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Been weaving parts and pieces together. Need to dig through the blog to see what else I feel like including and what should be removed.

• Water Won’t Extinguish This Fire

The Surprise

One kiss and nothing was ever the same. It was what they had said for years but it wasn’t until they wrote it all down and read their story that they realized just how remarkable it was.

It was the biggest surprise and most unexpected moments of their separate lives and the biggest challenge they ever faced together.

But the distinguishing factor was that when you were with right partner you had no problem facing the battles and challenges that life presents because you just knew that you would find a way.

And they did.

Every time they looked at their history and all that they had managed to overcome they became more convinced there wasn’t anything they couldn’t conquer together.

Unexpected

She didn’t know what was more surprising, seeing him standing there or when he walked up and kissed her.

That didn’t stop her from kissing him back. It was only after she realized they were standing in the middle of Target that she thought to pull away and ask him what the hell he was doing.

“I am kissing my girl.”

“You can’t just show up and expect to kiss me like that.”

“I can and I did. Come here and I’ll do it again.”

This time she turned her head and gave him her cheek.

He smiled and told her he was tired.

“I am going home now. It was a long ride.”

Her eyes narrowed, “If you moved here again without telling me I am going to kick your ass.”

“Or maybe you’ll come help me pick out new furniture, the place is bare. But not tonight, I am too tired. I’ll call you later.”

She watched him walk down the aisle and turn, “I am not  chasing you through the store.”

“Fine, you can find me in housewares or produce. I need a banana, some glasses and sheets. Scratch, that, I am too tired. Call me later.”

His voice grew more distant with each word and she suddenly realized he wasn’t playing around, he was really leaving the store.

She double timed it down two aisles and saw him heading to the car.

“Hey, you can’t just kiss me and leave. What the hell is that about?”

“I told you I am tired, I am going home.”

She looked at the Cheshire cat grin on his face and told him they were going to have a long talk.

“Where are you living now?”

“Closer than I was, farther than the other room.”

“You are the most infuriating man I know.”

“That is good, you are the most infuriating woman I know too.”

She started to make a face but was interrupted by another kiss.”

“I hate when you do that.”

“You only hate it because it distracts you. Hell, I might even say you get flustered.”

“Oh no I don’t. That ego of yours is going to get you into trouble.”

“Those lips of yours already did it. Now kiss me back or let me go home.”

“Give me your address, I am coming over.”

“Who said you are invited.”

“Shut up before I change my mind.”

“Ok.”

“That is the first smart thing you said all night.”

Why Didn’t You?

It didn’t require any imagination to hear her voice or to see the expression on her face because when you have known someone for as long and as well as they had you didn’t have to be physically present to know what it would look and or feel like.

He looked at down at a short email telling him she didn’t think there was a point being in touch any longer and smiled.

The anger in those words jumped up off the page at him. It was almost comical to think of why she was irritated.

She met him for coffee during a four hour layover and he didn’t make a pass. Didn’t try to kiss her or do anything but be the complete gentleman.

He couldn’t be 100 percent certain without her confirmation but when it came to her his gut rarely mislead him. He mulled over what kind of response to send because he didn’t want her to disappear nor did he think she wanted to.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t wanted to or thought about kissing her because he did but when he first got off of the plane he felt like hell.

Something he had eaten was messing with his stomach and he had spent the first 90 minutes or so nursing a cup of tea and trying not to run to the bathroom.

It is hard to be cool, suave and debonair when you are worried about what might happen if someone hugs you too tightly.

After typing out five different responses none of which sounded quite right he picked up the phone and called her.

“Don’t be silly. We are not going to stop talking. So stop making threats you don’t want to follow through with.”

Moments after he hung up he received an angry text message from her and responded by calling again.

“This is silly. It is a little hiccup. If you didn’t want to talk you wouldn’t respond so quickly to my voicemail. So suck it up woman, we are not going away. If I knew what I was supposed to apologize for I would try to do it. Actually I think I know, but I don’t feel like playing 20 questions.”

Ninety minutes later he hung up the phone, sat back in his chair and replayed the conversation in his head.

Turns out that he had been mostly right. She had basically told him that she didn’t understand how he could so eagerly pursue her and not even try to hug her.

She had been offended and then had gotten upset because she thought it made her sound shallow.

So he apologized for the confusion and explained why he hadn’t tried to hug her. She told him he was ridiculous and that they knew each other far too well not to just speak.

When he laughed and told her this was proof of how deep their connection and trust was she had agreed. And when he told her not to roll her eyes at that she had laughed and asked him how he knew she was.

“You know you are an idiot. I am a grown woman and it is up to me to decide if I want you to walk onto that plane with a huge smile or frown.”

“Sounds to me like you are a big tease.”

She giggled, “I guess you’ll just have to wonder about that now won’t you.”

Later that evening as he closed his eyes he replayed it all again in his head and smiled.

Sometimes they could make each other crazy but there was no one who made them happier than each other. He figured that sort of happiness was worth a little craziness.

The best things in life weren’t always easy but they were always worth it and so were they.

Ideas and Ideas and Ideas

Thought about these clips on the plane ride today and came up with a dozen ideas for how to tie them together.

The trick is doing so in a way that isn’t ridiculous. Won’t know unless I try so I guess it is time to put pen to paper.

Coming Soon

In a few days I’ll start working on moving some of the clips from About Writers-managing-expectations over at TheJackB to here.

I Am Not That Special

She looked me in the eye and told me she didn’t understand what I saw in her and said she wasn’t that special.

I smiled and told her if she was eager for me to agree I would and she made a face.

“Our strength lies in the trust between us. It stems from a well that neither one of us can see but every time we are together we drink from it. It feels too good to be true so we make excuses and pretend that something is wrong when we know damn well there isn’t.”

Somewhere during the thirty seconds it took for me to say those words she took my hand and I watched her lip quiver.

“Crying doesn’t make me feel better. I am not a girl who cries but you do this thing to me.”

She didn’t finish her thought, just looked at me and put her head on my shoulder.

“I always promised I would kiss the tears away and I always will. We are skeptical about so much. We both look for the angles because usually if it is too good to be true it is, but maybe we are the exception to the rule. Maybe we one kind of person by ourselves and another together.

Maybe we found the formula that only comes when you find the person whose voice you want to hear first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening. Maybe there is something more.”

I paused to make sure she heard what she was saying and because I felt completely naked.

“You know you are the person I want to spend moments with. We are not perfect separately or together but there is magic there and whenever we spend time together we see and feel it. That is worth fighting for. That is worth working for. That is worth living for.

I don’t know what I am saying or how I am saying it. I just know that when I think of you or am with you all this stuff and more comes out of me. I can’t remember a time before you and I don’t want to.”

The Long Game

Some people run sprints and others run marathons.

I play the long game.

This Belongs Here

Posted this elsewhere first, but it belongs here.

The Reasons Why Don’t Matter

I never get tired of seeing her with her hair down and it is not just because most of time she has some sort of clip or rubber band thing in it.

Maybe it is because of how it frames her face and takes my eyes straight to hers or how it outlines her smile.

Could be because I love grabbing a handful of it when we kiss or how when I play with it I can see the stress fall right off of her. Doesn’t really matter why, how or what because it just is.

She doesn’t see herself the way I do. Doesn’t see how the signs of age turn me on because I don’t see her as being tired and worn out, instead I see wisdom, experience and a woman who understands me in a way no one else ever seems to.

Sometimes she forgets about that. Sometimes she gets caught up in the crap that makes life more challenging and wonders what the hell she is thinking. Sometimes she convinces herself there is no point, no purpose and no reason to spend time with me.

It would be a false to say I have never thought about walking away or that I haven’t asked the same questions she has. Been to that place more than once and spent more time reading the words that are written upon those walls than I care to think about.

But I haven’t walked. Haven’t left. Haven’t given up.

Some call that obsessive. Some call that foolish, dumb and frightening while others call it romantic.

Definitions will always vary depending upon what side of the fence you stand upon. If it rains in Pepper Pike while the sun shines Fort Worth your decision to get wet or feel the warmth of the sun upon your back is contingent upon where you are.

The decisions that have or have not been made don’t require approval from anyone other than the parties involved and if others don’t like it they can go play in traffic.

*****

I remember standing on the balcony, arms around each other, comfortable in the warmth of a best friend’s presence.

Nuzzling her neck I smelled home and knew it could be anywhere she was. When she asked me why I was smiling I told her I loved her and when she said it back I said “I know.”

Her nose scrunched up and she told me I should be more humble. I laughed again and said I had been humbled by life more times than I could count. Hell and I had become fast friends and I wasn’t afraid to visit it again because experience had proven I could climb back out.

Sometimes life takes those declarations far too seriously so it pulled her out of my arms and sent me far away.

*****

When I woke up we were in separate beds in separate places and I knew she had forgotten what had been.

I didn’t ask if it was intentional or otherwise because the reasons didn’t matter. I just knew I had been cast back down into the pit from which I had climbed out of and that even if I called out for her she wouldn’t hear me nor would she come looking.

During other times there was no doubt about whether she would notice my absence. Those were the moments when my absence was as painful to her as hers was to mine.

But when memory is wiped you don’t notice you are choking, literally or figuratively. You just pass through the days.

If you ask if I was angry about this I will say yes. If you ask if I was frustrated I will say yes. If you ask if I was scared I will say no.

Not because I was foolish, fool hardy or too angry to notice that I should be scared but because I recognized the pit and saw where I had left marks on the wall.

It was the same cell they had tried to keep me in before but they hadn’t bothered to install new locks or hire new jailors.

All I had to do now was recreate my last escape. All I had to do was find a way to rebuild and remake it all and climb back out.

I didn’t have time to worry about how to restore her memory. All I had was faith that if we had time in person I would find the key that opened the door that had been closed.

But there was far too much to do before that could happen so I did what I had done before. I took a hard look at her pictures, smiled at the memories and then walled off that part of the library because I couldn’t afford to get lost thinking about love when there was work to do to get back out.

That would have to wait.

Still every now and then I heard bells in my head and had this feeling that she was thinking about me and I wondered about the future.

Do You Know The Ending?

“So how does our story end? You have been writing about it for a million years now. You must have an idea how it ends. Tell me what you think is going to happen.”

He laughed and said no but she wasn’t amused.”

“What the fuck is that about? Why won’t you tell me? Baby, what are you worried about? It is not like I haven’t spent the last week practically living with you.”

“Ok, I am going to get you pregnant and we are going to have four kids and then live the life we always said we would. It will be perfect. Our grown up kids will love having younger siblings they can babysit.”

“Baby, I am serious. I want to know what you came up with.”

He pulled her into his arms, kissed her twice and smiled.

She told him to stop kissing her, took him by the hand and went to the couch.

He smiled and told her he had always imagined a more romantic setting for making a baby but said the couch would do.

“All you need to do is turn around and I’ll get started.”

When he started to unbuckle his belt and take off his pants she got irritated and asked him why he wouldn’t answer.

“Sometimes you make me laugh. Do you have any idea what you do to me? Do you know how beautiful I think you are and how you turn me on? Hell, I won’t lie and say part of me doesn’t want to knock you up but that is an itch I can live without scratching.

We finally reached a place where babies don’t run our lives anymore. It took years to get to this place. If I thought you were really interested I would consider it but I don’t think you want a baby now and that is ok.  The kids already think we are old idiots. Can you imagine what they would say if they found out you were pregnant.”

She smiled.

“We missed our window. I would have loved to have had your babies.”

He smiled back.

“Yeah, we missed that one but that was then and this is now. I used to have a bunch of different ideas for endings to our story but they aren’t the same as they used to be.”

“I want to hear all of them. Will you tell me?”

He finished taking off his pants and said nothing.

“Are we ever going to have a discussion without having to take care of your other itch first?”

He smiled and nodded his head.

She watched him walk out of the room and asked him where he was going.

“I am going to put on a different pair of pants. I spilled ketchup on the right leg.”

He had just finished putting on a clear pair of jeans when he felt her fingers tug on his belt buckle.

“You should know better than to get dressed without asking for my help”

She pushed him back on the bed.

He feigned being tired.

“I am too old. I need a nap first.”

“Let me help you fall asleep…”