“I don’t know really, I was just thinking that women are quite complicated creatures.”
“Well no shit Sherlock, dya think?”
We both laugh and I feel so happy and content and warm inside at the sound of his laughter.
“It’s good to hear you laugh.”
“It’s good to want to laugh. Would you like to go out for dinner tonight and celebrate our engagement and your new ring?”
“I thought we were celebrating Saturday night?”
We have invited our friends and family over Saturday so that we can officially announce our engagement, it all still felt a bit surreal to me, can you get engaged when officially you are still married to someone else? Well, either way, that’s what we are doing, have done.
“No, Saturday is for me and you to share with our friends and family our good news, I would like for just me and you to go out, just us, and celebrate alone; do you feel up to that?”
I actually feel great and I’m starving.
“Yeah, I feel fine, I don’t know what that was all about earlier, I think I was just a bit overwhelmed by everything, the accident, your Dad, us even, how fast everything has happened.”
“Are you having regrets? You still wanna do this, right? Us I mean, married, engaged or whatever.”
“Yeah, yeah of course I do, I just, I don’t know, seeing all the rings laid out in front of me just made it all real; I never got to pick my last engagement ring, I was pregnant and his parents had insisted we get married and he just came home with this awful sapphire and diamond ring and said ‘Oh, I went and got you this today’. And I was just expected to wear it, I didn’t want to seem ungrateful so I did I actually haven’t worn it for years though, no idea where it even is, I think if I had felt that it had been chosen with love and with me in mind, I would have cherished that ring but I just had the feeling that he walked into the first jewellers and said I need a ring, I don’t know, perhaps it was just me, being a complicated, over thinking woman; any way, today, when I looked at all those rings, they were all so perfect and I would have loved anyone of them, the fact that you just get me, that you know what I like so well and in such a short time, I just felt, overwhelmed by it all, all the change that’s happened in my life I suppose, but I am most definitely not having second thoughts and I am one hundred and ten per cent sure that I want to spend the rest of my life with you; I love you Gabe, I love you in a way I never thought possible, I thought I had been there, done that, because I had, I have, I loved Jason with a passion and I didn’t think anything would ever surpass that, but it has, what we have, what I feel for you, is on a whole other level.”
His eyes are moving from the road to me and I think it’s because he’s focusing on driving and listening that he hasn’t said too much so it has given me the chance to talk freely, without us ending up having sex, because that’s the direction most of our conversations take, when we’re alone. He has a hold of my hand and kisses the back of it.
“I don’t know if it’s an age thing, being older and wiser, supposedly, and being more aware, surer of what I want, or don’t want or if it’s just us, you and me that makes what I feel for you so intense but whatever it is, it’s there and it ain’t going away.”
“Do you want it too?”
“No, never.”
We drive the rest of the way home in virtual silence and as we pull onto the drive, I realise I am almost dizzy with desire. Gabe turns the engine off once we have parked in the garage, we are in his car and as I look across at mine, parked alongside I smile.
“You know we still haven’t christened my car.”
“No, we haven’t and we’re not going to right now.”
He climbs out of the car, while I stay seated and sulk; he comes around to my side, opens the door and takes my hand to help me out, I step down and press myself up against him, giving my best pouty look, I move my hips from side to side, pushing right up against him, he has nowhere to go, my car is parked alongside his and as he tries to step back, his path is blocked.
“Are you trying to get away from me?”
“We’re not having sex in your car Lauren, I want you to get checked out at the docs, I need to know I haven’t hurt you in any way.”
“What? I’m not seeing the doctor until tomorrow, I want you now.”
He laughs and shakes his head at me. “What have I created?”