Posts tagged love

Jeff, Who Lives at Home was an awesome movie.  Totally what I needed.

(if you want to read from the beginning, go here: http://www.goodreads.com/story/list/1014735-leslie )

“Babe,” Aaron whispered softly as he lay in bed, “you’re gonna be late again.”

Monique scrunched up her face and gave a drowsy high-pitched whimper.  She then tried to bury her face in her pillow, but Aaron cradled her head and softly kissed her cheek and eyelids until she squinted at the light coming in through their bedroom window.

“But…”she contested rather sleepily, “I’m tired.”

Aaron smiled.  “I know you’re tired, bunny, but it’s the end of the semester,” he said as he kissed the side of her face,” and if you wake up,” and another kiss was planted behind her right ear, “I’ll make you an omelet.”

“With bacon and cheese?” she asked, starting to perk up a bit.

“Whatever you want.”

Moments later Monique was in the bathroom brushing her teeth with her electric toothbrush.  She looked at Aaron’s toothbrush standing in its charger beside hers and marveled at how domestic she’d become.  Before she met Aaron her mother worried she was never going to settle down.

…

“You need to stop going out all the time,” Madeleine, her mother would scold.  “You’ll never meet the right guy at a sleazy bar in Hollywood.”

“Ugh,” Monique would grunt, “I’m not trying to meet the ‘right guy’, MOM.  I’m twenty-two years old.”

“So?”

“So, I don’t need to be married with two kids like you were when you were twenty-two.”

In fact, becoming like her mother was the one thing Monique was afraid of most.  She looked at pictures of her mom when she was nineteen and she looked so carefree and happy, her face full of optimism and hope.  Fast-forward ten years to when Monique was 7 and her older brother Jordan was 10 and all traces of being that happy and carefree girl were lost, replaced by dark circles under her eyes and worry lines in the corners of her eyes.

“What did you used to want to be, Mama?” Monique once asked while flipping through an old photo album.

Madeleine continued folding towels and wash cloths from out of the white laundry basket on her dining room table and said, “I wanted to be a mother, of course.”

“Come on, Mom.  I’m an adult.  You don’t have to say shit like that to me.”

“You watch your goddamn mouth!  I don’t care how old you are.”

Monique smiled at this and then pointed down at a picture that was fading and bent in the corner.  It was of Madeleine standing with three other girls with cute hairdos in the 80’s.  Madeleine looked so much like Monique in this picture they could have been sisters. 

“Look, Mom,” said Monique.  “You were so pretty.  Who are those girls?”

“That is Amy, Suzy, and Katie,” she answered pointing to each corresponding face.  “We were inseparable all through high school.”  Monique could see the light come back into her mother’s eyes suddenly.  “We would go to parties and do crazy things, stay out too late.  Those girls were fun.”

“And what happened to them?”

Madeleine started putting the folded laundry back into the basket to carry upstairs.  “What do you mean ‘what happened?’”  Monique saw that the light in her mom’s eyes had gone as fast as it had come.  She watched as she started to walk away from the table with the basket resting on her hip and said, “We grew up.”

…

Monique finished rinsing her mouth with water and then went to put her toothbrush back in its charger next to Aaron’s, but stopped.  She quickly laid it on its side on the other side of the sink across from the chargers and then hurried out of the bathroom to change her clothes.

“This was such a good idea,” Jack said as he walked up behind Liz.  They were in a suite at the 7 Springs Hotel in Palm Springs.  He wrappped his arms tightly around her.  “Thank you for taking the time off to spend a long weekend with me, sweetheart.”

Liz turned and looked at him with a genuine smile.  It had been three weeks since her dinner with Aaron and the memory of it and him was finally starting to fade.  She was starting to feel somewhat like herself again.

“It was no problem,” Liz replied.  “Daniel knew how much I needed to get away, so he was happy to cover for me.”

“Well, I would say he should be after all the times you’ve covered for him.”

Jack walked over to their suitcase on the king-sized bed and propped it open.  As he pulled out their clothes and started hanging them up Liz decided to open the French doors and let some of the warm breeze in.  The heat felt good on her air-conditioned skin.  Once all of the clothes were put away and Jack had tucked their suitcase under the bed he took his shoes off and climbed up across the white comforter.

“Hey,” he said.  “Come here.”  Liz turned to him and started to close the door, but then with a mischevious look in his eyes he stopped her and said, “No.  Leave the door open.”

Liz’s smile grew about ten times bigger as she hurried to the bed and then seemed to almost melt on top of her fiance as their lips met.

For dinner they drove a couple miles downtown.  Afterward they walked hand-in-hand passed gift shops and bars with blaring jukeboxes.  They passed other couples, families, and the occasional jogger with a dog.  The sun was going down and there was starting to be a chill in the air.

“Here,” Jack said and took off his jacket and then placed it around Liz’s bare shoulders.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Liz replied and kissed him on the cheek.

“You know this reminds me of that date we had in the beginning of our relationship.”

Liz looked up at him as they continued walking and asked, “Which one?”

“The one where we went to see a concert at The Orpheum Theatre downtown.  We were walking back to my car and you were wearing this sexy red mini skirt and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of your legs.”

Liz started to blush, but then exclaimed as she remembered, “And then my heel broke!”

“Yes,” Jack confirmed, “your 4-inch black high heel shoe broke.”

“Oh, my gosh, what a disaster!”  They were both laughing at the memory of her hobbling down the street in one high-heeled shoe.

“I didn’t want you to cut your foot on any of the broken glass or hypedermic needles that are known to be strewn about downtown and so—-.”

“You carried me.”

Jack looked down at her lovingly and agreed, “I carried you.”

He suddenly stopped in front of her with his hands on each of her hips.  Liz felt as if they were on their first date and all of the anxiety of the wedding and work and Aaron seemed to be millions of miles away.

“That was the night I knew I wanted to marry you, Liz.”

Liz reached up and wrapped her arms up around Jack’s neck and whispered into his ear, “You were my hero.”

Jack hugged her tightly back and whispered, “I’ll always be your hero, Liz.  I love you.”

“And I love you, Jack.  Can we please go back to our hotel room now?” Liz asked, now with that same look of mischief from earlier in her eyes.

“As you wish.”

And with that Jack bent down and picked Liz up off of her feet and carried her all the way back to the car.

(I’m on a roll!  I’ve written 3 chapters in two days : )

Liz and Jack lived in West Hollywood.   They were sitting at their own desks in the second bedroom of their apartment that they had made into an office.  Jack was looking up ticket prices for their honeymoon to Paris and Liz was reading an email when her cell phone rang.

“Hello?” she said after picking it up.

“Hey, Liz.  It’s Aaron.”

Liz felt her heart drop into her stomach and turned to see if Jack was aware of what had just happened.  He was still looking at his computer screen and then looking down at his calculator every couple of seconds.

Liz forced herself to be calm and replied, “Hi, Aaron.  How are you?”

“Good.  You?”

“Good.”  She could tell Aaron was smiling from wherever he was calling from, which made her smile too. 

He took a deep breath and then said, “Listen, I was so surprised when you told me you were engaged I didn’t even get to say congratulations.  Could I take you out to lunch or dinner this week…to celebrate?” 

Liz looked over at Jack and replied, “I don’t know.  Work’s busy and—-.”

“Say no more, Liz.  I don’t want to make things uncomfortable for you.  I just wanted to call you, say congratulations, extend the olive branch so-to-speak.”

“That is very kind of you, Aaron.”  She paused as her eyes landed on the cover of one of the bridal magazines Jack had brought home.  “Well, actually…on second thought, how’s tomorrow night?”

The next night Liz stood nervously outside of Pace, which was an Italian restaurant tucked in the hills of Laurel Canyon.  It was ten minutes past the time they had agreed to meet and she was willing to take it as a sign.  She checked her phone to see if he had called or texted to say he was going to be late, but he hadn’t.  Just when she was about to go back to the valet to get her car and go home Aaron appeared.

“I’m so sorry I’m late, Liz,” Aaron said.  He gave her a hug and it was painfully familiar.  He kissed the side of her face.  “You weren’t waiting long, were you?”

“No, not too long,” she replied as he opened the door of the restaurant for her.

The Maitre ‘d acknowledged their reservation and sat them in a quiet corner.  The candlelight bounced lightly off of their faces as they smiled and looked at their menus. 

“I’ll have a gin and tonic,” Aaron said to their waiter, “and she’ll have a glass of the pinot grigio if I remember correctly.”

Liz nodded and replied, “You do indeed, thank you.”

Once the waiter was gone with their orders Aaron couldn’t help but sit and stare at her.  It made her nervous and excited at the same time, much like how she had felt through the majority of their relationship.  She had forgotten how clear his blue eyes were, how kind they made him look.  She looked down at the napkin on her lap, spreading it over her black nylons and then she crossed her ankles under the table.

“So, tell me about Jack,” Aaron finally said.  “What does he do?”

“He works for Whitman Mutual Funds,” answered Liz.  “He’s a loan officer.”

“And how did you meet?  Did he loan you some money?”

“No, we met through a mutual friend.”

“Mutual funds?  Mutual friends?”

Liz gave an uneasy laugh.  “Ha ha,” she said.  “He’s sweet.”

“And?”

“He loves me.”

Aaron nodded at this as their drinks and appetizers arrived.  The rest of the dinner went smoothly.  He made smart and funny jokes and it made her laugh.  She teased him in the way only she knew how to and it made him smile.  It felt good.

At the end of dinner the two of them walked out to the valet to get their cars.  As they stood waiting Aaron took Liz’s hand and she let him.  She let out her breath for what felt like the first time in years, so completely, so easy.

Aaron brought her hand to his face and said looking at her engagement ring, “I can’t believe you’re getting married, Liz.”

Suddenly she felt like crying and she wasn’t sure why.

“Well…” she replied, “believe it.”

He slowly started to shake his head as he leaned in closer and after a moment of hesitation so did she.  They closed their eyes and then…they kissed.