This Christmas
Book: Open Heart (Post Series)
Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Kaycee MacClennan)
Rating: Teen
Category: Holiday/Fluff
Summary: Kaycee is eagerly looking forward to picking out their Christmas tree; but Ethan turns it into a night they’ll never forget.
Words: 2487
A/N: And…. they’re engaged. 😊 I did steal one part from one of my all-time favorite movies. Let me know if you spot it. I’m participating in @choicesflashfics weekly prompt event. The prompt is highlighted below. Also in @choicesdecember2022 Day 19 – both Christmas lights and Lover from day 19 are fitting! And lastly, @choicesholidays I'm so glad we found each other.
The beautiful artwork is by the incredible, fabulous, I have no more superlatives to describe how much I adore her @/artbyainna on Instagram.
CHARACTERS BELONG TO PIXELBERRY STUDIOS.
It was a chilly winter day in Boston, and Dr. Ramsey was spending it the second-best way he knew how. Shifting positions underneath his warm, down comforter, a content smile was on his lips – when the alarm clock had to go and ruin it all. After muttering a few select curses under his breath, he hit snooze. That will show who’s boss. Then he turned to hold the person who made Saturday afternoon naps a part of his world… but found her spot vacant.
He sat up with a look of confusion and wiped the sleep from his eyes. An attempt was made to groggily call her name, but when he heard her hair dryer, he knew there was no way she’d hear. He was about to roll over and give the snooze button the respect it deserved when the comforter was yanked away.
“Hey!” he yelled, but his dismay dissipated the moment she replaced it. This was a much better way to keep warm. He smiled as she straddled him, leaning over to pepper him with kisses, but there was a problem with this picture.
“Wait…” he interrupted, “why are you clothed?”
“Because it’s almost five o’clock, mister!” Kaycee teased, “And we have evening plans that require clothing. Now,” she ordered as she jumped off of him. “Get up!”
“I love it when you’re bossy,” he growled as he rolled to his side. “What would it take for me to convince you to come back to bed.”
Kaycee raised her eyebrows in mock-disappointment. “What has happened to you? The Ethan Ramsey I knew and fell in love with would have scoffed at the idea of napping. He would have jumped out of bed, complaining about wasting the afternoon the second the alarm went off.”
“Mmm,” he groaned, “Well, that Ethan Ramsey didn’t have such a wonderful time exhausting himself with you after lunch. Are you sure I can’t convince you to go for round two?”
The pleading in his voice and puppy-dog eyes he offered would have normally had her bouncing back into bed in an instant, but not today.
“Sorry, Ramsey,” she winked. “But our Christmas tree isn’t going to pick itself out.”
She thought back to last year, the first Christmas they spent together. He watched her with horror as she spread lights, tinsel, and garland throughout his condo. Joking that if he sat for too long, she’d likely decorate him too. Her response? A large bow slapped on the center of his forehead.
But this year so much had changed. It was their condo now, and he was the one who suggested they shop for a tree today. He may not have known it, but seeing him embracing the joy of the season meant more to Kaycee than any gift that would appear on Christmas day.
“Oh, that’s right. We have a Christmas tree shopping date,” he grinned, “Don’t we.”
“Yes!” She beamed, jumping up and down with the excitement of a child. He couldn’t help but smile. Whenever he thought she couldn’t be more endearing, she went and proved him wrong.
A half-hour later, they sat hand in hand in the front seat of his car as he started the ignition.
“I’m really shocked you didn’t make me wear those reindeer ears, or at least a Santa tonight.”
“I considered it,” she smiled. “But relationships are about compromise, right? I’m just happy you wanted to get a tree without my asking… I wasn’t about to push my luck.”
Ethan let out a little chuckle. Didn’t she know? She could get him to do just about anything.
“So there are at least a dozen Christmas tree lots throughout the City. Do you know which one you want to go to?”
“Yes, the one by the old firehouse. First, all proceeds go to charity, and second” her eyes lit up, and she clapped her hands, “they give you hot chocolate after you pick your tree!”
“Well, then that’s a done deal, isn’t it?”
“You better believe it!”
It was still early in the month, so the selection was plentiful, and the crowd was thin. Kaycee walked from tree to tree, examining its branches, smiling as if she were greeting an old friend. Ethan’s mind returned to last year when they performed the same task at another lot closer to his home. While it was a lovely memory, he knew he wasn’t the most pleasant company.
She insisted he needed a tree. He informed her that he had survived over a decade without one, and he'd visit her apartment if he really needed to see one. After all, she and Sienna had converted it into a virtual winter wonderland. But Kaycee said it wouldn’t do. Begrudgingly, he tagged along, insisting every tree was too big, too grand. But Kaycee carried on undeterred.
“You’re not getting a Charlie Brown tree, Dr. Ramsey! So I suggest you lose the Scrooge act and get with the holiday spirit! Otherwise, I’m not pulling out that sexy holiday lingerie later.”
“Oh, you’re resorting to bribery?”
“I like to call it creative encouragement,” she winked just before they returned to his condo with the second-largest tree on the lot.
But this year was different. He suggested Christmas tree shopping a few days before over breakfast, trying to convince himself it was inevitable. He may as well beat her to the punch. But the truth was, he was looking forward to it. He even measured a space in the living room to see how big a tree could fit; he was sure they could outdo last year’s.
He turned around and found Kaycee, her eyes aglow and her cheeks rosy red as she danced around under the twinkling lights. She knew the words to every holiday song that blared over the scratchy speaker. Though her singing was out of tune, he was sure he had never heard, nor seen, anything more beautiful.
She had brought Christmas back into his life. Something he had scarcely acknowledged since his Mother left home. Even when he had celebrated, it felt contrived; something he did to please others but never for himself. But it was different now. He hadn’t told her yet, but he picked up his old train set from Alan’s last week. He thought they could set it up to circle underneath the tree, just like he had as a child. It only dawned on him as he was standing there, but that memory had vanished and only came back for one reason, and that was her.
A young couple in gauche Christmas sweaters awash in tinsel and jingle bells sauntered by, pulling him from his thoughts. He went to Kaycee’s side and smirked as he pulled her near. “See,” he whispered. “That’s what I thought you’d have me wearing tonight.”
“Ethan,” she giggled. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What,” he half smiled, “You wouldn’t do it?”
“Of course, I would! But I know it’s not your thing!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and stood on her toes to kiss him. “I want you to be you. But I’d still appreciate it if you put on those antlers in the bedroom,” she winked. “Now, come with me. I think I found our tree.”
Grabbing his hand, she pulled him across the lot and stood before a respectable tree. Not the biggest nor the grandest on the lot, but she looked at it as if she had found the most amazing tree in the history of trees.
“What do you think?” She breathed, gently touching the branches. “I think this would be perfect in the spot we had ours in last year.”
But he couldn’t hear her. Staring at her in complete wonderment, their story flashed before his eyes. The naïve rookie assisting him over a patient not ten minutes into her first day. Sitting by his side and comforting him the entire night after Dolores died. Helping him treat Naveen. The kiss on the balcony, then in the opera box. Him pushing her away time and again, the sadness in her eyes growing more profound each time, but her resilience growing along with it. The night he held her in his arms, fearing it might be her last. When he realized living without her wouldn’t be living at all. Their smiles when they finally confessed what they felt and committed to being together. The first night she stayed at his condo, moving in one article of clothing at a time. Then she was there for good and, at long last, a place to live had finally become a home. Before she came into it, he had lived a good, full, and successful life. But it took this stubborn, brilliant, beautiful woman with a heart of gold to make him see he was living, but he wasn’t alive.
“Ethan? Did you hear me?” He shook his head as he came back to the present. “What do you think? Will this one do?”
Sometimes in life, decisions require a lot of thought. They need research, planning, and lists of pros and cons. The most important choices in his life always did, and he thought that’s how it should be. But standing there tonight, surrounded by Christmas trees, under a canopy of twinkling lights as Silver Bells filled the air… Frank Capra couldn’t have directed a better scene, and he knew what he needed to do; nothing had ever been crystal clear. Nothing had ever felt more natural.
“Ethan?” She waved her hand in front of him, “If you don’t like it, we can pick another….”
“I’m sorry,” he said with a shake of his head, “it’s just….”
“Just what?”
“You… you really deserve so much better than this, Kaycee. But it can’t wait….”
“What? The tree?” she asked, facing it and fluffing its already full branches. “I mean, maybe a little primping wouldn’t hurt, but it’s a lovely tree. I don’t think that I need any more. Why do you….”
The world seemed to stop when she turned to him. Covering her mouth, she let out a gasp when she found him on one knee.
“Ethan, what are you….”
“Kaycee,” he said, taking her hand with a gentle smile, “I probably should have done this better. I see what people do these days, and this… well, I didn’t do any planning at all. No friends will pop out from behind the trees. I don’t have a custom-made ornament, not even a photographer to catch it all….”
“Ethan?”
“I hope that’s all right with you because all I know is I have to do this, and I have to do it right now. It can’t wait.”
“What? What can’t wait?”
“Sometimes I wonder why you put up with me for so long. I didn’t make it easy, but you never gave up. You knew we were meant to be from the start, and so did I, but without you… we may have never seen it through. What a tragedy that would have been because my life would have never been whole without you in it.”
“OK, Ethan,” she asked with a quivering voice, “what are you saying?”
“What I’m saying is I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don’t want a day to go by without you in it, and I hope you feel the same. There could never be anyone else for me, and there never has been anyone else for me… it’s you, Kaycee… and if you’ll have me, I want you to be my wife.”
“You… you what?”
“I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me, Kaycee?”
She tilted her head in confusion. “But, but you don’t believe in marriage… right? I thought that’s what you said, and….”
“I didn’t believe in it, but I believe in you. I believe in us, and I think we could show the others how it should be done.”
She covered her mouth and chuckled while choking back tears. “So it’s educational. We’d be doing everyone a favor. Right?” she laughed, then she turned serious again. “You want to marry me?”
“More than anything. So, are you going to say yes?”
He’d never forget that moment, the look on Kaycee’s face as she stood trembling before him. The moment her shock turned into pure joy. She later told him it was then she realized it wasn’t a dream.
“Yes! Yes,” she beamed through tears. “I will marry you. I would be so happy to be your wife.”
Ethan’s eyes went wide as genuine surprise registered on his face; for a second, she worried he had changed his mind. “You’re, you’re serious. You’re saying yes?”
“I mean, unless you don’t want me to,” she laughed.
“No! I want you to. So,” a smile lit up his face as he gasped. “You’ll marry me?”
“Well, we have to show people how it’s done.”
Before she had finished, Ethan sprang to his feet and took her in his arms. Her laughter filled the air as he spun her around to the spontaneous applause of the onlookers they hadn’t noticed until now.
“You had us worried there a moment, lady,” an elderly man yelled.
“I’m sorry,” Kaycee giggled.
A little girl peeked out from behind her father's leg, “I think you’re supposed to kiss him now.”
“We can arrange that,” Ethan grinned as his lips met hers.
“Not to sully the mood,” the old man’s wife hollered, “but don’t you have a ring?”
Ethan’s eyes went wide with horror… “No, I… I don’t… this wasn’t exactly planned…I just knew I couldn’t wait anymore and…” he nervously turned to Kaycee. “But I’ll get you a ring. I’ll get you any ring you want. We can go shopping tomorrow….”
“It’s OK, Ethan,” she beamed. “That’s not important.”
“What do you mean not important?” The old man yelled. “When a man proposes marriage, he should offer a ring.”
“He’s right,” Ethan said, looking down at his hand. He took off the gold signet ring Alan had given him at his medical school graduation. “He’s absolutely right.”
Dropping to his knee once more, he held up the ring for Kaycee to see. “Will you accept this… as a holder… until we can get a ring worthy of you tomorrow?”
“I’d be happy to,” she smiled as the crowd clapped again, including the old man.
Kaycee looked at the ring on her finger and beamed as her new fiance hugged her from behind.
“I don’t know what I thought was going to happen tonight,” she smiled, “ but this was definitely not it.”
“But are you happy?” He asked.
“I’ve never been happier. I love you, Ethan.”
“I love you. So, should we buy this tree to get you your hot chocolate? I want it to be a perfect night for you.”
“You know what, I think you already have that covered. But yeah, we’re definitely getting this tree!”
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