My Favorite Christmas Moments From THE BOSS Series

Last year, I wrote a Sophie and Neil Christmas story for That’s What I’m Talking About’s “Mistletoe Madness” holiday event. I wanted to write some brand new Neil and Sophie for this year, but things got in the way. So instead of sharing new Neil and Sophie, I’m sharing old Neil and Sophie. I’ve picked a couple of my favorite Christmas scenes from their books.

Michael’s Christmas Proposal (from The Girlfriend)

After a delicious course of vegan plum pudding for dessert, we went back to the drawing room to exchange gifts and have cocktails. We were all happy and relaxed, chatting amicably when Emma, a twinkle in her eyes, said, “Dad, please tell me you made Sophie do the shoe thing.”

“Shoe thing?” I raised an eyebrow.

“There was a tradition my father’s family had when he was a child, and he passed it on to us,” Neil explained. “You left your shoe in the window on Christmas eve, instead of hanging up a stocking by the fireplace.”

“Sophie, you are going to be so confused,” Emma said with a laugh. “There are like twenty-seven Santas in Iceland.”

“Oh no, was I supposed to set out twenty-seven shoes, then?” I teased Neil. “I didn’t even leave out one, the staff here pick everything up the minute you leave it unattended.”

“Not to worry, I did it for you.” He smiled his mysterious half smile and pointed to the tall windows behind the tree.

Rising from the sofa, I went off in the direction he’d pointed. In the corner of the low windowsill, a gorgeous nude-colored Christian Louboutin pump waited with an envelope inside.

I picked up the shoe reverently. It was goddamned beautiful, shiny, and oh, such a sexy tall heel. I slipped one of my own shoes off, took the envelope out of the Loubou, and tried the shoe on immediately. It fit perfectly. I thought of Neil carefully examining my shoes while I had packed. He’d gotten this before we’d left New York.

“What’s in the envelope?” Emma asked, snuggling closer to Michael on the velvet upholstered settee.

I unfolded the paper inside and read the note silently.

My darling Sophie,

The other shoe is waiting for you upstairs. Be sure to pack them when we leave for Paris for New Year’s Eve.

Merry Christmas, and all my love,

N

 “Well, what does it say?” Emma demanded.

I raised my head, beaming, momentarily speechless. “Neil is taking me to Paris for New Year’s.”

“Go Dad!” Emma said, giving him a thumbs up. “Very romantic.”

I went to Neil and leaned down to kiss him briefly. I’d save the utter mauling for when we were alone. “Thank you. You’re wonderful.”

“Speaking of romantic,” Michael said, nudging Emma. “Remember when you said you thought Christmas-themed proposals were romantic?”

Neil’s attention shifted sharply. I looked up, my focus drifting with everyone else’s toward Emma and Michael. You could have heard a pin drop as Michael rose from the couch, then took a knee in front of her.

“Oh my god,” Valerie said softly, her hand flying up to her mouth.

The expression on Neil’s face echoed Valerie’s sentiment, but for the opposite reason. His facial “Oh my god,” was more like, “Oh my god, that bear is eating my loved one.”

“Emma, I am… so in love with you,” Michael said, his voice breaking with emotion. “And I know how important family is to you. So that’s why I wanted them with us when we started our family together. Emma, will you marry me?”

My knees went weak at the adorableness. A tear rolled down Emma’s cheek, and she wiped it away with her thumb as she nodded, frantically, and giggled, “Yes!”

 

Neil Meets Sophie’s Family (from The Bride)

I took Neil’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go see Mom and get this over with.”

When we stepped into the tiny, crowded kitchen, my mom was bent over a steaming sink, having just strained some boiled potatoes. She looked fabulous, as always, in wide-legged black trousers and a fitted, leopard-print cardigan. Her blonde hair—as fake as her nails and just as difficult to maintain—was perfectly straightened and held back from her face with a clip.

“I’m home!” I declared as she shook the last drops out of the huge stockpot.

She turned to face us, the corners of her eyes crinkling with happiness when she saw me. Then her gaze darted to Neil, and her smile did that telltale, split-second cessation of outward mobility, caused by an unpleasant shock she didn’t want to admit to. I’d gotten so used to it over the years. The I’m-freaking-out-internally freeze.

She hugged me, harder than absolutely necessary, and effused, “Honey, I’m so glad you made it! I was worried the airport would close down because of the storm yesterday.”

“It didn’t.” After stating the obvious, there was nowhere to go but introductions. “Mom, this is Neil. Neil, this is my mom, Rebecca.”

She put out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Neil. Sophie has had only good things to say about you.”

Turning to me with raised eyebrows, she said, “Not that she’s said a lot.”

“Yes, she mentioned that in the car on the way over.” He gave her what was possibly the most charming smile I’ve ever seen on him. Oh, baby. You’re wasting your energy. She already hates you.

My grandmother was at the stove. She looked over the shoulder of her red, bedazzled Christmas sweater. “Well, don’t hug me, for heaven’s sake. I only haven’t seen you for a year.”

“Merry Christmas, Grandma,” I said as I went to her with open arms.

I heard my mom ask, “So, Neil. What do you do?”

“I own two multimedia conglomerates, one in the US and England and the other based out of Reykjavik.”

“Oh. How nice for you.” My mom was going to die of a heart attack on the kitchen floor.

“Is there a lot of money in that?” my grandmother asked him, with all the tact small-town Michigan matriarchs generally displayed.

Neil’s eyebrows lifted, and he blinked three times, rapidly, before managing to answer, “I do all right.”

“It’s a wonder anybody’s doing all right these days, with those damn Republicans—”

“Ma!” my mother hushed her. “Nobody wants to talk about politics at Christmas.”

“I, uh, I brought a little something to contribute to the festivities,” Neil said, reaching into the shopping bag to pull out one of the bottles of 1996 Dom Pérignon.

He’d brought the Dom Pérignon because I’d suggested he not go overboard. My mother was going to eat him alive.

She took the bottle and turned it in her hands with a little nod. “This was very thoughtful of you.”

“We’ve got beer, too, Neil, in the cooler outside the door. Just don’t let all the heat out,” my grandmother called, her head in the oven as she peeled the tinfoil off the ham.

“I’ll chill this,” Mom said, taking the other bottle from Neil.

Grandma deposited a heavy bowl into my hands, and I gasped, juggling it quickly so as not to slosh gravy onto my coat. “Take that out to the table.”

I cast an apologetic glance at Neil as I moved past him, into the crowded dining room and out to the porch. As I went, I heard my grandma shoo him out of the kitchen.

It wasn’t a long journey with the bowl, but by the time I got back to Neil, he’d been cornered by my great-uncle Doug, who had an open beer in his hand despite the fact it was eleven a.m. on Christmas morning.

“You heard a dem gingerbread Oreos?” he asked Neil, taking a swig from his bottle.

Neil blinked and stammered, “N-no. That sounds horrible.”

“No, they’re a real ting,” Doug insisted, gesturing with his beer. “They were on the Channel Six news.”

“I’m sorry, did you say noose?” Neil spotted me, and his relief was visible. I should have warned him about the thick Yooper accent that ran in my family.

“Hey, Sophie!” Uncle Doug put out his arm for a half-hug. He was my grandmother’s youngest brother, sixty-five, and he’d recently retired from his job as a DNR officer. “Did ya hear about dem gingerbread Oreos?”

“That sounds gross.” I stood beside Neil and reached up to put a hand on his shoulder. It was as hard as a blacksmith’s anvil with tension. I hoped he’d brought his headache pills with him.

“They got ‘em down in Marquette,” Doug went on. “They don’t got ‘em at the Pat’s here, but I told Debbie’s sister, ‘you better save me some of dem gingerbread Oreos.’”

My aunt Debbie yelled from the living room that there was something wrong with their cell phone, and Doug excused himself. As he walked away, Neil muttered to me, “I feel like I’m listening to an alien language.”

“Oh, you just wait until I’ve been up here a couple of days. No matter how hard I’ve tried to shake it, the accent always comes back.”

Neil’s eyes widened as he considered the implications of that statement. “I think I do need one of those beers, after all.”

 

And thought it technically took place on New Year’s Eve, Neil Proposes To Sophie (from The Bride):

“This is weird,” I whispered, gazing up at him, searching his eyes for something I wasn’t really sure was missing. “This house, this country, the language… It’s a whole separate part of your life. It’s like I didn’t really know you.”

“You knew me,” he said, sleepy, confident. “You just didn’t know me in this context.”

I flipped to my belly, relishing the slide of the silk between the duvet and my body. He slowly walked his fingers up my spine as I spoke. “No, seriously. I’m fascinated by this change.”

A smile curved his mouth, then he rolled to his back and pulled me against his side, cradling my head on his shoulder. He combed through my hair with his fingers and sighed contentedly. “I suppose it’s because I’m home. I spent a large part of my childhood here—the happiest part, really. When I was in the ICU, I thought I would die. And I thought…I can’t die without seeing my brothers again. And I can’t die before I take Sophie to meet them.”

A lump rose in my throat. In addition to our couple’s’ therapy, Neil had been seeing someone about the PTSD caused by spending weeks in isolation in the ICU, sedated and on a ventilator. He had a difficult time talking about those days, and I was worried for him now. “We don’t have to talk about that, if you don’t want to.”

“Actually, I’m not that bothered; it’s getting easier. And this isn’t denial. I feel relieved to be telling you all this. I want you to share every part of my life with me. And I want to share every part of your life with you.”

“We do sha—” I began, and his hand gently covered my mouth.

“Sophie,” he said softly. “Do shut up. I’m trying to propose.”

Propose? My head went light and my chest got heavy. My eyes flared hot and watery, and my skin tingled.

It was the single best anxiety attack I’d ever had.

He eased his arm from beneath me as he reached with his other hand for something in the nightstand drawer. I sat up, certain my face was bright red from the blood pounding into it.

He leaned back on the pillows, turning a small clam-shell jewelry box like a Rubick’s Cube in his nervous hands. “Sophie… I love you. I’ve tried to think of a thousand different ways to say this poetically, but I really feel that the unadorned truth is utterly necessary right now. And if you don’t want to marry me, if you think it’s too old-fashioned an institution or against your principles, then that’s fine. Nothing has changed. I just needed to tell you… I love you so much that I regret having memories that don’t include you. I look back on my life before I met you and I see where you should have been. Some of my greatest achievements, the things I am most proud of, seem empty because you weren’t there beside me. You are the other half of me. And I would be so incredibly grateful if you would marry me.”

I lunged forward, grasped his head between my hands and kissed him hard. And by hard, I mean, our teeth scraped together unpleasantly. But I didn’t care.

I gasped when our mouths parted. “I love you so much.”

He smiled against my lips, his arms wrapping around my back. “Do you want to see the ring?”

I nodded.

He rolled me smoothly beneath him, settling between my thighs as my nightgown rode up. Braced on his elbows, he opened the box and handed it to me. Inside, a huge, cushion-cut yellow diamond flared brilliantly, surrounded by a border of smaller white diamonds, set in flawless platinum. It was absolutely gorgeous, and absolutely me.

I held out my hand, and Neil slipped the ring from the box onto my fingertip, sliding it down easily over my knuckle. It was a bit loose, and I giggled.

“At least it’s not too small,” he said with an embarrassed laugh.

“I’ll get it sized.” I kissed him again, letting him pull my hand to his chest and cover it with his own palm. I looked down at our entwined fingers. “You’ve had this with you the whole time?”

He nodded, smiling ruefully. “It was in my pocket when we went to the lake. I thought I would propose to you there, but I chickened out.”

“This is so beautiful. Really. I love it. And so romantic. I’m not as good with words as you—”

“Says the woman whose first book is being published in three months,” he teased.

“Okay, that was a little dumb of me. But I feel the same way. I can’t imagine not waking up with you every morning. This last year with you was the best and the worst year of my life. And I want that. I want all the good parts, and all the bad parts, as long we’re together while we’re going through them. I have never felt so safe with anyone, or as sure about anything as I am with you.”

“So…this is a yes?” he asked with an arched brow, and I realized I hadn’t given him a definitive answer. “I want to make sure, in case I need to take this back to the jeweler.”

I laughed and raised my head up to kiss him. “Yes. Absolutely.”

He laced his fingers with mine as he pushed my hands back on the pillows. “I like the sound of that. ‘Yes.’ I wonder how many times I can make you say that word tonight.”

With a lift of my hips, I rubbed myself shamelessly against him. “Do you mean ‘yes, Sir,’ or just ‘yes?’”

“I’ll take either.” His grip tightened on my hands, and he sank his teeth into my neck.

Merry Christmas to all of you who are celebrating, Merry Day The Roads Are Blessedly Clear to those who aren’t celebrating but do have driving to do, and so much love to all my Trout Nation buddies for whom the holidays aren’t the very best of times.