I quickly texted Mum to let her know we were there as Nick got the gifts out of the back of the car, and then I grabbed our bags and followed Nick up to the door. The door was unlocked, so as Nick opened it, my mum engulfed him in a hug, then me. She kissed us both and wished us a Merry Christmas. Smiling, Mum nodded to me, and I dropped the bags in the entranceway to grab Nick’s hand. “Before we do anything else, you need to come to the lounge room. Umm, your present is in there.”
Nick glanced at me, but then walked hesitantly towards the lounge room. The moment he got to the doorway, he froze. I could see his shoulders moving as he breathed, but he didn’t make a sound.
“Nicholas! Oh my goodness. Look at you.”
“Molly?” Nick’s voice was small and unsure. I had never heard him sound like that, and I started to worry I had made a huge mistake.
“Nicholas, get your naughty bottom over here and give me a hug.”
Tentatively, Nick stepped forward, then rushed the last couple of steps and threw his arms around Molly.
I had met her and her husband, Rob, who was standing quietly off to the side with tears in his eyes, two days earlier when they arrived. Mum rubbed my back as I watched Nick cling to Molly and cry for the first time since I had known him. Sobbing, they whispered to each other. I shifted my weight, wondering if we should move to the kitchen to give Nick and Molly some privacy.
Then Nick barked out a laugh. He pulled back and wiped his face on his arm.
“Manners, young Nicholas. Jesus, did I teach you nothing, child?” Molly scolded playfully, smiling affectionately at him.
Nick sniffed and wiped his face again as he turned to me. “You did this?”
I shrugged. “With a lot of help from Eric. Well, mainly it was Eric.”
Nick almost knocked me over as he threw himself at me, wrapping his arms around me. As I laid my head on the top of his, I breathed him in. One year and one person had given me everything I could have ever needed.
Nick lifted his head and kissed me gently on the mouth. “I love you, Ky. I am going to spend the rest of my life showing you how grateful I am for everything you have given me. A love, a family, a home.”
Epilogue
New Year’s Eve.
Five Years Later
I glanced across the table, and Nick smiled at me and nodded. We made our excuses to the people seated with us, and Nick glanced at Eric to give him a quick nod. Eric smiled and told us he would see us the next day. While Nick said a few more quick goodbyes, I wandered over to the bar to grab the bottle of wine. We would see them all tomorrow for Eric’s celebration anyway, but New Year’s Eve would always be ours. It was only a short walk to Nick’s villa, but we weren’t in a rush now that we were on our own. Chatting, we strolled through the gardens and across the bridge over the pond to the private part of the resort, where Eric and Nick both had villas. I glanced at the lights along the beach walk.
“I know I have said it every year, but you and Eric really did an amazing job with this place.”
He squeezed my hand. “I can’t say I was overly enthusiastic the first time he said he had found a property at Byron Bay. I was imagining a hippy commune with lots of stoned surfers.”
“Not exactly what you ended up with, huh?”
When we got to our villa, we kicked off our shoes and socks, grabbed the picnic blanket and two coffee mugs, and headed out onto the sand. Nick carefully laid the blanket in the exact same spot he had the previous five years, opened the wine, and poured it into our mugs. I smiled, remembering how flustered he was that first year when he forgot to grab glasses and we had to sneak coffee mugs out of the builders office. From the look on Nick's face, he was remembering the same thing.
We stood by the blanket and watched each other. His eyes still held me hostage, and his voice still soothed me. I waited for him to speak. He always went first.
He cleared his throat. “Ky, this next year is going to be busy. I’m going to have to head to Queensland a few times as well as London, and you’re going to be busy with the new job, but you are going to be the best damn Squad Commander the Serious Crimes Directorate has ever had. It’s going to be harder to balance this year, but I promise you, just like I have every year, that more than anything, I want you by my side. Just me, promising you, here and now that I am not going anywhere. That no matter what else happens in our lives, I choose you. Every day, every week, I choose you.”
When he brought me out here that first year with a bottle of wine and two stolen coffee mugs, he promised me the same. That he chose me. Hearing the same each New Year’s hadn’t lessened what it meant, and I hadn’t found it any easier to respond.
“Nick, I didn’t realise I could love you more than I did that first New Year’s when you poured the wine into my coffee mug as you berated yourself for forgetting the glasses.” I paused to clear my throat. “But I do. I promise to take the time to be with you, to talk to you, to share with you. And I promise to love you and cherish every moment with you even more this year.”
We both laughed lightly as we wiped at our cheeks and whispered to each other the same words we whispered the first time: “I choose you.”
The end