to the idea of marriage. While she was sure that Noel would want to do some sort of actual proposal - that just felt like something he would want to do for her - it was up to her to do some kind of proposal of her own. He wouldn’t propose the idea of marriage without knowing she was ready for it, and she wanted to make that as special as possible. In the kitchen, few lights were on, candles lit on the table and a few candles lining the counter space that she didn’t need to cook on. Fresh flowers had been placed into a vase on the table, and she was wearing one of her nicer blouses with a skirt, definitely nicer attire than she usually wore around the house. For dinner, she had garlic bread baking in the oven as well as spaghetti cooking on the stove. It was a fairly basic meal, but she knew she couldn’t mess it up too badly, and that was what truly mattered here.
At the sound of the front door opening, Kate perked up, knowing that the sound meant that Noel was finally home. “Hi!” she exclaimed, unable to contain even an ounce of her excitement, knowing what was to come in just a bit now that he was here. “Come in here,” she called, turning to look at him with a bright grin once he was visible in the entryway. “I’m making dinner! And it looks like it’s going to be edible,” she announced, her second part of her announcement only half-teasing. “Do you want to grab us a bottle of wine? I think we have an unopened one.”
