Chapter 21

"I like this," Nick said as he pulled up the little red satin bikini, "What else did you get?"

"Well, I got this for me," Gwen said as she held up a white sleeveless top, "And I got this for you," she said as she handed him a solid green short-sleeved button up.

"I like it, thanks for thinking of me today."

"Wait, there's more.  I got this for me," she said as she reached into one of the many bags and pulled out a short black skirt, "And this for you," this time pulling out a pair of black pants.

"34 - how did you know my sizes?"

"Darlin', you forget that you gave me your cell phone, programmed with your mom's number.  I called her and asked her," she smiled as he laughed at her sneakiness, "Oh - and she invited us to dinner tomorrow night."

"That's cool, you know, you are pretty good calling my mom like that."

"Well, there is more."  Gwen began pulling out more of her purchases. For each thing she bought for herself there was something for Nick.

"I can't believe you did this," Nick said, staring down at his new wardrobe, "I love everything, all of the things you picked out for me I would have gotten for myself."

"I am glad that you like them."

"And, I also like all of the things you bought for yourself.  You shouldn't have done this, I wanted to do something for you and you turned it around and did something for me."

"Actually, there's one more thing," Gwen walked over to the chair in the bedroom and reached down into a small blue bag.  She walked back over to the bed, where Nick was sitting, and handed him the blue James Avery box, "Open it."

"What's this...don't you think you have done enough?"

"Just open it," she said apprehensively as she sat down next to him on the bed.  He opened the box, inside there were two simple silver rings with a small indention around each edge of the band, one large and one small.

He stared down at the box for a moment, unsure of what she meant by this, then looked up at her and said, "These are nice."

"I thought that they could be our promise to eachother - that no matter what happens, you know I will always be there for you."

"I like that idea," he picked up the smaller of the two rings and noticed that it had something engraved on the inside of the band.  It said 'NICK' in small letters.  He then picked up the larger of the two rings, this one had 'GWEN' engraved on the inside of the band.  He looked up at her and smiled, picked up her left hand and slipped the smaller ring onto her ring finger, then kissed her hand softly.  She picked up the larger ring from his left hand and placed it on his left ring finger.  He leaned in and kissed her, softly sealing the promise that they had made to eachother.

Chapter 22
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