A/N Missed you Guys.
It was cold tonight. She had worried all week her holiday party would be too chilly on the rooftop. He watched her watch the news, the weather report kept showing dipping evening temperatures. So he had borrowed some heaters from the bar and an extension cord to keep her guests warm. Warm under the twinkle lights he hung around a makeshift bar.
A bar he was now standing at, sipping on a beer and watching his girlfriend tell a group about their adventure in Mexico. He loved the part where she waved her arms around all crazy mimicking him running from La Policia. She always made him out to sound so cool when really they'd caught him in about three strides cuz he was so out of shape. He just chuckled and winked at her when she caught his eye.
She had worried all week that nobody would come to her party and now there were at least twenty people milling about in small groups discussing their holiday travels. He had told her of course people would come. She's too nice and sweet and cute and sexy for them to possibly avoid it. Right?
Then she worried she'd be too cold. If she wore a jacket, nobody would see her cute Christmas dress she'd gotten with the ruffled hem and hidden bells. He didn't care if she wore a burlap sack but he ran to the Mall during Christmas season, fought traffic, fought parking, fought long lines to find a last minute black velvet cardigan to cover up her shoulders.
Then he made the mistake of wearing just a flannel and jeans at six o'clock when guests were arriving. She didn't frown at him but he could tell she was a little disappointed. So he went back to his closet and found an old knit tie from high school and a sports jacket that still fit over his shoulders.
If he had to do it all over again, he would've asked Schmidt what to wear. But then again maybe that wouldn't have worked too well and he would've ended up wearing a tuxedo or jacket with a lightening bolt.
There were a lot of things he'd do all over again given half a chance. He thought about them all the time and made himself snap out of it and not dwell for more than a few minutes cuz regrets do nothing but stall your momentum. And he liked his momentum these days. But it was hard to not to be him and he was a man that regretted stuff. He just did.
If he could do it all over, he'd start at the wedding. He remembered how she kept leaning on him that day, whispering in his ear. She was oblivious to how gorgeous she looked in that purple dress or that men noticed, he noticed. If he could do it all over, he'd forget Caroline was even there that day. He'd sit next to her, his gorgeous new roommate in one of those white fold out chairs for the ceremony and when she played with the scruff on his face, he'd just lean down and kiss her. It had crossed his mind that day, even when she put the fake teeth in. She was still adorable.
Maybe though he would have waited. Waited until Christmas when she was all sad in the car on the way to the airport after Paul and her broke-up. Maybe he could have reached over and held her hand. Or maybe, better yet, when the street lit up with Christmas lights, he could have picked her up, spun her around Hollywood style and kissed her then, right as he set her down. "Merry Christmas," he would have whispered afterwards.
It might have been too soon after Paul. It might have been better to wait until after she met Russell. Maybe it would have been better that day with Remy instead. When they were in the hallway arguing about whether they should have a threesome. Maybe if he hadn't pushed her so hard to cave but instead lightened it up a little, he could've just leaned down and kissed her then. She was so mad. He liked it when she got mad and her eyes got so big and her face flushed.
She was mad after he had Caroline come back too. Really mad. She yelled and yelled and yelled at him about giving up and not trying harder and here he was trying harder with Caroline. She didn't get it that day. He should've tried harder instead at grabbing her, holding her still and telling her it was only because of her he had called Caroline. Watching her with Russell had gotten to be too much and he needed something or someone to fill the hole in his heart.
He didn't know until that night out in the desert that maybe, just maybe, she knew. She felt something too. Something special that only they had. Maybe he should have told her that night when the coyote stared them down but maybe they weren't ready yet. If he could do it all over, maybe he'd do it just the same.
Except for that day when he made her the new dresser. When they went out on that date and she dressed up like a woman. A real holy shit, she is a woman kinda dress. I mean he knew she was a woman but sometimes she was like a middle school woman or a granny woman. It's just that when she arrived at the restaurant, he couldn't think or speak or do anything but stare...at...her. Maybe if he was more of a man he could've told her that night or the next day that he had feelings, real feelings, not just an attraction between friends.
Maybe if he did it all over again, he wouldn't have told her to go for Dr. Sam. Maybe he would have said, "if he doesn't want you, he's crazy cuz I want you, every night, every day and every moment." Maybe she would have noticed him, looked at him different. But he didn't. He got scared and didn't do it. Then regretted it. Had to pay for it by watching and listening to her with him, every night.
Until THE night. The night he couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take her eyes, the look she gave him when she said he was smokin' hot. He had wanted to kiss her for so long that when he finally did, he just did. There had been so many moments he could have and didn't. They had plagued him at night when he tried to sleep and right then, he knew he couldn't sleep ever again if he didn't just do it.
But maybe after, the next day he should've told her it was real. He really felt it. If he could do it all over, that's what he would've done. Then he could have avoided that disastrous date. He could have maybe had a morning after where they ate those eggs, where they cuddled in bed and talked about how long they'd wanted this thing.
If he could do it all over, there were a million times he could've kissed her, told her, but maybe, maybe it wouldn't have worked. Maybe it would have been too soon and it would have scared one of them off.
Because he wasn't scared now. Now he was standing on the roof with a beer in his hand, looking over at his girlfriend wearing a red Christmas dress. She's got eggnog on the end of her nose and keeps making silly faces at him through the tiny crowd. Now he's not scared to stand next to her, wipe her nose when nobody's looking and put his hand in her hair, squeezing her neck so she knows, knows he's there, right there.
Maybe this is the way it was supposed to happen. Just like this. Maybe there's some woman out there writing their script, laying out the steps only they are supposed to take. Right now she's just letting them be, letting everyone know what's up.
And he wants them to know. He wants everyone to know that she's his girlfriend and one day, maybe if the time is right, maybe if he gets up enough nerve, he'll ask her to become more. But not yet.
First he wants to say he loves her and always has.
If he had to do if all over, he'd do it tonight, after this party. After they strip down naked in the cold and do it on a lawn chair and laugh about him being Santa Claus and her being his dirty little Elf. He wouldn't care who saw because they'd know that he was hers and she was his and they were theirs.
They're Nick and Jess and maybe that writer who's planning their life will write him some good script for later on so he doesn't stutter his way through the three words he's avoided his whole life. But for this woman, this woman that would trade her car for him, fight coyotes and strippers, she deserves everything he has. Cuz he'd do anything for her. So later on, when she's tipsy and they're laughing, he'll say it. Quiet and nervous but he'll say it. Cuz something tells him he did everything right up til now and now it's time. Nothing's gonna stop his momentum now.
-Mayalala