by S. M. Smith
“Well, she’s…wait, you wanted to talk to me.” Busted. “What’s up?”
“Well, you see, I met a guy.”
“Oh congrats! What’s he like?” Sneaky boy. He’s fishing for compliments, not that he needs to. But I’ll bite.
“He’s pretty much everything I ever should have been looking for. Can be a little intense at times, but in a good way.”
“Oh?”
I stand up, and feeling the need to move, start pacing the space of floor between my bed and closet.
“Yeah, so for instance, he told me a few weeks ago that I am his future, like out of nowhere. And well, we’d only been dating a few weeks at that point, so I thought it a little bold of him to say. I mean, we’ve known each other for oh, a long time.”
“Okay.”
“So I took some time and reflected on what he meant, and I can see it too. But you know me. I have these well thought out plans—“
“Which sometimes don’t always go the way you want them to. In a good way.” I can hear the smirk in his voice. Oh, I’m sure he’s glad my previous plans didn’t work out the way they were supposed to.
“True. But you know, we’re not getting any younger, and well, I’m ready to take things to the next step.”
“And he’s not,” he says before immediately adding, “yet.”
“Exactly. What do I do?”
“Well, do you think you’re really ready? I mean you did just get out of a couple of really taxing relationships.”
“Yeah, but when I’m with him, it’s like they never existed. It’s like… I don’t know how to describe it. Like he is the only person I ever should have been with.” I don’t just say that because I’m talking to him. It really does feel like that, but like I said, I don’t know how to describe it to him.
“Hmm. Let me ask you this, when I say Jake’s name, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?”
I stop pacing.
“Cheater, but then I immediately think—“
“And Caleb?” he cuts me off.
“Not worth my time or energy.” My tone should speak for itself. I really don’t feel like I should have wasted my time with him.
“So you’re still upset with them?”
“Yes and no—“
“So you’re still trying to put some closure on both relationships?” he cuts me off again, and I’m getting a little frustrated that he won’t hear me out. I sit down again, trying not to snap at him.
“Kind of. But when I’m with you, I mean him, I feel like I don’t have anything to close on. Like it’s not worth my time or feelings to really revisit and overcome.”
“I disagree. What happens when I, I mean he, does or says something stupid that reminds you of either Jake or Caleb? Will you overreact because you haven’t dealt with what they put you through?”
“I haven’t ever and will never compare you, him, to either of them. He’s on a totally different playing field.” My tone gets a little sharp, but it’s the truth. Stephen’s nothing like either those two.
He pauses for a moment and I don’t know if it’s because he’s soaking in the compliment or if he’s really trying to understand what I’m trying to say.
“I still think you need to finalize and file them away. Get that closure. I think he deserves to know that there is no room in your heart or mind for anything they have said or done to come back and haunt you.”
I fall back onto my bed in frustration, wanting to argue my case some more because I honestly feel like this should be a non-issue. But I don’t because it’s clearly an issue to him, so I need to put some effort into proving to him that there is nothing he needs to worry. I just need to figure out how.
“So how do I show him that what has happened in my past has nothing to do with my future?” I ask quietly.
“I think it’s just going to take some time. But in the meanwhile, just enjoy what you guys have now. From what I hear, it’s pretty great. He sounds like he’s pretty awesome.” There he goes fishing for compliments again, but at least he’s starting to lighten up again.
“Eh, he’s not bad.” I throw out nonchalantly.
“Not bad?!! You just said I was everything you should have been looking for all along!”
I love how he can make me giggle even when I still want to be mad.
“Hey! Tell my boyfriend to stop eavesdropping on my conversations with my best friend.” I laugh.
“He says he’ll try, but he’s not making any promises.” He laughs back and it feels good to know that we might make it through this argument.
“So tell me about this girl you’ve met.”
“Oh, she’s not bad.” He roars in laughter.
“Put my boyfriend back on the phone!”
He laughs a little harder before answering.
“Hey baby.”
“Tell my best friend he only thinks he’s funny. He’s really not.” That just makes him laugh harder. The weight of our earlier fight fades away.
“Okay, can we please stop having this schizophrenic conversation? It’s starting to mess with me,” he asks after calming back down.
“Sure. I’m sorry I was so curt with you earlier,” I say quietly.
“I’m sorry I’m feeling so insecure about your past. But you do know I eventually plan on proposing, right? This isn’t a no, it’s more like a not yet.”
I soak that in for a moment. I guess I wasn’t really sure what to expect after the way our face to face conversation went this evening, but in all fairness I should have expected this.
“You do know I plan on saying yes, right?”
He chuckles.
“I’m kind of hoping you do. I love you so much.” His voice strains just a little, but he sounds happy. It does funny things to my heart to hear him so tender and vulnerable. “And I plan on making sure you know just how much each and every day of your life.”
I’m glad I’m lying down because I totally just swooned over this man.
“I like the sound of that. I love you too.”
Chapter Ten
~Stephen~
“Dude, slow it down,” Grady yells from the treadmill beside me. I ignore him and purposefully hit the plus button, picking up speed.
I went to bed thankful to feel like Jess and I are good, but I want to move on just as badly as she does. I just need to know that she’s ready so we can. But thinking in circles all night has done nothing but piss me off and put me back to square one.
“Seriously. I don’t want to have to scrape your pretty face off that belt.” Grady steps onto the railing of his treadmill and starts to reach for my dashboard. I swat his hand away, but slow down to a good jogging pace nonetheless.
“Aww. You think my face is pretty?” I scowl at him.
“Yeah, pretty ugly.” He chuckles at his own joke, not really helping my disposition. “Care to share what is bothering you?”
“Aside from your snide remarks this morning?”
Having not slept but two hours off and on last night, I figured there was nothing an early morning workout couldn’t remedy. Fortunately for me, well not so much now, Grady is a morning person and was already on his way to the gym when I texted him at four a.m. He has asked what is bothering me about every five minutes since we got here. I’m honestly ready to punch him if he makes one more derogatory comment about Jessie or our decision in waiting to have sex.
“Well, we both should know not to expect anything more than snide remarks from me by now,” he continues. “But seriously. We might get kicked out of this gym if you break that treadmill because you’re taking out your pent up sexual tension on it.”
That’s it.
I stop the treadmill and jump off before I really do something irrational. Like punch my moron of a friend in the face and give him a black eye before his hearing today. Unfortunately for him, he follows me.
“Stephen, I’m sorry. I’ll stop—“
I turn around abruptly and poke my finger in his dark, sweaty ch
est.
“Say anything else about my and Jessie’s sex life again and we’re through. Understand?”
“Yeah. Sheesh, man, I’m sorry.”
“You should be. You don’t even know her. She’s definitely worth waiting for. Not that you would know what is and isn’t worth waiting for.” Grady’s little black book is as thick as a copy of War and Peace.
“Alright, now that’s a low blow. I’ll stop. But can I just say something? In all seriousness?”
I narrow my eyes at him, daring him to be offensive.
“Jessie seems like a sweet girl, someone I’m sure is worth all the agony and brooding you are putting yourself through. But if she’s so worth it, why are you so tormented? I mean, you have the girl of your dreams, and you both are equally committed to this abstinence thing. So why the sleepless nights and the early morning sprints? You act like you’re not sure she’s worth all this waiting.”
“Oh, she is. But--” I hesitate, not sure how exactly best to articulate my issue. “It’s not about the sex, or lack thereof. We’ve done the whole ‘I love you’ thing. We never had to do the whole meet the family thing. I’ve all but proposed to her.” His eyes nearly explode out of his shiny, bald head, apparently not realizing the depths of my feelings for her.
“But everything is happening so fast. She was in a long term relationship with my buddy from high school and was ready to walk down the aisle with him. Then when things went south with him, she started seeing that moron, Caleb, which we both know where that went. So I’m just trying to figure out if all of it is too soon.”
Grady’s eyebrows reach for the sky and his mouth twitches, undoubtedly fighting back something sarcastic.
I realize too late that I’ve spilled my guts to the wrong person. I start to walk off before he starts making comments about my estrogen levels being too high or something equally stupid.
“Stephen, wait.” I stop and let him catch up, not entirely sure why I haven’t boxed him yet. “I’m sorry this is bugging you, man. I don’t think I’m the best person for you to ask this though.”
Ya think? I really should have considered who I was talking to before I opened my mouth.
“It’s okay. You’re right. No offense.” He brushes me off without even a hint of hurt on his face. “I need to find someone a little more adept in successful relationships. Thanks, Bro.”
“Hey, that’s another low blow.” He feigns offense.
“You’ll get over it,” I say as I head back to the locker room. I know just who I need to talk to.
***
I knock on the door to the St. James’s home a little before noon on Saturday. I didn’t call beforehand, mainly because I didn’t know I was going to do this. But now that I’m here, well, no backing out of it now. Jack answers the door, surprise all over his face.
“Stephen, well this is a pleasant surprise. Please, come in.” He opens the door wider and steps aside to let me in, giving me a somewhat curious look. “Jessie isn’t home yet. But I assume you already knew that and aren’t here for her.”
He gives me a warm smile and my stomach does all sorts of gymnastic moves you only see during the Olympics.
“You’re correct, sir. I’m here to speak to you actually. I’m not interrupting anything am I?”
“Oh no, just watching some tennis. Well, letting tennis lull me to sleep really.” He chuckles as he leads me into his large living room, picks up a remote, and turns the TV off. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” he asks, offering me a seat on the couch.
“That would be great, sir. Thank you,” I say as I carefully sit down on the edge of my seat and watch him excuse himself off toward the kitchen.
I can’t keep my knees from bouncing. Jess said she was going to make the trip home this evening after she got some work done and promised we could do something once she got here. I wasn’t sure exactly how long I had before she would walk through the door, but I hoped to get the answers I need and be back at my parents’ house before she gets here.
Jack comes back in, finding me deep in thought and lays a mug of warm coffee in front of me.
“How are things going at the firm?” he asks as he settles back into his easy chair.
“Things are, well they’re good. I’ve had a couple of big cases lately that have kept me pretty busy, but overall things are going well.”
He just nods at me, and I know he’s expecting me to get to the point soon, but he’s being his normal patient self. Which isn’t intimidating at all or anything.
“Mr. St. James, I—“
“Stephen. I think that since you and my daughter have become so much more than friends and, well, I can only assume what you’re here to talk to me about. But I think it’s safe to say that you can start calling me Jack.”
I’m a little taken off guard by his assumption, but I carry on anyway.
“Well, Jack, sir. I guess in a way I am here for what you think, but there’s more. Something I need to address before I approach that subject.” He nods his understanding so I continue.
“Jessie has been through so much in the last year. She’s an incredibly strong person, and I don’t think in any way that she isn’t ready for our relationship. I am concerned, however, that she’s not ready for where I would like to take our relationship.
“Sir, I would very much like your blessing to marry your daughter. But before I would even feel comfortable asking for that, I need to know she’s ready for the next step. She and I have had many conversations on our future together and what we would like from it. We have only been dating a little over a month and well, I know without any doubt she is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. I’ve waited this long to just be with her, I’m willing to wait as long as it takes for her to be ready to marry me.” Okay, so I wasn’t planning on telling him all that. But it’s out there now, so can’t take it back.
“And how does she feel about this?” he asks in his very calm, pastoral manner.
“Well, it appears that she’s ready to take the next step now.”
“And you’re concerned that she wants to marry you without fully healing from her previous relationships or taking the time to really understand what a lifetime with you will be like?” He nods with me.
“Well I must say, your coming here and discussing this with me before taking any steps of your own really speaks volumes to me about how much you care for my daughter.”
“I love her, sir. I have for a long time, and well, I don’t want to jeopardize a lifetime of happiness with her by jumping into anything before she’s ready.”
He takes a few minutes to digest what I’ve said and think about his next words. I’m not embarrassed for confessing this to Jack, like I was with Grady. There is something comforting about Jack. He makes himself approachable, and I couldn’t be more thankful for that right about now.
“Excuse me for just a moment. I’ll be right back.” He stands up and surprises me by walking down the hallway to what I presume is his bedroom.
He’s only gone but a few moments. When he returns, he’s holding an old cedar box with a gold latch. He sits the box in front of me on the coffee table and sits back down in his chair.
“Before you open that box I want you to think about Jessie for a moment. Think about a time when she set her mind to something and not put one hundred percent of herself into. You know her as well as I do, if not better. Whether she makes a good or bad decision, she still does everything she can to make the best of any situation.
“Now tell me. If you and Jessie walked down the aisle today, do you think for one second that she would regret her decision to do so? Or do you think that she would do everything in her power to overcome her fears and doubts to be the best wife and friend to you, regardless of what anyone else thought? Regardless of any obstacle put before you two?”
“Sir, I know she would be the best wife and friend.” I don’t even have to think about it.
“Then my last question before you open that
box is this: can you trust Jessie when she says she’s ready for something, that she is?”
I stop to think about it for a moment. It’s like he just pointed out; Jessie is a headstrong, determined woman who goes after what she wants. She is methodical in her thought process and rarely makes bad decisions. Caleb being case in point. But in her defense, she stood her ground and dumped the idiot the moment she realized he was just that.
“I do, sir.”
A slow, proud smile builds on his face before he nods at the box.
“Go ahead. Open it.”
I gently lift the lid of the box and get a whiff of cedar. Inside the hand-carved box are several photos of a younger Jack and Marilyn, Jessie’s mom. Marilyn’s chocolate hair mirrors that of Jessie’s, and the same bright smile that Jessie blesses me with beams at Jack in complete adoration. There is also a short stack of old envelopes addressed to Jack in a dainty handwriting bound together in a fraying red ribbon, and a small black velvet box. I lift the box, very much aware of what I will find when I open it. The sight of Marilyn’s wedding set brings a single tear to my eye.
When I look up at Jack, his eyes glisten too.
“Jack, this is too much. I couldn’t possibly—“
“Yes, you can. You may not yet be ready to ask, but I want you to have it for when you will be.”
Still wordless, I stare at the simple marquise cut diamond set in yellow gold. Just below it sits a gold band jacket with a set of three of the tiniest pearls I’ve ever seen and another half karat of diamond baguettes on either side. It’s breathtaking and perfect for the girl I’ve waited so long for.
“Why me, sir?” I swell with honor. This is definitely not the ring that Jake had given Jessie.
“She didn’t look at him like she does you. And you her.”
“Oh?”
“You two look at each other like my Mari looked at me.” His voice breaks and a single tear escapes his right eye. He quickly wipes it away. “You two will be okay. Life isn’t easy. God didn’t intend it to be, but as long as you two put Him above all else, there isn’t anything the three of you won’t be able to handle.”
