Thirty-three

A/N: Okay, I don’t know if any of you are Movielife fans (I’m sort of thinking no) but they are my personal favorite, and I paid a little homage to their beautiful lyrics that will forever leave me in awe and feeling inspired in this chapter, so if you can find it…something good will happen to you.


Later that evening, after dinner was finally eaten and cleaned up, after showers were taken and after a classic episode of Baywatch was watched, I gratefully crawled into bed, clad in my favorite cotton shorts and most comfortable blue tank top. The down comforter was just asking to envelope me in its warmth, and I was ready to go down for the count as soon as my head hit the plush pillow.

“Long day.” Adam commented as he came out of the bathroom. “Good episode.”

“Very. The one where Stephanie dies is certainly a classic. I can’t believe that beam hit her right in the head.” I agreed, nestling my head into one of my pillows. “Poor Mitch, huh? I hate when it goes back and forth like that, you know?”

“Yeah, I agree.” He nodded, completely understanding that my train of thought was shifting from the television show to our lives. “Maybe if this time we don’t say ‘I think it will be better from now on’, things will be fine. I bet we jinxed ourselves before.”

“You can’t blame relationship problems on jinxes.” I laughed as he got into bed beside me. “We’ve been together a long time. I don’t think I ever realized how long it had been. I was in college when we met. And you were poor. I was supposed to be the one supporting you, you know. I did the Ivy League thing.”

“Yeah, right.” Adam scoffed, giving me a look. “You knew I was going to be rich and famous from the start. That’s why you sank your claws into me before all the other ladies wanted me. Who cares about stupid Brown University?”

“Apparently no one. Oh, I think I can hear all of the girls that want you. They’re all lining up outside the house for a chance to be with you, or maybe just catch a glimpse of that hot, scrawny body you’ve got. I can see your ribs, by the way. Eat some meat.” I cupped a hand to my ear, and we were greeted by silence. “Listen, you can almost hear them pining. Seriously, though, did you ever realize what a long time almost five years is?”

“I don’t think I realized it until recently.” He admitted, rolling onto his side so he could hold onto my waist as we spoke. “Right before you moved in, before we were even back together from that Europe thing, I realized what we had. I mean, I know I still picked fights with you after and everything, but I think by then I knew. You know what really gets me?”

“What?” I waited expectantly for him to continue.

“How we met.” Adam was a big believer in fate. Not in a girly ‘everything happens for a reason’ thing, but things happen because you’re in the right place at the right time. A huge part of his life was based on fate; befriending the right people to form a band, playing the right shows to get noticed, signing the right contract on the right day, things like that. “I mean, if we hadn’t played that s***ty show, we probably wouldn’t have gone to that bar. And if it hadn’t been your birthday, you wouldn’t have been there. And if I hadn’t come over to see why you sent my drink back, we never would have met.”

He was right. There was a lot of circumstance surrounding how we met. “And if we listened to our families and friends we would have never gotten together.” I added with a small smile. “Because Billy hated you.”

“Billy still hates me.” Adam corrected me.

“Nah, I called him the other day, when we were still having our own little Cold War, and he told me I had to stay and hash it out with you because for some reason I chose you, so we’d better make it work. If he really didn’t like you, he would have told me to catch a flight and go back to Rhode Island.” I explained. “And I think he got a lot of respect for you when you called him instead of me after Europe.”

“Europe.” Adam rolled his eyes. “I am so glad Jim sent you that backstage pass. If you ended up with Kevin, I would have…well, I wouldn’t have known what an ass**** he was, but I wouldn’t have liked it anyway.”

“Can I ask you something?” He nodded into his pillow, so I plowed ahead. “What did you do in Europe, really? I promise I won’t get mad. I just want to know for sure before things get any deeper. I don’t want this hanging over our heads.”

He had told me that nothing happened in Europe; that there were no girls or scandals, but I wanted to hear it again. Now we were in a better place, and I wanted everything to be water under the bridge. I didn’t want anything left unfinished to look back on; from now I wanted to focus on what was in front of me. I wasn’t going to entertain anymore distractions or vices when it came to this relationship.

“Promise?” He repeated, and I promised again. “Okay, I’ll show you what I did in Europe.”

He let go of my waist and rolled out of bed, walking over to his dresser. I watched as he opened his sock drawer (they finally weren’t all over the floor) and rummaged around. I was waiting for him to pull out a clean pair of socks and tell me he did a load of laundry on his own, but instead he pulled out something else.

A jewelry box.

“Don’t freak out.” He commanded with an easy smile, and I think I fell in love all over again as he approached me with the velvet box in hand. “I’m not stupid enough to do that right now. We’ve been on good terms for about six hours, not months or years.”

“Right.” I sat up in bed. “So, what’s up with the box?”

“Okay, here’s the story.” He fiddled with the small, black box as he spoke, sitting next to me on the bed. “We were in Paris, you know, the stupid most romantic city or whatever, and I was really missing you. I was even missing fighting with you, if that makes any sense.”

“It does.” I interjected with a small smile, having felt the same way.

“So, we were in Paris, and I was missing you.” He repeated, biding his time, thinking of the right words. “And even though it was me who wanted the break, I was the one who initiated it, I knew that I wanted to come back here and be with you. I thought a lot about it on our long flights and bus rides, and I could imagine my life without you; it wasn’t hard to do, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t think I could find anyone that compared to you in my mind. I don’t think I tell you enough, Sam, but I think a lot more highly of you than you probably know. You’re one of the smartest people I know, and you’re funny, and sarcastic, and you don’t let people push you around. I really respect you, and I think that sometimes we fought because I liked to see how you wouldn’t back down.”

Apparently Europe was a very introspective trip.

“Right, so I’m in Europe and I pretty much realize that I’m hopeless.” Adam smirked, a little embarrassed. “I decided to go out for a walk after one of our shows, and I walk by this stupid, perfect jewelry store and the moron that I am, decide to go inside. I was just walking around, telling myself that I was seeing if they had anything I could get Mom for her birthday. The next thing I knew, I was walking out of the store with this,” He jiggled the box, “and Billy was telling me that you were seeing someone else. It’s been in the drawer ever since.”

“I’m sorry that happened the way it did.” I apologized softly. “The Billy thing. I mean, I was happy, he was right, but I wasn’t as happy as I could have been. As I knew I would be if I was with you. It took me a really long time to realize it, too. I mean, we had so many hard times that it was tough to realize that we made each other happy. But once I got there, I got there.”

“So, do you wanna see it?” I assumed I was supposed to know there was a ring in the box, but it hadn’t managed to slip its way into the conversation.

“No.” I shook my head.

“What?” Adam had to snap the box closed.

“I don’t want to see it.” I declared. “I think that I’ll see it sometime, and I think it’s worth the wait.”

Together, we put the jewelry box back in the drawer and closed it. One day we would see it again. I didn’t know when that day would be; how old we would be, where we would be, what the circumstances were, but I was certain that day would happen. I was certain that when that box reappeared in our lives, we would be the perfect age, be in the perfect place, and under the perfect circumstances. Something told me the future would be perfect. Not storybook perfect, this wasn’t some novel I was writing, but real life perfect. With fights, drama, tears, hugs, kisses, and love. Absolutely perfect.

THE END!!!