“I’m down for Risk,” John threw out there.
“Sounds good to me.” Sydney hopped up from her seat. In doing so, her fingers kind of brushed my fingers…in a very on-purpose sort of way. She had something in her hand as she did this and she slipped whatever it was into my hand. The others in the room noticed nothing. Whatever she was doing, she was doing it discreetly. “You want to play Risk?” she asked me, not acknowledging whatever message she was trying to get to me.
“I don’t know how,” I answered. “But sure. I’m just going to go find the bathroom first.”
“Down that hall.” She pointed. “Second door.”
I followed her instructions, leaving the others for a moment. Using the bathroom wasn’t my concern, figuring out what I was holding in my hand was. The moment I was alone, I quickly unfolded the piece of notebook paper she’d handed me. The creases in it were old—meaning this wasn’t a fresh piece of paper. I guess she hadn’t had anything new to write on? Maybe this family was so posh that they only used computers to write with in their house. Weird. It didn’t matter though. I was too curious to care at this point. The note read:
Come find me when you’re no longer jail-bait.
Wait. What? For a moment I couldn’t breathe. The words were in my own handwriting. Because I’d been the one to write this note. To her. Years ago. The day we’d kissed beside the dumpsters in the cold. She’d kept it. She’d fucking kept it. I couldn’t even believe it.
I flipped the paper over, inspecting it, and found there was something even better written on the reverse side: I love you too.
It said nothing more. Nothing less. And my chest had never felt so warm and gooey inside. Not just because she loved me back, but because of everything this note meant. By keeping it all these years, she’d been keeping a part of me with her as well. I didn’t just love this girl. She was my future wife. The woman I wanted to have babies with. The girl of my dreams. And the princess I would always worship. I left the bathroom, the note now safely in my pocket, and hurried to go find her.
In the living room she sat on the floor with her legs crossed and her long hair tucked behind her ears as she worked with her brother to set up the game. I hardly cared that he was here, or that Heath the pretty-boy simpleton was also here, or that her mother was passed out on the couch not two feet away from us. I knelt down next to her, interrupting whatever she was doing, took her face in my hands, and I kissed her. The world could see, and I didn’t care.
All my emotions, my love, and my desire went into that kiss. I was in love, what can I say? And I kissed her like I was.
“That’s enough,” her brother quickly said. “I’m being polite over here. I’m giving him a chance, just like you asked, Sydney, but this is too much. Cut it out.”
“Shut up, John,” she muttered as she continued to kiss me.
After a second she broke away. Neither of us acknowledged that note or the meaning behind it or that sexy-as-hell kiss or what this meant for our future, but I knew she was it for me. I knew she was feeling everything I was. And I knew we were good. Better than good.
We loved each other.
The end.
The rest of the world could go fuck themselves. Because she was mine now, I was hers, and it was never supposed to happen any other way.
EPILOGUE:
1 month later…
RHETT
It was Christmas Eve, and I was at the Turner family’s annual Christmas Eve party. Not the first time I’d ever crashed one of these things, but the first time I’d ever brought a date. Sort of. Sydney hadn’t made it here yet and as the party had already started, I was beginning to wonder if she was going to show. Her flight in from New York, where she’d been the last week, had been listed as delayed on the airline’s website for the last three hours. We hadn’t spoken since this morning, so I really wasn’t sure where she was now. On her way, I hoped.
After Thanksgiving, Sydney had returned to college for her last couple weeks of the fall semester. Assuming she had four more years to go before graduating, for the moment at least, it seemed the long distance factor would have to be a part of our relationship. Even though I missed her like crazy on a daily basis, we’d found a way to make it work. We’d developed the strangest, yet surprisingly functional solution…camping trips. Aside from our constant texting and phone calls, we’d decided we should meet in the middle somewhere at least one day per week.
When we did a map search of where ‘the middle’ was, a camp ground popped up. An hour and a half from her and an hour and a half from me. Except…December in North Carolina was fucking freezing. And when Sydney suggested the camp ground I’d thought she’d been out of her damn mind. But we took a trip to Target. We bought a four-person tent, a queen air mattress, a space heater, blankets, flashlights, and a bunch of other random camping gear items. All of which now had a permanent home in the back of my Impala. It wasn’t the Four Seasons, but it worked. It was cozy. It was just us. And Friday nights under the stars, alone with Sydney in that tent, were easily becoming my favorite day of the week.
The only problem…none of our friends knew we were together.
This hadn’t been my idea. Basically, I couldn’t keep a secret if my life depended on it. And fake moping around with Ellie during the week, even if it had somehow helped turn us into better friends, wasn’t easy. But Sydney thought we need to ‘figure us out first’ before telling more people, and I respected that even if I didn’t fully agree with it.
But it had been a month. It was a time for the charade to end. It was time to tell the world. Sydney agreed. And we’d been planning on telling people we were a couple this evening. Only, Nate West had come back into our lives, specifically Ellie’s, but since he was practically living with Ellie at this point, it was like he was back in my life too, and tonight she planned on sharing him with her family. They all thought she was a lesbian, even her grandparents and her crazy Aunt Michelle, and now she was…returning to the closet? I didn’t know the correct terminology. Nor did I really care which team she wanted to play for. Her business. Not mine. But I didn’t want my news to overshadow her news.
So I was conflicted on how to approach this.
At that moment, Ellie showed up with Nate West aka ‘Nathanial’ as he liked to be called on her arm. “Here we go,” Georgina whispered. She was here with Noah. I’d been hanging out with the two of them all evening. “This should be interesting.”
If anyone had been expecting fireworks, they’d be disappointed. Her family loved and accepted Nathanial no problem. Two seconds in the door and Ellie’s youngest sister Rose was hanging on all over him like a little spider monkey. Who knows why Ellie had been so freaked to tell her family? He was a celebrity, of course they approved. Plus, he was a genuine guy. It didn’t surprise me that all was going well.
“I thought Sydney was coming,” Georgina commented, playing with her food, using her fork to push some peas around on her plate.
“Oh, really?” I asked, trying to act surprised. “She’s coming?”
“Yeah. She’s been in New York doing the Christmas thing with her family there and was supposed be getting home today to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas with her brother. And come to this party. I haven’t heard from her all day though. So I’m not sure if she’ll be here or what.”
“Oh,” I uttered.
Noah shot me a look. His face said it all. He wasn’t buying whatever I was trying to sell.
See—horrible liar.
“What?” I asked him, my voice sounding way more defensive then I intended it to.