Chapter 33
Steven
I shook the lighter, irritated that now was the time it would run out of fluid. I tried lighting the candles on the dining room table once more, but when the lighter clicked, no flame sprang from the end.
“Are you fucking serious?” I muttered to myself, shaking the lighter more vigorously. I tried for a third time. Finally, it lit, but it was only a tiny blue flame. I managed to light one of the candles before it snuffed out. Then I used the lit candle to light the other two on the table.
I stood back to admire my work.
I wasn’t much for decorating, but I was proud of how everything had come together. I had set the table with three candles of different heights in the middle. My plates matched the napkins, and I had even gone through the trouble of setting out the salt and pepper. A bowl of salad rested beside the candles, and on the opposite side was a basket of baked bread. I hoped Allie would be impressed.
I had been slaving—well, sort of slaving—over a new spaghetti recipe. I knew how much Allie loved pasta. It was her go-to on any food menu. I was hoping to blow her away through her taste buds.
There was a knock on my front door. I caught myself literally jogging down the hall to go let her in. Jesus, man, I thought, get a hold of yourself. You’re acting like a sixteen-year-old boy on a first date.
The thought made me smile. I hadn’t felt this excited to see a girl in my life.
When I opened the door, Allie stood smiling up at me. She was holding a bottle of red wine in one hand and a box wrapped in pink ribbon in the other. She held them both out to me. “I brought wine and treats for later,” she said as she stepped in, and I took everything from her hands.
“I was wondering what was taking you so long,” I said.
“So long?” She laughed. “I’m only fifteen minutes later than I would have been if I came straight from work.”
“Yeah. It was a long fifteen minutes for me, alright?”
“Alright,” she grinned, hanging up her coat on the coat rack. We went into the kitchen, and she spotted the table setting. “Oh, Steven, this looks terrific. And the aroma! Holy smokes, it’s amazing! What did you make?”
“Spaghetti,” I said somewhat proudly as I rummaged in one of my drawers for a corkscrew. When I found it, I set to work on opening the wine. I poured us each a glass and then set to filling our plates with pasta and sauce.
Allie sipped her wine and watched me. I brought the plates to the table and pulled her chair out for her. She sat, smiling up at me like some sort of beautiful angel who had been banished to earth and then looked down at all the food. “Steven, you outdid yourself. This is so nice.”
“I wanted to do this for you,” I said. “You’re too special to me for me not to show you how much I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Allie said.
I lifted my wine glass. She tapped hers to mine. “Here’s to the future as a couple,” I said, “finally.”
“Finally.”
While we ate, we laughed and chatted. I basked in Allie’s constant laughter and admired the way the flames from the candles danced in her eyes. She was spectacular. I felt like I was seeing her for the first time. I saw the freckles on the bridge of her nose that she used to try to cover with makeup when we were teenagers. I saw the crinkle in her nose when she laughed. The cute way her earlobes stuck out a tiny bit, and the dramatic curve of her cupid’s bow lips made me smile. She was so much more than just a girl.
She was my girl.
“Remember the time we went to Kanaka Lake together?” I asked, watching Allie for a reaction.
Allie smiled and nodded. “Of course. I thought there was a group of us going, but when I got there it was only little old you. Not that I was unhappy about that. I was secretly thrilled that I had you all to myself for a day. And shirtless, to top it off.”
I chuckled. “I felt the same way. Besides the shirtless thing. But of course, you looked great in a bikini. That was the first time I ever saw your boobs.”
“Wait. What?” Allie asked, looking up from her plate and pausing with her fork halfway to her mouth.
“Yeah.” I laughed. “Remember? We were play fighting in the water. Your top came undone. It came off when you were under water. You were mortified. I had never seen your cheeks so red before.”
“But you said you didn’t see anything!”
“I lied.” I shrugged. “I didn’t want you to be embarrassed. But, so we’re clear right now, I saw everything.”
Allie roared with laughter when I winked at her. “Oh, my God. So typical of you Steven. That was actually a decent thing to do. I never would have gotten over it. I was so shy back then.”
“I know. That was one of my favorite things about you. You were always blushing. So damn cute.”
Allie blushed across from me, and we both laughed. When we had ourselves back under control, she put her fork down. “Steven,” she said, a little more seriously now. “I want you to know. Those three months when we weren’t talking, were literally the worst ninety days of my life.”
All the humor was gone from her eyes. “Same,” I said. “Ask Chance. He had to peel my drunken ass out of the nightclub because that was the only way I could cope half the time.”
“I promise I’ll never hold anything back from you again. Even if it’s as small as me getting a hangnail at work. I want you to know everything. We’re in this thing together.”
I reached out and took her hand across the table. “Allie, it’s alright. I trust you. I promise to never hold it over your head. You and Andrew, I mean. It wasn’t my place to judge or question. I love you, and we’re past it. We are so past it. I’m ready to focus on our future, not our past.”
Allie smiled. I saw the beginnings of tears in the corners of her eyes. “I love you,” she whispered.
I ran my thumb over the back of her hand. “I love you, too.”
Allie sniffled and looked at the ceiling to get herself back under control. When she looked back at me, she was smiling. “It’s crazy to think of what life is going to look like now, don’t you think?”
“How do you mean?” I asked. “As in, we’ll be keeping toothbrushes at each other’s places?”
“Sure,” Allie said. “And having sleepovers all the time. Like the good old days, but better, because we’ll share a bed.”
“And we’ll have lots of crazy sex.”
“That too.” She giggled.
“I was thinking,” I started, “that maybe you should have a drawer here. Or four. You know I don’t use half of mine. You can keep whatever you need to here.”
She blinked. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t think that would be, you know, moving a little fast?”
“Do you?” I asked.
She pursed her lips and then shook her head. “No, but I’m afraid of scaring you off.”
“You won’t scare me off,” I told her. “I already told you. I’m in this one hundred percent. I want to be with you all the time. I want to build our foundation. I want to make up for missed time. We should have done this forever ago.”
“I’m happy with the things we did in the past,” Allie said. “We have a good beginning story. It took us a while, sure, but it’s all worth it now. At least it’s worth it for me. The best things are worth waiting for. And you were definitely worth the wait.”
“Except for that time I was an ass and read your diary and then behaved like an oversized man-child.”
Allie exploded with laughter. “Yes, well, I could have done without that. But as I said. It makes a good story.”
“A good story for you,” I mumbled. “I’m the one who looks like the idiot.”
“Get used to it, muffin,” Allie teased.
I rolled my eyes, and she laughed at me. I didn’t mind the teasing. In fact, I kind of liked it.
When we finished eating, I cleared the table. Allie tried to convince me to let her do the dishes, but I refused. “You go get comfy on the couch. I’ll join you in a few. Open that box of treats and dig in.”
Allie squeezed my shoulder and kissed my cheek before leaving me to scrub the pots from the pasta and our plates and cutlery. I smiled the whole time and didn’t realize it until I had turned the water off.
I joined Allie on the couch. She was sitting curled up in the corner. I lifted up her legs and rested them on my lap. She shimmied down so she could rest her neck on the armrest. I began giving her a foot massage. She tried to get away at first. She had ticklish feet.
“I’m not going to tickle you,” I said. “Relax.”
She did. Soon, she was sighing happily, and I massaged her calves as well. “That feels so good,” she mumbled thickly. The wine was settling in, and so was the business of the day. “Is this what life is going to be like now?”
“If I have any say in it, yes.”
Allie smiled and closed her eyes.