Working My Way Back to You

by Doreen Alsen

“Only good feelings, I hope.” He prayed that forgiveness and trust were part of the mix.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but the driver of the limo let down the barrier separating him from them. “We’re here, Jeff. You’re good to go.”

  He couldn’t take his eyes off Beth. “Thanks, Tony.” He lifted her hand and kissed it again. “Let’s go.”

  As he helped her out of the limo, he couldn’t help but marvel at the softness of her skin, the sweetness of her smile, the delicate spill of her glossy hair down to her shoulders.

  He got her to trust him again, to believe that he really and truly loved her. He was both amazed and humbled by his luck in getting this second chance. He wasn’t going to blow it, not ever again.

  They got to the door to the gym. “Stop,” Beth said, her voice a little shaky. “Please. I just need a second.” She took a deep breath.

  “Take whatever you need. I’m right here with you.”

  She turned those big blue peepers up to look at him. “Yes. I think you are. Okay. I’m ready.”

  He pulled open the door and ushered her inside.

  ****

  “Oh,” Beth put her hand over her mouth. Jeff had told her the gym would be decorated but she thought it would be black, silver and purple crepe paper streamers, a couple of tables covered with plastic tablecloths and only the bleachers out for people to sit on.

  Instead they had re-created a Paris outdoor bistro on a starlit night. Murals depicting Paris streets in the evening covered the walls of bleachers. Round café tables covered with butcher paper were scattered around the room. A red pillar candle flickered on each table. Tiny white fairy lights that blinked on and off had been strung from the ceiling and the baskets to make the illusion of stars. Some genius figured out how to rig a huge orange harvest moon to glow and used it to disguise the scoreboard.

  Most of the students stood around or boogied to Beyonce, Kanye, and Lady GaGa on a dance floor beside a small stage where a deejay spun the tunes. Dressed to the nines, the kids looked impossibly young, she thought with dismay.

  Jeff leaned his head down and whispered in her ear, “You don’t look a day older than any of them.”

  How’d he know what she was thinking? Beth turned her gaze from the party to meet his. Though the lights had been turned low to get the effect of evening, she could still see the green and gray flecks in his hazel eyes. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw the desire reflected there. He shouldn’t look at her like that, not with all these teenagers there.

  But she couldn’t look away.

  “We need to dance. This way,” he told her.

  As he guided her across the gym different kids came up to him and said hello or shared a joke or just traded a simple smile with him. He touched these kids. He made a difference in their lives, just like Mike Kelly had done for him.

  Like Andi Kelly had done for her.

  Pride in the man he’d become blossomed within her. “They like you.”

  “I like them.” He shrugged then pulled her closer to his side. “I never thought I’d love teaching and coaching like I do.” He blushed. “You know my dream was to play for the NFL. I wouldn’t trade this job to play for any pro team.”

  She remembered. “So if Tom Brady retired tomorrow and the Patriots came knocking on your door, you’d say no?” She nudged him in the ribs with her elbow.

  “I’d stay here. Every kid has brilliance inside them. I like helping them unlock that brilliance and set it free.” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s hokey or something, but it’s how I feel.”

  “It’s not hokey. It’s beautiful.” If Beth hadn’t fallen in love with him ten years ago, she’d have fallen in love with him for sure now.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry you didn’t get a shot at your dream.”

  “My dream?”

  “You were going to be a world famous concert pianist. You didn’t even get to college, all because I got you pregnant.”

  She stopped and moved to stand in front of him. “I got Danny, which is so much more precious than any career playing the piano could ever be.”

  “So, I guess we’re on the same page.”

  Beth nodded. “I think we’ve always been on the same page.”

  “I’d love to kiss you, but the chaperones“ He shook his head. “We might get detention.”

  Detention? Dear Lord. She knew it existed but, what? “What’s detention? I’ve never been there.”

  He grinned. “Detention equals annoying misery. The chaperones will write us up for P.D.A. You know, public display of affection.”

  If arousal hadn’t drenched her before, it ran through her body and zapped every single nerve ending she had. Dying for him to kiss her, aching for him to kiss her, she decided to get into the game. “I can’t go to detention. My father, Mr. Cudahy, will blame you and who knows what he’ll do then?”

  He chuckled. “Then we’ll save the PDA for later. I don’t want to get on Bran Cudahy’s bad side. Want to dance?”

  “To this music? Not a chance.” Adele was singing about not having it all and rolling in the deep.

  “No worries. I’ve got this all worked out.” He tugged her hand and pulled her to the dance floor.

  “Wait right here,” he told her once they got there. “I have to go talk to the deejay.”

  “Okay.”

  Beth watched him go up on to the platform, lean toward the deejay. They both laughed, then looked at her and the deejay winked. Jeff shook his head as he walked off the stage back to her then got waylaid by some kids from the football team.

  “Mrs. Rawson, is that you?”

  “Hannah?” One of Beth’s piano students along with three of her friends stood in front of her. “You look so pretty!”

  “Well, you look amazing!” Hannah goggled at her. “That dress is totally sick.”

  “Thank you.” Beth felt her face flush. “Are you having a good time?”

  Hannah nodded. “Seriously, you are totally gorgeous!”

  “She is, isn’t she?”

  Beth jumped when Jeff put his hands on her arms.

  “Hi, Coach.” Disbelief and awe coated Hannah’s face. Her eyes bugged out of her face, like a Chihuahua on crack.

  “I’m going to steal Mrs. Rawson away from you, okay?” He took Beth’s hand. “I requested a song and I want to dance with you.”

  “Of course. It was good to see you.”

  Jeff tugged on her hand. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, girls.” He pulled a little harder. “Let’s go.”

  Beth heard the girls giggle and whisper as Jeff guided her to the dance floor. “I should warn you that I don’t know how to dance.”

  “Don’t worry. You don’t have to know much for what I have in mind.”

  When they got to the floor, Jeff caught the deejay’s gaze and nodded.

  “Got a request,” the deejay said into the mic, “for a trip in the Wayback Machine, back to 2004, to the Addington High School prom. So to Beth from Jeff.” The beginning quiet guitar intro to Maroon 5’s She Will Be Loved filled the gym.

  “Come on. They’re playing our song.” He held his hand out to her, palm up, beckoning her.

  She took his hand and her skin sizzled at the innocent touch. He gave her the most wonderful smile she’d ever seen. The next thing she knew she was in his arms and they were shuffling to the music.

  “Since we are at a dance full of impressionable minors, I can’t hold you as close as I’d like to,” he murmured just loud enough for only her to hear.

  She stared up at him unable to look away from the love in his gaze. She was pretty sure she had stars in her own eyes. Jeff sang along about the girl with a broken smile who will be loved, just so she could hear. He had a beautiful singing voice. She just moved with him to the music. What else could she do?

  Applause, hoots, whoops, and whistles erupted around them. Pulled out of their bubble, they finally noticed they were the only ones on the dance floor and that the song was ove
r.

  “Oh, God,” Beth breathed, totally embarrassed.

  Jeff, however, grinned like an idiot. “How about we go somewhere so I can kiss you the way I need to?”

  “I like the way you think.” And she really did.

  He grabbed her hand and they practically ran as they left. Once safely away from the building, out of sight impressionable eyes, Jeff banded his arms around her and gave her an open mouthed kiss full of passion and promise.

  He dragged her out to the park right behind the school and took her to the Sharks’ end zone.

  “I love you,” he told her.

  “I love you so much!” The words bubbled out, propelled by all the elation inside her.

  “It’s going to be good, Bethy, I promise. I’m going to kiss you now.” And he did, right underneath the home team goal posts. “I’m going to make you so happy.”

  “Jeff. I don’t have enough words to tell you how happy I am right now. Please kiss me.”

  “Wait just a second more. Do you want to marry me, be the family we always should have been? You, me, Danny and add in Cookie?”

  “Oh Jeff. Yes! Of course I’ll marry you!”

  He closed his eyes. “These last weeks when you wouldn’t talk to me were the worst of my life. I couldn’t stand to lose you again.”

  Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small, velvet box. She put her hand over her heart to keep it from beating out of her chest and watched him open the box.

  “This is the ring my father gave my mother. After the weekend from hell, my mother gave it to me to give to you.”

  “Oh, my!”

  “Breathe, sunshine. This ring is her blessing. Please put me out of my misery and say yes.”

  He lifted the old-fashioned diamond solitaire, set in white gold, and took her hand. “You better be sure, because once I put it on your finger, I’m not letting you take it off ever. Just say yes. I’ve never, ever wanted to hear that word so much in my life.”

  “Yes.” She was so, so sure.

  He closed his eyes, relief and joy etched on his face. “Thank God.”

  He slid the ring on her finger then held it up to admire it. “It looks perfect there on your finger.”

  “It’s so beautiful.”

  “Not nearly as beautiful as the woman wearing it. Tell me yes again.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes!”

  “Shall we seal the deal with a kiss?”

  “Please.”

  And so they did.

  “Think Danny will be happy?”

  “He’ll be over the moon,” Beth knew that better than her own name.

  “Let’s go tell him.”

  “It’ll have to wait until tomorrow, since he’s sleeping over at Ben’s. Of course, that does mean we’ll have the house all to ourselves until tomorrow morning.” She ran a finger down his lapel.

  “Really alone or will Bran Cudahy be standing on the porch with a shotgun?” He shuddered. “Or a really big knife with the threat of castration in his eyes?”

  “I can guarantee Bran Cudahy will be nowhere in sight.”

  “In that case, what are we waiting for? Let’s go home.”

  That was the best idea Beth had heard in a very long time. “Yes. Let’s go home,” she repeated. “It’s way past time.”

  “I feel like all my life I’ve been working my way back to you. Glad I finally made it.” He took her by the hand.

  “Me, too. Let’s get out of here.”

  “I’m right there with you, sunshine, every step of the way.”

  A word about the author...

  Doreen has wanted to be a writer her whole life but took a detour into being an opera singer and choral conductor. She realized that maybe she should spend more time writing when creating the back stories was more fun than actually singing them. Plus her romance-lovin’ heart couldn’t take all the dead bodies littering the stage at the end of the performance. She is still an active conductor and is regularly found waving her arms around in front of singers.

  www.doreenalsen.com

  Thank you for purchasing

  this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.