Authors: DL White
It’s too quiet.
The absence of the TV or the radio or snoring or the
taptaptap
of fingers on a touch screen niggles at me enough to drag me from the depths of slumber.
I sit up, inhaling a deep breath as I do, sliding my silk scarf from my hair and slowly coming to. A glance at the other side of the bed tells me Preston is not sprawled next to me, spread eagle. From the floor below come muted sounds of conversation that at first I mistake for the TV until I hear the front door close, a car door slamming and an engine revving as it drives away.
I throw the covers back, intending to find out what Preston is up to. The bedroom door opens and he saunters in, wearing a pair sweats that ride low on his hips and his favorite RunDMC t-shirt. His beard needs a trim and his hair is still sleep tousled but he looks delicious to me. I’m tempted to pull him to the bed and give him a
very
Merry Christmas.
If you would have told me last Christmas that a year later I’d wake up in Preston Reid’s bed, I’d have slapped your face. But here we are.
I haven’t spent a night at my apartment since we came back from the wedding. I’ve slowly migrated most of my things to Preston’s, and after the New Year I’ll officially be out of there and living full time at Preston’s house. And, since Preston’s uncle signed over the deed to him…
our house.
There is nothing… I mean
nothing
better than coming home to him every day.
The other crazy twist? We’ll be working together soon. Preston’s uncle, famed Wall Street Attorney Wayne Reid, had been planning a return to Florida and practicing law. He and his new wife arrived in town after Thanksgiving and moved into a mini-mansion not far from Nate and Morgan.
Preston had been helping him locate office space, then managing the renovation of an older but sturdy brick building just outside of town. The Reid Law Group was born and Preston, Managing Partner, insisted on bringing me and Troy over from Flannery & Rourke. I packed up my office two weeks ago and haven’t been back.
“Oh good,” Preston says, clapping his hands together at the sight of me, sitting up in the bed, confused as hell. “You’re up. We need to get a move on. Got stuff to do.”
This announcement does nothing to move me from the bed. “What stuff? We have brunch at your parent’s place and dinner at mine. Remember? We planned it so we didn’t have to be anywhere early.”
Preston rolls his eyes. “That’s not
all
we’re doing today. Get up.”
I yawn, still perched on the side of the bed. “I’m
up
. Damn.”
“Get out of the bed and put clothes on and come downstairs.”
Irritated, I slap the surface of the mattress. “Really, Preston? I wanted us to wake up together on Christmas morning. Instead you’re playing Drill Sergeant, ordering people around. I’ll be downstairs when I get good and damn ready to go downstairs.”
He opens a drawer in the bureau and digs out a thick cotton hoodie, pulling it over his head and talking through the fabric. “Five minutes, Evangeline. Dress warm, it’s chilly out.”
“Out? We’re going out? Where are we going?”
“Somewhere,” he says, his face bearing that smug grin that I hate. Used to hate.
“Because I love you, I am going along with this. But whatever this is, better be good.”
“You’ll see. Four minutes.”
“You said five!”
Preston chuckles and walks back out of the bedroom. “Wasted a minute arguing with me. Let’s go!”
In three minutes, I am downstairs in jeans, sneakers, a long sleeved shirt and a hoodie. The house is as quiet and as clean as we had left it the night before. It still smells like coffee and bacon, but the coffeemaker is dry and empty and Preston doesn't know how to make bacon. The Christmas tree is lit, the lights winking in synchronized fashion. Over the fireplace, two festive stockings hang, one initialed PR and the other EC.
Preston is in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and tapping away at his phone, which is vibrating every few seconds. The mirth on his face is boyish, reminding me of the funny kid that lived down the street. The one that grew into a good looking teenager and a handsome man. The man that I fell in love with– twice. The one I lost for a while and came back to get me.
My heart melts a little. It’s early and cold but he’s planned a surprise and he’s excited about it. I guess I can play along.
“So, I’m downstairs. What now?”
Preston glances up at me, then slides the phone into his front pocket, plucks a set of keys from a hook next to the refrigerator and points toward a basket sitting on the table. It’s wicker with red and green gingham fabric around the edges and woven around the handle. The bacon smell is coming from inside the basket.
“Grab that and let’s hit the road.”
It won’t do any good to ask questions. Once he gets something in his head, it has to play out and it looks like I have to be a part of it. I pick up the basket, hang it in the crook of an arm and follow Preston out the front door.
Where I stop and stare with my jaw practically on the ground.
In the driveway, is a vintage 1993 cherry red Jeep Wrangler. It’s a soft top with the spare tire on the back and zip out windows. It looks eerily similar to the one Preston owned for years and drove until it died, the one we used to cruise around Orlando in, the one we used to hang out at Lake Conway in.
Preston stalks right to the driver’s side, keys the lock and hops in before unzipping his window and hanging out of the opening.
“Come on! We got places to go, baby.”
Stunned, I walk around the vehicle to the passenger side door. Preston leans over, pops the latch and pushes the door open. “Hand that over,” he says, gesturing toward the basket. I hand it to him and then climb inside, then take it back once I am settled in my seat.
Preston starts the Jeep and it’s like being in high school all over again—the rumble of tires on pavement, sitting high above traffic, the rattle of the engine. The memory of sitting in the passenger seat of a Jeep next to Preston makes me smile.
He puts the Jeep in reverse and the house gets smaller as we back away from it. I watch out of the window as Preston speeds to the entrance of the subdivision and hangs a right. If we were going to town, he’d turn left.
“Are we going where I think we’re going?”
“Depends on where you think we’re going.” He pushes the Jeep a few hundred yards and confirms my guess that we’re heading to the other side of the lake by taking a right turn on a familiar dirt road.
“We’re really doing this? On Christmas of all days?”
“Have you been out here since the last time we were together?”
The weekend before homecoming. We’d talked about our plans for the night… and for later that night. We’d had the millionth conversation about our future. We broke up the next weekend and I hadn’t seen this side of the lake since.
“No. It was too painful.” I glance over at him. His expression is less playful and more serious. “You said you hadn’t, either. Is that true?”
“True.” Then he takes his eyes off of the road long enough to level a concentrated stare at me. “So it’s about time we came back out here, right?” I don’t answer. The question is rhetorical, the answer is obvious and besides… we’re doing it, whether I agree or not.
After a few minutes of driving, the Jeep bursts through a thicket of trees into an open area where a field of grass separates the road from the water. This signals that we are near our spot—a nice divot in the grass where we back up to the lake. Preston maneuvers the Jeep expertly, like he did it yesterday. He puts the vehicle in park but leaves the key in ignition, keeping the heater on.
“You know the drill.”
Preston isn’t the only one who remembers things from decades ago. I get out, get into the backseat and unhook the clasps that hold the seat up. Once they are loose, the seat flops back and we have space to sit. Or lay. Preston opens the basket and pulls out a blanket that’s usually slung across the back of our couch. He spreads it with a flourish, invites me to sit.
“I’m sorry it’s a little corny. I know it’s cold and you wanted to sleep in and there are better things we can do on Christmas morning.”
I glance through the thick plastic that comprises the rear window. The sun is high in the sky, bright and reflecting beautifully off of the choppy waves. The trees that line the banks stir in the breeze. I’m sitting in a warm cloud of nostalgia next to the love of my life.
“It's not corny at all.”
He grins, obviously proud of himself. “You can’t tell me you’ve ever had a picnic breakfast before. This is romantic as fuck, right?”
I close my eyes and try hard not to laugh. “It is, as you say, romantic as fuck. What is the occasion for an early morning picnic breakfast?”
“You’ll find out in a minute.” Preston starts pulling things from the basket—two McDonald breakfast sandwiches, a plastic container of mixed fruit and a thermos. There is also a box of milk and packets of sugar. He screws the top off of the thermos and hands both to me. “Why don’t you get started on some coffee and I’ll set up the spread?”
In a few minutes we have a rudimentary picnic breakfast set up between us. We feast on bacon egg and cheese on English muffins and nearly overripe fruit, share a cup of coffee and listen to Lake Conway splash onto the shore a few feet away. It feels familiar, not unlike devouring burgers and fries after a football game or pizza after a dance. We used to love to steal away to the lake to be alone, to make love and dream out loud about our future.
The future that we are living.
“This is really nice, actually. I hadn’t thought much about coming out here again but I think it’s the perfect day to do it. I’m glad we’re here.”
“Good,” he says, his mouth full of eggs and bacon. He seems enchanted by the water rushing by, but eventually he speaks again. “This is going to sound weird, but…I’m grateful that we broke up.”
Grateful wouldn’t be the word I would use. Even though I was angry at him for so long, I was also miserable. I mourned what might have been for nearly two decades. “Why grateful?”
“Because… in some ways, our parents were right. We were all wrapped up in each other. It was intense. I was crazy about you. So crazy that when we broke up, it broke me. I mean, yeah… we were in love but–"
“It was immature love,” I finish, understanding and nodding in agreement. “It hadn’t been tested.”
“It was hopeful and dreamy. And naïve. It’s the same thing I try to tell Troy about Jade. It was easy to be desperately in love when we both lived at home and I worked part time and our biggest problem was making it to homeroom before the bell rang and finding a private place to have sex. I think we needed time away from each other, to mature and stand on our own two feet. Maybe it didn’t happen the way it should have happened. And maybe we didn’t need twenty years, but that was my fault.”
“Not
all
your fault. I share a lot of blame, too.”
Preston concedes my point with a nod as he finishes his sandwich. “I mean, I wonder if we would still be together if we would have never broken up. Would we have burned bright and then fizzled out? Or would we have stuck it out? I see Nate and Morgan and I can’t imagine we would have had what they have. They’re an extraordinary couple but even they split up for a minute.”
“You tell me all the time that we aren’t Nate and Morgan, but even they realized what they meant to each other and ultimately got back together.”
I set down the coffee and breakfast sandwich and lay a hand against his cheek, turning his head toward mine. The stubble of his beard pricks at the tips of my thumbs. I love that feeling, especially against my cheek every morning.
“We can speculate all day, but we can’t change a single second of what happened between us. That’s all gone. There’s no sense in regretting those years we could have been together. All I want to think about now is the years I still have with you.”
The smile I love to see returns. He leans in to kiss me and says, “Happy to hear you say that, Evangeline.” He reaches for the basket and roots around the bottom. When his hand emerges, he’s holding a black velvet box. My stomach does a quick flip-flop and my heart rate speeds up so quickly I can’t breathe.
It’s not a surprise, but I’m caught off guard. I imagined this happening in a different way. Not in casual clothes in the back seat of a Jeep, for instance. But suddenly I realize… this is perfect. It’s happening exactly where it should happen.
“I can’t do this in here,” he says. His voice is a little shaky. I think it’s cute. “Let’s get out.”
I scramble toward the door and climb out of the Jeep. Preston follows and directs us around to the tailgate. The lake babbles softly, the air is crisp, the sky a cloudless blue but I don’t notice anything but this man I have loved my whole life, holding a pretty little box in his great big hands.
“So.” He clears his throat while gripping the box in one hand. “I’ve wanted to ask this question since that day that I came home and you were setting the table on the patio. I let my mind wander for a second and imagine that you…”
He swallows, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.“… that it was you and me, and we were having our friends over for dinner. What we have is what I’ve always wanted with you. I’ve had about a million chances to ask, but I didn’t feel like the time was right.”