by S. M. Smith
We giggle and cry a little bit until we’re joined by Jason, who I’m pretty sure we totally alienate with our emotionally charged girly moment. He takes it in stride though and gives us a wide berth. Just about the time we get calmed down, Shelby walks in and starts jumping up and down and doing a happy dance with us. The boys just watch from the safety of their offices.
“Um, ladies. I hate to break up the rejoicing that is going on over here, but we do have a Monday meeting and we do need to get started,” Isaiah, ever the voice of reason, tries to interrupt our celebration.
We finally stop with the jumping, but as everyone starts to dissipate to prepare for the meeting, I find I can’t really move from my spot in the lobby. Daphne grabs her notebook from the desk and walks back up to me as I inspect my ring again.
“Congratulations, darlin’. I couldn’t be more happy for you right now. You’re one very lucky lady.”
“I am, aren’t I?” I say, realizing that if not for God’s great hand in my life, I could be in one of two pretty crappy relationships.
Right now, I could be married to a man who not only didn’t respect me enough to be faithful to me, but would have totally run my life, taking every decision away from me. Or I could be with another man who doesn’t respect me or the relationship I have with my Creator. Instead, I’m engaged to a man who respects that I have a mind and dreams. He respects my relationship with Jesus, knows it almost as well as I do, and doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. Well, not maliciously anyway. He wants me to be happy and loves the person I am. Yes, I’m one very lucky lady indeed.
“Come on, we have a meeting we need to get to.” Daphne takes my hand and practically drags me to the conference room.
***
A gorgeous bouquet of hydrangeas, roses and gerberas, just as beautiful as the one he got me on my birthday, and a day planner arrive via messenger late afternoon with the sweetest note ever.
To the woman who has completely captured my every thought- I meant it when I said I want you to have whatever you want. I hope this planner will help you to organize and plan out every detail you could possibly need or want for our big day. I can’t wait to be your husband.
–Forever yours, S.
P.S. thoughts of you make a court hearing both more pleasant and difficult to sit through at the same time. That takes some talent.
The sweetly-scented array permeates my office, bringing the outdoors in while I do my best to stay on task and edit photos. I’m quickly distracted though when my desk phone rings.
“This is Jessie.”
“Hey, Shaina’s on the other line. I’m gonna conference her in.” There’s a quick pause before I can stop her and a second later I hear a sniffle.
“Hey Shaina! How are you?”
“Hormonal. Ugh. I can only watch action movies, and some comedies, but everything else makes me cry.” She sniffles again and I fight back the urge to giggle at her. “What are you up to?”
“Well currently I’m trying to focus on editing instead of picking out a wedding dress.”
“Wait! What?!? Hold on.” The background noise dies and it sounds like she pauses something on TV. “Did I just hear you correctly? You’re getting married?? When were you going to tell me??”
“Whoa, calm down. Stephen asked me yesterday and I had to tell a few people before I could call. I was going to do so this afternoon actually. I was hoping you would be one of my bridesmaids actually?”
“Absolutely! Well only as long as you can wait until after I have this baby. I’m having to skip most of the fun fancy stuff lately. You can’t imagine how difficult it is to squeeze this beach ball of a belly into a ball gown lately. I haven’t been to a formal gathering in a month.”
I can just see the pout on her face at missing the opportunity to heckle Kansas City’s elite club of snobs.
“I’m sorry you’re missing out. We should do a casual girls’ night soon,” Daphne consoles her.
“Yes, because I need some help planning a wedding, and who better than the girls who threw me an explosive birthday party.” Daphne and I chuckle at my ill landing joke, while Shaina’s hormones get the best of her and nearly cause her to start a rant of all the things she would like to do in retaliation to Caleb.
“When is the big day?” Shaina asks instead.
“We haven’t really discussed it yet. But we’re having dinner tonight so hopefully we can hammer out a date then.”
“Let’s hope its sooner rather than later. I really don’t want to catch the two of you making out in your office again,” Daphne whines.
“Careful what you wish for. Once they’re married you might find them doing a little more than making out, Daph,” Shaina jokes.
“Wow. You two are just so supportive. Such great friends, really.” I feign offense.
“Well once you two decide on a date, lets plan a girls’ night. And a dress shopping trip. Oh, and a cake tasting trip…oh cake!” Shaina croons.
And just like that, the rest of my productive afternoon is lost.
***
“Mmm. It smells good in here.” Stephen lets himself in bringing another bouquet in with him.
“Wow! More flowers? Careful there, Mr. Cahill, keep spoiling me like this and I’ll come to expect flowers every day.”
He hands me the flowers and wraps an arm around my waist to pull me in for a kiss.
“I’d bring flowers home for you every day for the rest of our lives if it makes you as happy as you make me.” He kisses me again.
I can’t help the growing grin as I turn to find a vase to put the flowers in.
“It smells spicy in here. Cumin, maybe some cilantro. Mmm.” I feel him against my back before his arm snakes around me again. “Did you make enchiladas?” He growls in my ear. He pulls my ponytail away from my neck and kisses me tenderly along the collar of my apron.
“I did,” I manage to say, albeit breathlessly. He nuzzles my neck and it becomes apparent I’m going to have to ban him from the kitchen while I’m cooking, otherwise, we’ll never get to eat.
“Would you mind setting the table?” I ask, hoping to distract him. He takes his hint, but not before planting another kiss just behind my ear. I brace myself as I wait for him to move away from me so I can regain consciousness.
“So what all did you get planned today?” he asks as he lays plates on the table.
“Well I officially have a maid of honor and two bridesmaids. Is three too much? Enough?” I ask as I slice up some chives to sprinkle on top of the enchiladas. I don’t hear him come up behind me again.
“Three is perfect,” he whispers in my ear. I stop moving the knife before I accidentally slice a finger off.
“How was court today? How did the hearing go?” I ask, hoping to distract him.
“We won, actually.” He steps back, which is good, because I might have accidentally stabbed him when I turn around with too much enthusiasm for holding a knife.
“Stephen, that’s great!”
“How about you put the knife down, babe.”
I set it on the counter behind me and turn back to him. He chuckles at my exuberance and engulfs me again. Before our little celebration can grow, though, the timer goes off for me to pull the enchiladas out of the oven.
He gives me a devilish grin as we split, working harmoniously to finish setting everything out on the table and sit down to eat.
“So, I know we should have been doing this all along, but since we’re going to be eating dinner together from now on, how about I say grace?” he asks. My heart swells and I couldn’t be more excited to marry this man more than I am right now.
“Absolutely.” I grab his hand and close my eyes, unable to contain my smile from taking over my face.
“Dear Father, thank you for this meal, for the beautiful hands that prepared it. Thank you for the blessing of having her in my life and for making her my bride. Please watch over us and help us to keep you first in our lives and in our relationship wit
h each other. Help us to remember our promise to stay pure to you. We love you and thank you for the many blessings you have provided for us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
It takes me a moment to catch my breath again before I can function, but he digs right in with the appetite of a teenage boy.
“So have you thought about when you’d like to get married?” he asks slyly from his side of the table as he scoops a third of the dish onto his plate.
“How about early fall? The weather is typically really nice and we could do indoor or outdoor,” I suggest.
He stops chewing and gives me a deer-in-the-headlights look.
“2017? That sounds great. That will give you plenty of time to plan and have the wedding you want.” His enthusiasm is fake, and clearly he isn’t comfortable with my idea.
“You want to wait two years to get married?” I ask quietly, putting my fork down mid bite. He wipes his face with his napkin, noticeably stalling to choose his next words carefully.
“Well, I think that will give us plenty of time.”
“Time for what? Why do you want to wait to get married?” I’m seriously confused. Based on our make out session last night, we’d be lucky to last two months, let alone two years.
“Why do you want to get married so quickly?” he counters.
“Because I’m ready to spend the rest of my life with you.” My voice is so quiet and he looks like he’s going to be sick. For a few moments I think, great, I may have just poisoned my future husband. “I thought that was what you wanted. It is what you’re asking, isn’t it?”
“Jessie-“
“I don’t understand. Where is this coming from, Stephen?”
He stares at his plate a moment longer before looking up at me.
“I want to give you a legitimate reason, I really do. But right now, I just feel it in my gut. I meant it when I said I want you to have everything you want for this wedding, and I want to give you all the time you need to make it perfect. It’s my intention for this to be your only wedding. And I just need some more time.”
He looks down, clearly torn. Seeing him war with himself over whether to fight me on this or not should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. We’ve played this game of hurry up and wait for so long, it’s exhausting. And infuriating.
“I still love you and I want to be married to you. You know that right?” he asks quietly, reaching across the table to rub my hand.
“And I to you. But we do need to have faith in one another that we’re both ready for this before we stand before all our friends, family and God saying we do have that faith in one other.” I stand my ground, but feeling worse by the second that we can’t agree on this.
“I agree. Can you have faith in me?”
I want so much to be able to submit on this. But I don’t think we should wait so long. We both have career and personal goals that we need to be able to move on with. Not to mention that we’re already having problems with restraining ourselves physically.
He takes my hesitancy as a sign that I’m having a hard time believing in his gut.
“Maybe I should just go for the night and let you process this. We can pick this all back up later,” he says politely, but he definitely sounds defeated. He scoots back from the table and takes his plate to the kitchen. A few moments later, I stand up and start putting away dinner, making a point to stay outside of his reach.
I really don’t want him to go, I want to agree on a wedding date and move on. But at the same time, I know I need to calm down and I won’t be able to if he stays and we continue to argue, so I let him go for now.
I stop at the sink and turn to watch him pick up his suit jacket, but hesitates as he catches my eye.
“Just let me ask you this,” I start to ask, “how long do you honestly want to wait?”
He hesitates and for a split second, I don’t know if I should take that as a good sign or not.
“Want to? I don’t want to wait at all. I’d take you to the Justice of the Peace right now, but this isn’t a decision that should be made so casually. Marriage is a big deal, and like I said, I only plan on doing this once. We’ve not really taken things all that slowly, so I just need some time to process.”
I nod in frustration, keeping my eyes down, afraid that tears could betray my true feelings. I don’t want to wait any longer. I don’t need to wait any longer.
I see the toes of his shiny dress shoes come into my view and I feel his warm fingertips under my chin. He kisses my temple before tilting my head back.
“Give me a couple of days to think about it. If I can’t agree to this fall, I’ll determine a date I can be comfortable with and we’ll revisit. Okay?”
I struggle to be reasonable, but ultimately win. How can I not agree with Mr. Logical? Doesn’t a successful marriage require compromise?
“Okay.” I nod.
“Thank you for dinner. It was delicious.” One side of his mouth tilts up. His breathtaking smirk makes me start to forget why we were fighting to begin with.
“Thank you…I mean…you’re welcome,” I sputter.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He leans in to give me a subtle kiss, but it’s anything but subtle. Sparks start to fly as his hands carefully find my hair and I feel the heat of his breath on my tongue. Suddenly my back is against the sink and there is no space between us.
“I don’t like how fighting with you makes me feel,” he breathes against my neck.
“I wish I could say the same,” I say, breathing raggedly. He groans and leans in further, finding my mouth once again.
“I need to go,” he says in between kisses. He makes no effort to actually back away though.
“Yes, you do,” I say, pulling back. I place my palms on his chest, feeling his tight muscles under his dress shirt. “Congratulations on your case today.” I quickly kiss him one more time and apply pressure, gently pushing him away.
He steps back, but leans in for one more kiss.
“Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asks, not yet stepping away from the barrier of my hands.
“Absolutely.”
He takes one last look into my eyes and steps back, confident that our heated argument has lost some of its fuel. He stops at the door.
“I love you, Jessie.”
“I love you too, Stephen.”
He closes the door behind him and I feel myself deflate a little. I’m proud of myself for standing up for what I want, and even more proud that we could negotiate to come to some sort of compromise. I’m pretty sure that’s a good sign that our marriage is going to be pretty great.
Chapter Fourteen
~Stephen~
I pull the door closed behind me and immediately fight the urge to waltz right back in there, scoop her up, carry her to the car and drive all night to Vegas. But as much as I want to marry that woman, and fast, something about the fall just isn’t setting well with me. At least she’s given up on the pirate magician.
I get lost in thought on the way home and before I know it, I’m tossing my keys and wallet on my dresser. I fall on my bed, face up, trying to figure out what the real problem with getting married in the fall is. I lay there trying to think up a better reason than I want Jessie to have enough time to plan the wedding she wants. That just sounds lame, and I know deep down that can’t be why I have this feeling. Although, trying to plan a wedding in five months can’t be an easy task by any means, I just don’t accept that this is why I’m more than a little apprehensive.
Apparently I fall asleep contemplating the wonders of my doubt because the next thing I know, I’m being woken up by the incessant ringing of my phone.
“Hello?”
“Dude, why are you still sleeping? You totally missed our work out. Wait! Where are you?”
I lift my head up and squint at the bright light shining in from my kitchen. I’m still in last night’s clothes and I haven’t moved from where I landed on my bed last night.
“At home. I must have fallen asl
eep.”
“Is Jessie still there?”
I try to remember why he would think that Jessie had been here and then everything from last night comes back. Again, plaguing my mind with a bunch of what ifs.
“I don’t think I like what you’re insinuating. And no, she wasn’t even here last night. I just missed my alarm. I’ll see you at the office.”
I hang up on him before he can say something that’s just going to make me more mad. My alarm clock shows that I have about an hour before I need to leave for work, so I opt for a quick run.
***
My phone hasn’t rang or buzzed all morning and I’m beginning to wonder how long this fight is going to last. I contemplate taking her lunch, but I’m not willing to agree to the fall yet and just telling her so will only make her have a bad afternoon. There is no use in both of us being in foul moods, so I decide on with a quick trip to the deli next door instead.
I get up and grab my phone off my desk when there’s a rap on my door. I turn and find, of all people, my father standing at the door.
“Dad? What are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry. Tessa wasn’t at her desk so I just let myself in.” Tessa, my assistant, had an errand to run, so I let her take an early lunch.
“Yeah, Dad, that’s fine. How can I help you?”
“Well, I think it might be you who needs my help,” he says very matter-of-factly. I give him a curious look and he continues, “I woke up this morning and something in my gut told me I needed to come have lunch with my son. Your mother wanted to come, but I have a feeling she wouldn’t be very constructive to what you need help with. Is this a bad time?”
I hadn’t ever really believed in divine intervention until this moment.
“Um, no. Actually this is a great time. Did you have some place in mind?”
“Wherever you were headed is fine,” he says following me out of the office.
We make our way down to the deli and order. I grab us a booth in the corner so that we can have some privacy. Dad slides into the seat across from me.
