#1: "What do you mean, No?"

I placed both my hands over my face, as I - and everyone else in the room - watched Louis on one knee, holding a small, square box in his hand and giving me a hopeful look that was accompanied by a small smile.

My head was spinning; I literally felt like the room had gotten 30 times smaller, and the temperature has risen by 30 degrees at the same time. If there was no one around me, I would surely be vomiting all over the place.

I shook my head at my weird thoughts, and peeked around; everyone - about 50 people, were watching either me, or Louis. I could make out some faces through a blur; Destiney and Maria were trying to hold in their screams, Renee had a proud grin on her face, Tom's eyes were just about to fall out of his sockets, and I could only imagine the faces of my other colleagues.

I gulped before finally looking at Louis again; his smile was slowly disappearing as I stood silent for about a minute. There were too many things going on, all at once. I needed a moment to recover from all of it for real.

After what seemed like a year, I finally managed to unglue my feet from the ground and start walking toward Louis. Instead of giving him an answer, I gripped his wrist and pulled him up, my hand flying to the back of his neck as soon as he was my height, and pressing my lips against his. If I could stay like that forever and not give him an answer, I swear I would.

People around us were clapping and cheering, even though they didn't hear my answer; I hadn't even given him one. But when people see you kissing the person that just asked you to marry them about a hundred seconds before, naturally they'd think you said yes.

Louis breathed against my lips, letting out what seemed to be a happy sigh; a happy sigh of relief. I could feel his heart pounding against my chest, he was obviously nervous that I might say no. And it broke my heart that I would have to do just that.

His arms went around my waist as we kissed, and by now I wanted to pull away and give him my real answer. He was getting too happy about what seemed to be a yes.

"Louis," I mumbled against his lips and luckily, he pulled away a couple centimeters, enough for me to see the wide grin on his face. I gulped before placing my hands on his cheeks, covering my mouth as I brought my lips to his ear.

"No," I whispered shakily, genuinely scared of his next actions.

"What?" He said through a wide smile, obviously not thinking that was my answer to his question. "What do you mean, no?" Damn.

"You know that I love you, right?" I asked quickly. "I do, I really really do. There is nothing I would want more than to spend the rest of my life with you. I'm never going to want anyone else, I'm never going to try to replace you or leave you. You're it for me."

The smile I had on my face faded away, and I gulped as I felt the tears starting to burn my eyes. "But I can't say yes. Not now, not right now. Not with everything that's going on, it's too early. I swear that's all it is. This doesn't mean 'no' is going to be my answer in a year, in a few months even. Please tell me you understand."

As soon as Louis looked down, I started panicking, "Louis, please. I'm begging you, I love you."

"Woah... woah." He looked up at me with a small smile, it looked forced beyond words but I decided to take it as a good sign. "It's okay."

"I know it's not," I said, almost messing up the words because of how quickly I was speaking. "It's not okay, I can't even begin to imagine how you're feeling, but I need you to understand. You can yell at me, throw things at walls, be angry, but I need you to understand, I... I just..."

I ran a hand through my hair, not being able to think of anything else to say, and looked up at Louis again. The smile on his face was still present, but it didn't look as forced as before. "I do," He said slowly. Oh, the irony. "I'm... I'm in shock, but I guess I should have expected it."

"No," I shook my head, "You, of all people, shouldn't be in this position right now. But I can't get your hopes up, and then let you down even more."

Louis nodded, and as he looked down at the box in his hands, he started nodding even firmer. "Okay, I'm... good. I'm gonna need a gallon of beer to get me through the night, but I'm gonna be fine."

I breathed out a laugh; finally, the tension was getting thinner. "Alright," I said, but I could only hope he was joking. Mostly because there was much more than a gallon of beer in the room we were in, and he could legitimately get shit-faced without a problem.

I looked around, suddenly remembering there were people in the room, besides beer. A surprising amount of them were still watching us, but their expressions were fairly different. Des and Maria were talking - more like arguing as they looked at us, and Renee had her eyes narrowed at us. Most of the guys were laughing; I mean, why would they not, their colleague just got rejected the worst way possible.

"You know what?" I turned to Louis again, "Put it on my finger."

"What?" He widened his eyes for a second, and I knew he was hoping I'd changed my mind.

"I don't want you to be the target of mockery for as long as you work here from now on, so let's put a show for them."

Louis pressed his lips together as he gave me another forced smile; I knew it was painful for him to put the ring on my finger, since he knew it was fake and just a show for our friends, but it would have been even worse if they knew I'd said no. On Christmas. One day after his birthday. Wow.

I noticed him gulp as he pulled the shiny silver object out of its spot in the box, his hands shaky as he slipped it onto my ring finger. It didn't have a stone; just gleaming patterns along the circle. It was perfect.

"It's perfect," I voiced my thoughts and looked up at him, his expression softening and becoming a little sad. "It's perfect and I'm sorry."

Louis closed his eyes and shook his head as he pulled me toward him again, "I get it, okay? You broke up with Ashton barely two months ago, and you just found out about the... kids thing. I get it."

I felt my heart squeeze at his words; just when I'd forgotten about what my doctor told me. Just when I'd forgotten.

"Yeah," I breathed out, wanting to agree with him in a rational way but this time, I couldn't stop the tears. Before I knew it, I had my arms wrapped around Louis' torso, trying to hide my face so no one would see my tears. This is a Christmas party I would surely never forget about.

"Hey," He said as he realized what I was doing, "Wait, are you- no, come on, don't cry. Please. Lori."

His hand stroked my hair as I heard him sigh, "Babe, I'm sor- ugh," He cut himself off, mid-sentence. "Look, I'll do this and make it up to you."

I peeked up at him, just as he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me a little to the side so I was standing next to him, "Everybody! She said yes!"

I started laughing as he cheered with the rest of our friends, his hand holding a glass of champagne in the air, the look on his face so genuine he almost fooled me. I keep forgetting that he has a major in acting.

Honestly though; the smile he had plastered on his face looked so real, and the look in his eyes matched it as well. It's like he allowed himself to get lost for a few seconds, and pretend as if I'd really said yes. I could only imagine what he'd look like if I actually did; it would have probably been ten times more priceless than this, but this view was majestic too.

Louis brought the glass from the air to his lips, emptying it in a single gulp. I nonchalantly raised my eyebrow; looks like he was starting to get wasted, and he was doing it with champagne.

"Thank you," He said loudly as he moved the glass from his lips so he could speak, and when I looked at whatever the hell he was looking at, I noticed people approaching us, some were even shaking our hands before I even realized what was going on. We'd just 'gotten engaged', of course they were going to congratulate us.

"Thank you, we're thinking August," He kept saying the entire time, which had me doubling over in laughter. I'd even said it a few times myself; along with "It's probably gonna be on the beach" and "I don't think I want a white dress".

"That was fun." About ten minutes later - when everyone got to say their congratulations, Louis was supporting his head with his hand as we sat at the table, having his first but surely not last bottle of beer. I wasn't even going to stop him; I finally got a license and I could drive us home for once.

"Yeah, imagine if it had a rock," I joked, looking at the ring. I know I said no, but I already loved it; purely because Louis chose it for me.

"I'm going to sell it," He said, as if being able to read my thoughts and crush them too, "And buy another one."

"What?" I frowned, "Why?"

"Because you've seen it," He explained, "It won't be special the next time I ask you."

I smiled at him and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, before leaning toward him and placing a small kiss on his lips. He lazily responded to it, but after the countless glasses of champagne and now this beer he'd had, I wasn't surprised; it was rather funny how he kissed back when he was semi-drunk.

"So..." Maria leaned over the table, Destiney copying her moves; they both had wide smiles on their faces. "Where is the wedding going to be? Napa? Verona? South France?"

"Vegas," Louis and I said simultaneously, and slowly turned our heads to look at each other after that. The look on his face - that probably mirrored mine - spoke the words we never said.

"Wow. So romantic." Des rolled her eyes as she sat back in her chair, seemingly a lot less excited about 'the wedding' now. I smiled about that, even though I was still looking at Louis, and he did as well.

"We're really getting married in Vegas, aren't we?" He asked quietly, and I started nodding even before he finished his question. He gave me a wide grin and pulled my chair closer to him, his arm slowly going around my waist. "That's good," He said, "It's fun and quick. And then we can do whatever the hell we want because it's Las Vegas."

"Our honeymoon could be in south France, though," I said with a dreamy smile. I just told him 'no' ten minutes ago, and now we were talking about a honeymoon. There's your definition of bipolar.

"Yeah, I always wanted to go to south France," Louis mumbled, almost slurred as he brought the bottle to his lips once again. I shook my head at him, but I could be nothing but thankful. Any other guy would have been out the door already; I was lucky to still have him there. Correction; I was lucky to have him there all together.

"I'm gonna take it off tomorrow," I said quietly, so only he could hear me as I twiddled the ring on my finger, "And you can take it back to the jewelry store whenever you want to."

Louis shook his head with a smile, which took me a little by surprise. "Babe, I just proposed to you in front of our colleagues and they think you said yes. You do realize you're gonna have to wear that ring now, right?"

I blinked at him a couple times, the information making me gulp as I realized he was right; and it was my fault. "Oh, fuck."

He shut his eyes tightly as he started laughing loudly, his head falling on my shoulder. I grinned at the sight and the sound; I had no idea how I'd deal with the ring thing, but as long as I had this drunken idiot next to me, I didn't care if I had to tell people it went down the sink.

"Oh my God," He breathed out as he finally stopped laughing. "Jesus Christ, I love you so much, you know?"

It was my turn to laugh now. "I know. I really, really do."

There are going to be four or five more of these, so we'd all get closure :] vote and comment? x