She opens the door and walks through to the kitchen. Looking around she can see no hint of anything being ready for dinner, and what really angered her was that he was no where to be seen.
"What's the use?" she mumbles to herself as she looks in the freezer for something quick and easy to prepare. "The ingrate can't fix dinner for us and he's not working!" she snarls as her hands clasp down on a frozen pizza. Turning around and slamming the freezer door shut, she's startled.
"I'm an ingrate, am I?" he asks as he walks toward her. She can't tell by his expression what he's thinking. Should she be scared? Is he angry?
Her questions are quickly answered and her fears are put to rest as he takes her into his strong arms and kisses the nape of her neck as his hands grasp her tapered waistline. "If I'm such an ingrate, then maybe I should throw away what is waiting for you on the back patio," he says as he stares in to her dark, consuming eyes.
As puzzled as she is by his statement, the needs of her body are being fulfilled by being in his arms. She slides the frozen pizza onto the counter top and wraps her arms around him.
"I had such a rotten day," she whimpers, glad to be where she is.
"Oh, Sweetie," he says softly as his hands float down over her head and to her back. "Let's go outside and you can tell me what happened, okay?" he asks as he kisses the top of her head.
She hugs him for several seconds then takes a step back to look up into his face. "I'm sorry I called you an ingrate," she said. "I hope you'll forgive me," she added, her shame obvious to him.
His heart melts. 'How could she ever think I'd be angry about that?' he ponders in his head. He moves to her side and lifts his arm, putting it on her shoulders and pulling her close to him. "Hey, haven't I asked you to quit worrying so much about the small stuff?" he questions her as she is being lead out the door.
Her foot no sooner touches the deck floor than a soft glow gently illuminates the entire deck. She knew those lights weren't there last night and she looks at him with obvious surprise and confusion. He says not a word but takes her right hand in his as he leads her to the distant table. His left arm slides around her waist and gently pats her on the hip.
They turn the corner to the 'dead-end' part of the deck where the table has always sat. That part of the deck was really isolated. The adjacent house wall had no windows near, there were huge, thick Douglas Fir pine trees around the outer perimeter.
He leads her to her chair and she sits down, still confused and wondering what was happening. He lights his lighter and sets the flame, one by one, to each of three long, slender white candles. Then he lights several smaller ones that are between the taller ones.
As the flames grew in height and her eyes adjust to the darkness, she sees a huge centerpiece with more flowers than she could count or identify by name. In the center of the of arrangement, was a total of two dozen mixed roses. Some white, yellow, and pink roses framed a single red rose.
"I uh," he begins but stops. Seconds later, he clears his throat and continues. "I know how hard it's been on you, getting acclimated to a new country, new surroundings, well, basically, a whole new life."
She puts her hands to her face, both due to the amazement of him doing all this, and to hide the tears of happiness that were filling her eyes.
He continues, "There's two dozen mixed roses, one for each month you've been here. The single red rose is for the year you and I have been together, which by the way, has been the happiest year of my life!"
She starts sobbing softly. He hears her but continues to speak.
"The three tall candles are to honor your family elders, your Mother, Father, and Grandmother. The other ones represent your siblings and the rest of your immediate family," he explains before he reaches down to the table and picks up a small box that was hidden by the flower arrangement. He kneels down on her left and hands a small, white box to her. Her quivering hands carefully takes the box.
She is frozen in time and amazement while being overwhelmed by all this. She slowly removes the top from the box and removes the delicate necklace she finds within. She holds it up to look at it with the candles supplying illumination from behind it.
She examines it and realizes it's a solid 14K Gold mobius strip. She gasps at the beauty of it and then sees something. Upon really close scrutiny, she reads a few words from a verse in the 'song of songs'. It said "Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li", which he hoped translates to "I am to my beloved and he is mine."
He hopes she'll soon become more than a room mate because he loves her.
The words form on her lips but no sound comes out. She is so happy and deeply touched she can't speak. Carefully laying the necklace back in the box, she puts her arms around his neck and pulls him to her. He's quite surprised as she kisses him with intense passion and he tenderly slides his arms around the curvature of her body as he pulls her closer to him. He feels her body jolting as her sobs of happiness continue.
"Why?" she asks. "What on Earth made you do this?" she asked, leaning back to look into his face.
He smiles and softly answers, "Sweetheart, next week is the two year anniversary of you moving to this country, and in two weeks it's the one year anniversary of you moving in here with me."
She stares in disbelief as he continues.
"With tomorrow being your birthday, and it being Friday night, I thought I'd throw together a little something to show you just how much of a dear friend you are to me,"
She is now crying profusely as she gives him a long, tight hug. She's glad to be where she is, and to be with who she's with. "You're an amazing man," she manages to say with her face nestled tightly against his chest.
For several minutes they stand there, hugging each other as his hand slowly rubs up and down her back. Eventually, he speaks. "Why don't you have a seat so I can bring dinner to the table, okay?"
She nods her head affirmatively and he again is there to slide her chair in for her, then is gone. In a few more minutes he returns, pushing a cart filled with food. There were two plates of fresh garden salad with a selection of dressings, a plate of garlic toast, two plates of Chicken Parmesan topped with freshly shaved cheese, a carafe of wine, two goblets, and another candle.
"This one," he says as he points at the candle, "is just so I can see what the hell I'm grabbing!"
Both break out in laughter. In her head are thoughts of how special he is and how he made this evening so wonderful. His head is filled with thoughts of how to express his love to her.
They had met on the Internet and over the course of many, many months, they had became very close friends. She eventually took the huge step to move from her native land and become a citizen. In the months that immediately followed her relocation, things never fell in place for her. Seemed each apartment she moved into was sold and she had to move out.
He asked if she'd want to move in with him, as a friend, promising her that he wouldn't fabricate it into anything more than that. She reluctantly agreed and moved in. Admittedly, he had kept his promise, and often times it was her that fabricated a different type of arrangement than what they had.
He sat down at the opposite end of the table from her and they began to eat their dinner as a conversation bloomed.
After completing dinner and having dessert, they walked to the lower end of the back yard and he started a fire as she spread a blanket out on the ground. The night was silent except for the occasional pop and crackle from the wood burning. The sky was clear and starlit with the moon shining brightly through the foliage on the trees.
They sat there, sipping wine, snacking on crackers and cheese while they talked the night away. He was trying to continue to keep his promise, but it was more difficult in this setting than it was in the day to day routine. She was so beautiful sitting there. Long dark hair, eyes that twinkle like sun dances off the water as it trickles over rocks. Her voice danced though the air like autumn leaves as they drift to the ground.
As he sat and conversed with her, he allowed himself the pleasantry of pretending, for just a few moments, that they were a couple, romantically involved and dedicated solely unto each other.
Yes, his heart could so easily become something for only her to have, but that fact must remain hidden within his thoughts and hopes he told himself repeatedly.
As she talked she was also thinking of how close a friendship they had. She had doubts that someone twice her age could ever become such a staple in her life.
She looked at him as he stared into the fire. 'You could do a hell of a lot worse, girlie,' her inner voice boomed in her head.
She continued to talk and all the time, tried to figure out if perhaps it was time for things to change. She knew he loved her, there was no doubt in her mind, and she felt sad that his love had to remain sequestered within his soul.
She finally took the initiative, following what her heart told her was right. As her hand came to rest on his thigh, she said, "I think there's something we should talk about."
He looked intently into her soft, loving her eyes. He turned a bit to face her more directly. "And what would that be, Sweets?" he asked, never thinking that what was to follow would ever be coming his direction.
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Submitted by:
treetoad
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