“So where are we going?” Rowan asks me as I lead her down the lit path to the main resort building.
“Patience, o little one,” I reply and squeeze her hand.
I lead Rowan off the path, through a small garden, and then we step out onto the beach. The moon is hanging low and throws a strip of white, sparkling reflection onto the water. The small dinner table is set to perfection with glowing candles, and just as Linc said, there’s a bamboo tent erected over it draped in some white, frothy shit. I couldn’t have dialed God up and asked for a more perfect setting.
Rowan stops and turns to look at me. “What’s this?”
“Well, turns out Linc and Ever have decided to order in room service and ‘discuss’ their wedding plans. Plus, Linc wants to officially pop the question with the ring, but he figured a bed close by was a better setting. They offered this up to us and I hated to see it go to waste.”
She releases my hand and walks forward to the tent. “It’s beautiful.”
Coming up behind her, I wrap my arms around her waist and lay my chin on her head. We just stare at the setup for a few moments, reveling in the magic of dinner on a secluded beach.
I release Rowan and pull a chair out for her. She sits down and I help her scoot the chair forward, which isn’t easy in the thick, white sand. I take the seat opposite of her and pour us each a glass of white wine that has been uncorked and chilled for us.
Holding my glass up, I say, “To our last night in paradise.”
She clinks her glass against mine and we take a sip, smiling at each other.
Rowan glances out over the water and then back to me. “This is sort of surreal.”
“I know. Linc is a true romantic.”
She laughs... and it’s a sound that I need to hear for the rest of my laugh. “I meant this setting... not Linc’s romantic prowess for dreaming this up. I mean... look at the moon, and how still the water is. We have candlelight and chilled wine. Who lives like this?”
“We do. Tonight... we do.”
A waiter appears and offers us a menu. We chat about the wedding, and last night’s surprise proposal by Ever. We place our orders... grilled prawns and saffron risotto for Rowan and steamed, Mediterranean sea bass covered in olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and artichokes for me.
The food is wonderful and by my second glass of wine, I’m feeling more confident in the things I want to say to Rowan tonight.
After she takes her last bite of food, she wipes her mouth and looks at me. “Thank you, Flynn. For insisting I come. I don’t have much in life, and really could never afford to do something like this. I’ll treasure the memory of this trip the rest of my life.”
“It was my pleasure. I’m glad you decided to take the plunge.”
My words have more than one meaning. I’m thankful that she loosened up her stubborn pride and didn’t resist the offer of the trip. I’m grateful she decided to take our relationship to the next level, because let’s face it... Rowan epitomizes my every waking fantasy. I’ll never forget the tears she shed at the wedding, because that means her heart has the capacity to understand that apathy and rejection have no place in a loving relationship.
I hope she understands the strides she’s made, and I hope she has more gas in the tank to push forward.
I’ll certainly know after tonight.
We order one dessert and share it between us. The chocolate mousse is divine, and fuck if it’s not sensual at the same time, as I watch the way Rowan licks at the spoon. It reminds me of how she went down on me this evening in the shower as we got ready for dinner. Of how she pulled me in close, with her hands gripping my ass hard, and took every bit of me down her throat.
After the last plate is cleared and we finish our wine, I say, “Let’s take a walk.”
I stand up from the table and help her from her chair. She looks stunning, more so than normal, and I’m not sure if it’s the moonlight on her skin, the wine in my belly, or the fact that I’ve come to the realization that I love her like I’ve never loved before.
We stroll down to the water’s edge, kicking our shoes off and dipping our toes in the water. I pull her in for a hug and she doesn’t hesitate, laying her head on my chest. I know she can feel the way my heart is beating like mad, because I’m getting ready to lay my soul bare to her.
“Rowan,” I say and she leans back slightly to look at me. I reach up and cup her face with my hands. Even though it’s dark, the moonlight shines in her eyes and they look like the color of smoke when I lay water on a hot fire, and that seems apropos to me.
There are so many things I need to tell her. “Marney was the first and only girl I ever loved. And I know that when you’re eighteen, you probably really don’t even know what true love is... but I’ve spent the last eight years looking for something that would equal that. I’ve spent my entire career trying to fill that void... to make up for her loss.”
Her eyes hold on to me but I can’t read what she’s thinking so I press on. “Then I met you, and my perspective changed. I realized all the things I thought were absolute truth, were nothing more than filters on the lenses through which I was looking. You became sort of a cloth that wiped away the grime of my past. I feel like I see clearly now, and once my eyes were fully opened... all I saw was you. All I want to see is you.”
She doesn’t say anything and her expression doesn’t change, but she doesn’t break eye contact. “I guess what I’m trying to say... what I feel like you need to know before I can take one more breath... is that I love you. I love you more than anything I’ve ever loved in my life.”
I finish with a deep breath and I let it out, glad to have that revelation out in the open, and hopeful that it will provide a springboard to strengthen this new relationship.
I wait... hopeful to hear those three words back. Almost expecting it.
But it doesn’t come. Instead, her eyelids lower and she looks down, breaking the connection. I wait, because maybe... just maybe, she’s trying to find the right way to tell me that she loves me.
When she looks back up, her eyes are now filled with sorrow and her lips are drawn down.
“Flynn,” she says and there is apology dripping from my name. “I... I’m not sure what to say.”
My heart drops but I try to take some measure of comfort in the fact that her first words weren’t ‘but I don’t love you’. I hold out hope... that she’ll give me hope.
“Tell me how you feel,” I urge her.
She steps away from me and my arms fall to my side. Turning her back, she walks a few paces from the water’s edge. When she turns around, the moonlight reveals genuine affection. “I care for you. You know I do.”
She trails off, looking down to the sand.
“There’s a ‘but’ in there... right?”
“But... I’m not sure I know what love is. Because... otherwise, my first thought would have been to immediately tell you that ‘I love you, too’. Right? I mean, shouldn’t that have been my first instinct?”
Yes, that’s exactly what she would have said if it were true. I realize this with a small level of despair.
She walks back up to me and wraps her arms around my waist... putting her head back to my chest. My arms wrap around her and I hold her tight.
Her words are soft and sad. “My first instinct was... the first thing that came to mind... really, words that rang out loud in my head were, ‘But what is love?’. I questioned my understanding of love, and I questioned yours. What does that say about me?”
I’m silent because I know what it says about her. She doesn’t trust her feelings. And now I don’t trust mine. What if I don’t really understand it either? What if I’m so swept up in the amazing sex we’ve been having, that I’ve miscalculated what we really have going on?