The gentle ripples of the water lapped along the white sides of the yacht like heavenly rockings. Out here it was a cold one, biting our noses and threatening to gust bitter wind up the blanket that covered us on the deck, but we resisted together. His hand was intertwined with mine under the black wool, the ivory plush seats of the lounge on the back of the boat soft and cozy. He was all the warmth I needed.

We were drifting away from it all, the Manhattan lights floating away like it all didn't matter anymore.

"Can you believe how somewhere in that city there's people making noise and celebrating? It doesn't feel like any of that exists out here." Frankie's voice entered my ears like little fairies dancing.

"Mm? Oh," I said, breaking out of my peaceful dream. But it was okay, because listening to him was another.

"Oh, were you sleeping?" His breath was so warm. Almost hot compared to the frigid Winter air.

"No. No, I wasn't asleep." Truthfully, I almost had, but that was a secret. I was just so comfortable with him. Under this blanket, his body heat.

"Okay. Hey, didn't you tell me Paulie was going to Times Square? Can you imagine him out there?"

I smiled, nuzzling into him. He relaxed into me at this, and I sighed into him. "Yeah, he said he wanted to take Cha Cha. Cha Cha's never been." I found my voice softer than usual, in my complete satisfaction of being here with him like this.

"Oh, I see. Have you been?"

"Mm..." I wrapped my arm around him under the cover, resting on him. "Yeah, I've been. Loads of times."

"What is it like?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

He peered down at me, smiling lovingly, his eyes like sea glass orbs in the cold. "I've never been."

"What? How have you never been to the ball drop? Everybody's gone..." Oh shoot maybe I was a bit more sleepy than I thought. It felt like he was talking in a silky fantasy.

He chuckled. "I don't know." At this, he kissed my forehead and the euphoria of the warmth of his lovely pink lips was too much. A rush of weakness made my body completely collapse. I felt as liquid as the water all around us, rocking us back and forth like we were little babies.

His hand slipped away from mine and so instead I clung to his sweater. My eyes trailed with his hand outside of the blanket and it snapped open his pocket watch. This was so classy to me, so grown up. Even more so it made me think of him as a grown up, my previous thoughts of him being just a boy washing away with each passing moment spent with him.

"It's almost midnight," he whispered to me in a hush. At the same time, his pocket watch closed with a click, the white gold shell top glittering yellow in the fairy lights still strung all along the boat for Christmas. It was such a lovely ambiance. I hoped he'd never take them down.

"Mmm, I'm so glad you took me out here instead of Times Square," I purred, snuggling into him impossibly more. My face was now buried in his sweater. My universe was his baby powder smell and that nameless cologne which reminded me of berries and mysterious things.

"I love you," he whispered to me.

"I love you, too," I purred into his sweater.

"No, I mean I really love you."

"I really lo-"

"Look what's in my hand, Georgina."

"Huh? What's in your hand?"

"Sleepykins."

"Mmm?"

His gorgeously warm hand swept over my hair and my eyes rolled in their sockets in the pure pleasure.

"Haha, you're like a baby right now." He was laughing at me, and I grinned into him, my eyes closing. The nuances of his Italian-American accent were making my heart twinge, recognizing his unique tones.

"You're just so warm."

"Look at my hand, though." He sounded playful.

"Okay." My eyes fluttered as I parted from him. Every part of my soul wanted to stay laid against him, but if he insisted. They alighted on a little light blue box tied with a white ribbon. A tiny present box that barely took up any space in the palm of his masculine, pianist's hand.

"Pretty box," I sighed.

"Haha, that's not it. Take it. Open it."

"Is it a late Christmas present?"

"Sorta."

My hands began to become too cold immediately in the open air, but eagerly they fumbled with the ribbon, putting the tiny box on my covered lap. The color was a stark contrast to the black of the blanket we shared. It was so vivid. Such a sky blue. But even so...it was more like a robin's egg blue. This blue-

"I like that box, though," he said. I peered up at him, pausing in my fumbling. He was smiling so tranquilly. "It reminds me of your eyes."

My eyes? Then it dawned on me.

My Tiffany blue eyes widened as large as the china plates at the color's namesake store.

"Tiffany box..." I breathed inward, "this is a Tiffany box!"

"Yes, it is, lovely," he beamed, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close. "Open it."

Hurrying, my fingers tried their very best but these long fake nails kept getting in the way no matter how hard I tried. "Shoot. Shoot!" I cried, trying and trying. "It's this little knot here. I can't get it-"

"Here, let me."

With elegance, he took the box away and I felt my heart drop in a small freefall. But it knew he was just helping me. Gracefully, he turned the ribbon this way and that way and slipped the satiny white laces off of the box without untying them. "Got it," he assured, passing it back to me, the light glinting in his eyes. They looked watery in the fairy lights. I wanted to caress his cheek and ask why.

Without hesitation, I removed the top of the light blue box and laid in my hand instead was the peeking domed lid of a sapphire blue, velvety box within.

"Let- let me," Frankie stuttered. Stuttered? He hardly ever-

But the next moment he had swept onto the floor and he was on his knee and the box was open and I just about fell on the floor with him because he was-

"Marry me?" he asked innocently, looking up at me with those sea green eyes like he was about to cry.

"Oh my Christ," I breathed, my hand going over my heart.

He looked so beautiful, the moonlight cascading over him, the fairy lights in the background and all around him. So beautiful, the lulling sounds of the waves around us, the stars glittering above us, only for us it seemed. Out here, so peaceful...

"Not the answer I was looking for," he snickered, his nervousness breaking.

"It- I- oh- what- but-"

"Will you marry me, Georgina?" he smiled, the ring sitting there in its lovely bed of matching velvety dark blue, a white princess cut diamond in the middle with two sapphires joining it on either side on a band of luxurious white gold. I had never seen anything like it before. My brain didn't believe it was real, but of course it was. Of course it was, because this was Frankie and Frankie could give me anything. Anything...including my dreams. Including everything we'd talked about.

This moment. This moment was real.

It was like everything we ever talked about was real after all, that things were going to be okay after all and his plan was real and he was here on his knee and oh god I still hadn't given him an answer.

Instead, I burst into tears.

"Oh, cuddlebug," he cooed, his lip pouting in concern for me.

"I- oh...god, Frankie...I-"

"Did I do something wrong?"

His dejected face was there suddenly and everything inside of me stung like a focused needle. Without another breath I thrust my hand at him, my fingers outstretched towards that beautiful little ring in the Tiffany box.

Relief gushed over me as his smile returned and as he lifted the ring out the tears streamed down my face. I began to hiccup as the ring slid over my finger, fitting so perfectly and neatly like it was always supposed to be there.

The only thing I could think about, my thoughts swimming in the Hudson all around us, was how it was real. It was all real. Really. Everything he'd talked about. He wasn't fooling me. He really had a plan. I was overwhelmed. It felt like it had gone so slow and now it was happening so fast and good god, Frankie.

With the ring on my finger, my hand gripped his and he looked so elated and bewildered. I pulled him towards me with that hand and he came along so easily, plopping next to me on the lounge and with no words I kissed him then. I kissed him for a long time. He seemed to go limp, his body telling me that he was just as surprised as I was.

I could not have imagined a better, more romantic place. He'd made my dream come true in a way that would make any little girl who dreamed be happy forever. He'd done it in the only place in this world where I felt safe, making all of my worries go away replaced with just joy.

He made me feel like I deserved something great, that I no longer was some fraud or something less, like I never was to begin with. He made me feel I was legitimate, that I deserved to be loved. All of my sad feelings were erased from the past days in that moment, kissing him. Loving him.

Somehow, he managed to escape the lip lock and his words traveled to me softly.

"So, is that a 'yes'?"

I started giggling in my hiccups. "Y- yes, that's a 'yes'."

"Oh, thank god," he sighed in intense relief.

We laughed together and I never wanted it to end. And now I knew, it didn't ever have to.

"Hey," he whispered. He was looking at his pocket watch now.

"Yes?" I asked. I couldn't stop saying yes. I'd say yes all night.

"It's three past midnight. It's 1968." His eyes were still glinting. He closed them and breathed deeply, then opened them again. I admired his face, he appeared to glow in the bare light. Very tenderly, he nuzzled my cheek and I sighed so in love. "Happy New Year, Mrs Caselotti," he breathed, the soft warm air caressing my face.

And just like that my shoulders were bouncing in rolling sobs. He was crying with me, those glittery tears that I had seen through all of this falling finally. We couldn't stop, but that was okay, because he took me into a such a New Year's kiss that showed me how much he loved me.