by D. W. Cee
"Oh!" She let out a breath. "Funny, Gram." Ha, Ha, Ha, was what I expected to hear next but Emily held Gram’s hand and walked into the next room for tea.
“When’s the wedding?” Gram asked us both.
“I don’t know. We haven’t discussed it.” Emily looked to me for an answer.
“How about the fourth of July?” I asked Emily.
“Next year, fourth of July?”
“No, I mean, July 4, as in three weeks from now.”
“In three weeks?” Gram and Emily both answered in an are you insane tone.
“Yup.” I didn’t know what the big deal would be. Mom and all my aunts would be more than happy to help us. We wouldn’t invite too many other people beyond family. A wedding could absolutely happen in three weeks.
“What’s the rush, Jakey? She’s agreed to marry you. She’s not going anywhere.”
I needed to finally get around that block. “Gram, Emily won’t have sex with me till we get married. I need to get married right away.”
Gram lauded Emily’s purity but by the look on Emily’s face, I knew I would be in trouble. While Gram called Mom and Dad, I pulled Emily next to me and tried to make amends.
“I’m sorry, Love. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Are you mad?”
“Yes.” She whispered.
“How can I make it up to you?” I whispered in her ears while trying to nibble it.
She jumped in horror. “You can start by sitting next to your grandmother instead of me. I’m not letting you touch me till we get married.”
“I have this feeling you won’t be able to hold out for that long.” There was something to think about.
“I’ve waited this long. What’s three more weeks of complete abstinence?” Now she was threatening me.
“We’ll see…” I faked a confident voice but I had a feeling she would win if she was determined to keep me at bay. I prayed she wasn’t being serious.
We talked to everyone back at home and I pitched the idea of getting married at the house and Emily loved it. Mom and Aunt Babs would start on wedding preparations till we got back and we went shopping for our wedding attire. After a quick trip to the dress and tuxedo shop, a bowl of noodles for dinner and a more than exciting trip to the department store to pick out lingerie for my bride, we were all exhausted.
The three of us slept in Gram’s room in three separate beds. As soon as Gram conked out for the night I lunged into Emily’s twin size bed.
“I knew this would happen. The minute her head hits the pillow, Gram is out. We finally get some alone time. I don’t think I’ve touched you since we got to London.”
“Is this why you wanted to sleep in this room? I’m still upset with you for your indiscretionary confession about my lack of experience. I told you I’m not letting you touch me till we get married.”
As soon as my lips touched her neck, it was game over. She lost.
“Your grandmother is five feet away from us.”
“We’re engaged to be married in three weeks. Are you still going to hold out on me? Should we go back to my room and sleep on the floor? Or, there are many more rooms in this flat with larger beds.”
“Like you said, we have three weeks left. I didn’t wait this long to break my promise to Mom with three weeks left. You can stay here for a bit but you need to move back over to your bed.” She admonished.
I laughed.
She slept in my arm like an angel.
Chapter 18 Mom and Dad? Pleased to Meet You
Rather than visiting Jane in New York, we chose to visit Emily’s Mom and Dad in Texas. Emily couldn’t contain her excitement as we bought some flowers and walked toward their grave. As we got closer, excitement mixed with sorrow colored her face.
“You are in such deep thought. What are you musing over?”
“Even with you by my side, I was wondering whether I would still be sad when I saw them.”
Aside from the obvious, I couldn’t understand why she would be sad.
“I’m usually elated to be with them but some time during the visit, I get sad knowing I have to leave them here. They can never go back with me… I can’t ever bring them back to life.”
I hugged my future wife to comfort her pain. I realized now I could never fill that void for her no matter how hard I tried. It needed to be filled with parental love. Possibly my parents could try a little harder to fill her emptiness.
“Mom. Dad. I want to introduce you to Jake. This is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.” Emily introduced me to my future parents.
“Hello Mr. and Mrs. Logan. My name is Jake Reid and I am late but here to ask you for Emily’s hand in marriage. I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier to ask for your permission. I should have been here back on New Year’s Day with Emily but I was a fool. I’ve hurt Emily a lot since Christmas but I promise you I will love your daughter as much as you love her if you’ll allow me to marry her. I’ll take care of her and protect her. I’ll make sure to love her so fully and completely that when she comes to see you in the future, she won’t leave you sad, missing your love. Thank you for bringing her up so beautifully. Emily has an incredible warmth and sincerity I’m sure she learned from the both of you.”
I proceeded to give them our dramatic story from the day we met at the grocery store.
“I’m sure it comes to you as no surprise that Emily stunned me with her beauty and kindness from the day I met her. I think I fell in love from that first night but it took her a long time to admit she loved me. Mom, I’m sure you’re thrilled to know your daughter has kept her promise to you till the very end. She won’t let me get too far, though I still try. Sorry, you probably didn’t want to know that.”
I chuckled to myself till I heard Emily cry.
“What’s the matter?” Circling my arms around my soon to be beautiful bride, I thought, “I really should carry a park of tissues with me. You cry way too easily.” I kissed her forehead.
“I was just asking my Dad who will walk me down the aisle?”
“You know my Dad would love to walk you down. You can also walk down on your own and that would make a beautiful statement of how strong you have been, coming this far on your own. We have a few weeks. Let’s think about it.”
Once I saw that Emily was okay, I continued telling Mom and Dad about our courtship.
“So your daughter doubted my love for her and left me with nothing but a letter and traveled all the way to Japan. I didn’t see her again for almost five months. She wrote me two letters while Max got weekly letters and when she came into town for Sarah’s wedding, she saw everyone but me – her future husband. Can you believe her? After my many confessions of love, she couldn’t trust me.”
I glanced over at Emily to make sure she wasn’t crying again. She was in her own thought with a smile on her face. She must have been talking to her parents about us.
“I’m going to assume you love me like my parents love Emily and are giving us your blessing to get married. I know it broke your heart to leave her so early but I promise to make up for your absence. I will take good care of her. Thank you for Emily.”
I waited for Emily to be done and before I could say a word, of course the first thing she said was, “I’m hungry. Let’s go have steak.”
Chapter 19 Should We Just Elope?
We got home to a flurry of hugs and kisses – actually, Emily came home to a flurry of hugs and kisses. My parents outright ignored me, their son who was trying to bring in two large suitcases by himself. Last I remembered, we started with one compact suitcase into London, and about 36 hours later, I had two large suitcases. Gram and Emily went on a buying binge during those short hours.
Once all the love was shared between all my family members but me, I led my fiancée upstairs to my room to unpack. We walked in to find all her belongings from Japan sitting neatly in one corner of my room.
“Why don’t you take my room and get yourself settled? I’ll go all the way down to Nick’s
room and sleep in his twin size bed while you sleep alone in my king size bed.” Maybe she got the hint.
“There’s no reason to leave your own room.” She actually uttered these words.
“Really? Since we’re getting married soon can we start living together as of today?”
She laughed. Of course, she laughed.
“No, silly. I can sleep in Jane’s room or go upstairs to the guest room. You don’t need to be displaced because of me.”
“Forget it. I’ll sleep in Nick’s room. Good bye!” I proceeded to march out of the room.
“Where are you going?”
“To rest. I’m tired.”
“Oh,” she frowned. “I thought we could hang out after I got laundry started.”
“We could take a nap together.” I suggested.
“Never mind.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Go to Nick’s room and I’ll come by when I’m done unpacking.”
I angrily marched to Nick’s room and hopped into bed – alone – to rest before dinner. After I rested I’d help Emily do laundry and we’d go have a nice meal with my parents.
My eyes opened and it was dark outside. I looked at the clock and it said 4:30. I couldn’t tell which 4:30 it was. It looked too dark to be pm, but I couldn’t have slept for over twelve hours already?!? Dazed, I couldn’t understand why I was sleeping in Nick’s room. I did a quick replay of my last coherent memory and I remembered that Emily was living in my room while I temporarily took refuge in Nick’s. I ran over to my room.
“Emily?” She wasn’t in bed. Actually the bed looked no different than when we first got home. “Emily?” I walked into my closet and still no Emily. But, yikes! Did my closet look clean. All my ties were color coordinated. Belts precisely hung up on the belt rack. Every watch and cuff link were lined up on my drawer tray. My scrubs had been washed, ironed and folded in a neat pile. I opened up all my drawers and every piece of clothing had been refolded and replaced according to type – underwear, socks, shirts, shorts, jeans, and sweaters. My closet was scary looking. I didn’t realize Emily had a neat-freak side to her.
Emily. The sight of my closet made me forget why I came in here to begin with. I ran downstairs and there she was… my Emily, in the kitchen with an apron on. It was a dream to see her here playing house.
“What’s the matter?” Emily asked.
“I came looking for you in my bedroom but you weren’t there so I got worried. By the way, is today Monday morning or Sunday afternoon?”
“It’s early morning Monday.” My soon to be bride giggled. “Did you think your bride got cold feet and ran away?”
Wrapping my arms around her, I pulled her into my body. “Good morning, Beautiful.”
“Good morning. You fell asleep at 4:00 in the afternoon yesterday. I trust you are well rested?”
“Yeah. I feel good. Did you sleep at all last night? I noticed that you ransacked my room then put it back together in a scary way. Are you normally this neurotic?”
“No. I hope you don’t mind. I couldn’t sleep so I kept myself busy between your room and these croissants.”
My life was only getting better. It appeared Emily made croissants from scratch last night as well. Money was well spent on those cooking lessons at the Escoffier.
I ran back up to my room to get ready for the day and zoomed back down to find a vegetable omelet, French pressed coffee and three kinds of croissants waiting for me. I couldn’t wait to get married and make this woman my wife.
“Love, what else did you do last night?”
“Um, I did many, many, many loads of laundry by myself even though I recall someone promising to help me.” Her lips looked like a right-side up macaroni. I grabbed her cheeks with my hand and smacked my lips on hers.
“Sorry. That was payment for not helping with laundry.”
“Ooh. I like those kinds of payments. Then, I unpacked all my stuff and put it away in your, I mean, soon to be our mansion-like bedroom. Then I answered a slew of emails – most of them from Japan. And lastly, I chatted with Sarah and Max and we are all having dinner tonight in Santa Monica. Can you make it?”
“Probably not. I’ll call the Chief and see what the schedule looks like today.”
“What is this delicious smell?” We both looked up to find Nick walking into the kitchen. Emily and Nick exchanged hugs and more love while I sat by my lonesome. He sat and ate breakfast with us and woke up Mom and Dad in the meanwhile.
Emily and I asked Mom and Dad if they’d mind us living with them for a whole year instead of just this summer as Emily’s tenant needed to lease her house another year. Nick also talked of moving back in the house. This was an extremely joyful time for me having all the people I loved under one roof again. We hadn’t all lived together in over ten years. To make it even sweeter, I’d be with the person I loved most.
Time sped by and Emily walked me to my car. Her smile turned into a frown and she sighed.
“I’m sad to see you go. How am I going to go the whole day without you? When will you come home?”
I placed my hands on her face. “Probably not till late - maybe sometime after midnight. I’ll know better as the day progresses.”
“Midnight?” Her whine grew louder.
“The Chief told me I’ve got a tough three weeks before the wedding. You’re okay taking care of this wedding without me?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ll just miss you!” I loved it when she whined.
“I know, Love. I’ll miss you too.”
We kissed, we tried to part, then we kissed some more. It would be a long day without my love.
“Congratulations Dr. Reid! We hear you’re getting married.” A group of nurses at the station chorused. “When’s the wedding?”
“Thank you. We’re getting married in three weeks on the fourth of July.”
“Why so soon?” Jeffery our youngest intern asked, “and who’s the crazy girl?”
“It’s Emily, the girl you asked out and the same girl who turned you down.”
“No way! You’re getting married to her?” There was a look of incredulity on his face.
“Why do you speak with such wonder? What about this story surprises you?”
“Why would she want to marry you when there are younger, better looking doctors in this world – like me?”
“Why don’t you shadow me today, Jeffery? As a matter of fact, why don’t you stay with me all week? Be in OR 1 in ten minutes.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Everyone on the third floor laughed at Jeffery.
The morning whizzed by and on my way to the cafeteria, I called Emily.
“Hi Honey!” Emily sounded ecstatic to hear from me.
“Hello, my love. What are you and my parents up to right now?”
“We’re eating a grilled veggie salad and after lunch we’re going to the Christian Dior store for another fitting. Your tuxedo is here and they want you to come in for another fitting.”
Emily gave me a detailed summary of all that had been accomplished for the wedding. Having been with her an entire week after a five month absence I missed her intensely. Going home from work had a whole new meaning with Emily living with me. I couldn’t wait to be with her.
“Jake?”
“Yes, Love. What’s the matter?” She sounded sad.
“I really miss you. Can’t you come home any earlier than midnight?”
My heart delighted to hear her sorrow. “I miss you too. I’ll be home as soon as I can but don’t wait up for me. It will probably be very late.”
“Okay.” She sighed.
“Do you want me to bring home anything? Are you craving anything?”
“Just bring yourself home. You are all that I crave.”
I chuckled at her answer. “Alright. There goes my pager. I’ll try and call again later. I love you.”
“I love you too. Bye.”
The next number of hours sped by and I was more than ready to go h
ome. Tired but happy at the thought of seeing my fiancée I headed towards the elevator and ran into Max.
“Hey.” We shook hands. “I heard you had dinner with Emily tonight.”
“Yes. Congratulations. That’s some ring you put on her finger.”
“Thanks. It’s all due to a generous grandma.”
“I drove your fiancée home and she wanted me to tell you she’ll be pining away for you. She wants you home immediately.”
We both laughed. “Yeah, I’m headed home right now. It’s been a long day without her. Have a good shift. See you soon.”
“Bye.”
I committed every traffic violation to see my Emily that much faster. As soon as I got home I was greeted by a body lunging at me, almost knocking me off my feet. I picked up my love and we walked up to our room, lips attached. Practically falling on the bed Emily showed me what she meant when she said she was pining away for me.
She responded to my lips, my tongue, my hands. I wondered… did we get married already and I’d forgotten about it? It was unreal the way she was letting me touch her as freely as I’d liked. I took off her pajama top and she allowed me. My hands caressed body parts that usually stayed hidden and my mouth quickly went south and explored new found territory. Unknowingly my hands began pulling down her pajama bottoms and even with her mouth free to admonish or even weakly complain, she only moaned with pleasure. This was too weird. I had to stop.
Staring at her I asked, “Are you going to stop me? This is unusual that you haven’t said no yet.”
Her wide brown eyes stared innocently. “Um, I wasn’t ready to stop but I guess we should, huh? Sorry I got carried away.” She started to giggle.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I stopped us?” She might have gone till the end if I hadn’t pulled away. What an idiot I can be at times. “I can’t win.” I shook my head in fury.
“Yup, I guess I have you trained better than I thought.” While she guffawed I walked in to take a cold shower.