It had been three months of defining himself when he realized who he was. He was a man who wanted to succeed and pushed himself to do so. He realized he didn't need anybody else to push him, not anymore at least. But when he found that person who made him feel that spark again, that go-for-it attitude, he held on tight. She wasn't Rory, that was for sure, but she was herself. She wasn't using him for his name or his trust fund. No, she cared for him as him and that was good enough.
They'd met through Dylan, surprisingly enough. However, it had been through a business dinner and not a party or bar as one would have suspected from the boy. She was the Marketing Director of a smaller magazine publication who wanted to get in on what Premier had to offer. Dark brown hair, fair skin, green eyes. Her looks weren't stunning exactly, not like the Barbies he'd slept with and nothing like Rory, but she attracted him with her wit and humor, and she wasn't horrible looking by far.
He didn't want to consider her a rebound like Finn and Colin had several times. It had been nearly four months since his denied proposal, three months of wallowing before finally finding it himself to put himself back out there. And with that, he found Maggie who had stuck with him the next three. "Hey, babe," he called out from the door as soon as he stepped into the house. He knew she'd be there since she'd stayed the night and didn't work in the morning. When he was met with her giving him a kiss once he hit the living room, a smile on his face when she did, he knew he was right in the assumption. "I'm thinking we order some take out and catch up on the DVR?"
"Sounds great. I'll grab the menus." He sat his laptop bag down on the couch, thinking back to his day at work. Colleen had told him he was doing a good job, to keep up the good work. He was making something of himself, and not as slowly and surely as he thought it would be. It was blindsiding him how easy it all came to him. And it wasn't how easy it was either - considering how easily being at HPG came to him, and how much he screwed that up. It was how much he loved his job and what he was doing. "What are you thinking? I'm stuck between Thai and Italian." She stood in front of him, holding up the two menus.
"Italian sounds good." In the back of his mind, he was screaming Thai. It was what Rory would have chosen. But he wasn't with Rory, and he only always chose Thai because he knew that when she couldn't decide, she really only wanted Thai. He couldn't figure out why he let himself make choices based on what she would have wanted despite her walking away six months prior. It was a habit he was slowly breaking, for instance choosing Italian over Thai. "I'm going to go get changed," he then told her as she held the phone up to her ear. She kissed him softly before he walked into the bedroom.
He quickly stripped out of the suit he'd donned for his meeting that morning, changing into an old Yale shirt and a pair of grey sweats. For the first time, he didn't look at the velvet blue box sitting in the drawer, completely overlooking it as he looked for the sweats he wanted. It wasn't an accomplishment he acknowledged - at least not consciously. But it was an accomplishment nonetheless.
"Food will be here in a half hour," Maggie told him as he sat next to her on the couch, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. Her head rested on his chest as the two reveled in the moment. It was quiet, peaceful, calm, everything the two wanted at that moment. Finally, Maggie spoke to break their silence.
"Who was she?" she asked softly, looking up at him. He returned the look, confused. Who was who? He didn't quite understand the question, so he continued to look confused. "The girl the ring was for? I noticed it when I was grabbing a shirt the other day. Who was she?" He bit his bottom lip, sighing softly and not wanting to answer that question. God, he did not want to answer that question. And with that question came the crashing reality he hadn't realized. He hadn't even looked at the ring today, not even when he was grabbing the sweats. He didn't know why he felt guilty, but he did even though he was internally screaming at himself not to.
"Her name was Rory," he said softly. "We went to Yale together. We were casual at first, and then I fell for her." He didn't realize he was smiling as he told Maggie this. "She was there for it all, when I graduated, went to London, jumped off a cliff in Costa Rica, left HPG, when I got this job. But, when I thought we were ready for the next step, she didn't." He looked at Maggie as his smile fell from his face.
"Well, she doesn't know what she's missing, then." She kissed him softly, cupping his face in her hands as their lips moved together. As quickly as the kiss began did it end with the doorbell ringing to signal the arrival of their dinner.
"I'll get it," he told her softly, standing and walking to the door. He opened the door to the delivery man, taking the bags and paying for the food. When he walked back in, Maggie had already gotten cans of Pepsi from the fridge and forks from the drawer. He was surprised at how well she took that backstory. Obviously, she had been the one to bring it up, but he had been sure it would have sent her running. Most relationships - especially that early on - didn't survive the telling of a story like that, at least they didn't in the movies. Maybe that's what surprised him the most. Rory had been his first real relationship, so he had nothing to base any future relationships on. He couldn't use theirs because you can never base relationships on the first love because it held too much. First loves were messy and dirty, having too much love and passion and angst. You couldn't hold a flame to it.
"Don't worry about it," she told him as he sat back down, handing her her food. Again, he looked at her confused. She did that quite often, bring up a topic that made no sense or make a comment on something they'd talked about a week before out of the blue. "She helped shape you. She's a part of you, no matter how much you want to deny it. What matters is where you go from there. You can either let it hold you back, or you can use it to your advantage." He knew she was right as he nodded, taking a bite of the Chicken Parmesan. How much would he let Rory affect his life from that point on?