Epilogue: Signed, sealed, delivered. (I'm Yours!)
There are times in life when you realize you've made a mistake and when you do, you wish you could do anything to push time back just a little bit and you want to believe that it could be possible. Because you know you would have done something differently. Done something a little better than what you just did.
On the other hand, there are the other times in life when you feel it in your heart that you've done the right thing. That for once, you didn't fool yourself into thinking that you could be something else other than yourself. The times when self-expression made its presence clear were the times that you never regretted. The times when you knew what it felt to be someone on the verge of ecstasy.
As Gil opened his eyes, the bright sunlight and the softness of the covers underneath his waking body were the signs that told him yesterday had been one of those rare times. Yesterday had been the moment that his life would always thank him for.
As though she read his mind, she stirred, groaning softly and shifting slightly.
"Hey." His coarse voice piped up loud enough to make sure that a slight jolt coursed through her body. She turned around to face him. Caressing his hair and then his beard, she kissed him softly and he felt his smile being mirrored on her own lips. When she drew away, he opened her eyes just in time to see her eyelids flutter open and her eyes focus on his own. "That was the best wake-up I've ever had."
She giggled softly, feeling the bed vibrate gently underneath her.
"Well you're going to get a lot more of it." She replied, whispering into his ear. His hands moved to draw her closer to him while she gave very weak grunts of protest. They stayed that way silently for a short while, pretending as if either of them would actually be able to fall back to sleep. Their hearts still fluttering from the yet unfamiliar touch, they knew their bodies were on edge whether they liked it or not. Trying to fight the nervousness, Gil drew her even closer, rolling her on top of him.
"Never forget to remind me that I may be one of the luckiest men in the world." He said and he was met with a reply of giggles. "I'm utterly serious, Catherine. Not very many men get to have the woman that he loves for the rest of his life."
She looked up at him with her tousled hair and her genuine smile. She simply shifted up and kissed him again, letting it last a few moments longer than the previous one.
"That's almost exactly what I had in mind." He replied and he couldn't help but grin as he felt his body shake with her laughter. Gently putting his hands on her bare waist, he kissed the top of her head. "When I'm with you, I have to pinch myself every two seconds because I'm afraid it's a dream."
She looked at him squarely and he gulped, intimidated by her soul-piercing gaze. Her baby blue eyes were melting every inch of his brain and his body.
"This isn't one of your lonely night dreams, Gil. It's not one of the poems that you love to quote every so often. It's not a cheesy romance novel. It's not a TV show or a romantic-comedy. This is us. And you'd better realize that what we have, is real." She told him, completing each sentence with a kiss on different parts of his chest. "Oh and by the way, how did you end up at my house after that phone call? I thought you were set on the fact that I wouldn't return your feelings."
"Ah, that's a story and another."
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"…as good as it ever gets. Bye."
As he hung up the phone, he slowed to a crawl as he exited the arrival terminal of the Seattle airport. He was going to tell her that he was here. That he was coming to her for good.
He fell into the nearest bench because his head was spinning too much for him to stand upright. His surprise plan had been thrown off-course, thwarted. Hell, completely erased off the face of the map. What would he do now? Should he simply head back to Las Vegas in defeat and really send a disappointed Lindsey back in his place?
Would he retreat into his shell once more, this time never to resurface?
The voice of his reason was tempting him. This wasn't right. Catherine obviously made a decision by not saying anything to him. She didn't even try to deny anything he said to her on the phone. It would be completely foolish and shameful for him to show up at her doorstep and beg for her to take him into her life. His rationale wouldn't and couldn't withstand such humiliation.
Humiliation?
Was pursuing the woman who would define your life once and for all, humiliation?
Didn't someone say that love is like a spiral staircase? You keep climbing the stairs, not knowing where it ends but only that it leads somewhere and that somewhere is a better and higher place than where you are? You don't know why but you find yourself climbing the steps one by one, not even caring if it does indeed lead somewhere?
If she said no, would it humiliate him? Destroy his ego?
If she said no, he wouldn't have a life for which he would need to defend his ego.
If she said no, none of it would matter. Absolutely nothing.
He was all-in. All or nothing.
He slowly stood up again, balancing himself on his suitcase. As he slowly walked towards the exit doors, his step found more purpose with every step.
Despite all the complaints from his rationale, there was a part of him that believed that she just might be waiting for him. That she would wake him up with a kiss the next morning.
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"That last bit is only in hindsight."
"No, it really isn't. I had a feeling." He replied, with a boyish grin. He could see that she subtly melted into his charm.
After a few moments of silence, he turned them around so that she was pinned underneath him. She threw him her challenging, seductive grin and he could only reply with a harsh sigh.
"I'm so grateful to you, Catherine."
"I was expecting you to say something a little different, but that'll do, I guess." She teased back.
"I mean it. I…I have so many flaws, so many deficiencies…I don't know what kind of karma I had in my previous life but I must have been pretty close to Mother Theresa."
"Gil…"
"I…Thank you so much. Thank you so, so much for thinking that you could possibly love a man like me."
His sincerity was bringing tears to her eyes. She simply chuckled them away, as she caressed his face. His eyes were reflecting the red raw emotion and affection that he was feeling for her and her heart strained at the sight.
"I love you, Gil. I'll love you for the rest of my days. Nothing less." She managed to mutter, before he closed the gap between their lips.
There are times in life when you know that the very thing you're about to do will change your life forever. Life as you knew it for all the moments previous. Marriages, births, deaths, milestones, kisses, a walk on the beach, a conversation, a phone call, a movie. You can never predict which street corner you're going to meet your new life, what time, what day, in what weather, in what bookstore or in which coincidence. The end of life as you knew it may be sitting in the airplane seat in front of you, standing behind you in the line for a non-fat latte or even a couple of doors down the hallway in which you've been living for the past two years. However, when it does come, you just know that you'll be a different person. That you've shed your old feathers and morphed into a new you that may be unfamiliar even to yourself.
That sunny January morning was one of those moments for both of them.
Leaving behind the immeasurable memories and their lives as they each knew it, they ventured, arriving at a shared sentiment and a life to which, previously, they would have given credibility on the basis that it was fantastical, that it was someone's wildest dream.
The new life that they met simultaneously was the dream and neither of them would have accepted anything less.
