Romantic Gesture

Marci Smith wanted nothing more than to walk up to her third floor apartment without getting stopped by her nosey neighbor, lock the door behind her, strip off all her clothes and slide into a hot bubble bath. She’d had a miserable day, her worst yet at the hospital, and she’d had to bring work home with her. She gasped when she heard her boyfriend’s ring tone go off somewhere in the depths of her purse and ended up dropping everything in her arms to find it.

“Please don’t go to voicemail,” she chanted as she furiously dug through the receipts and other miscellaneous junk that cluttered her HOBO tote. Finally, the tone got louder and she saw the lights from the display. The tone stopped just as her hand closed around the phone and she wanted to scream. She immediately called him back.

“I’m so sorry I missed your call; it’s just been the kind of day I’m having,” she told him when he greeted her.

“That bad, huh?” Jason asked.

“A patient died today,” she blurted out and felt tears well up in her green eyes. She couldn’t believe she was getting this emotional over someone she hadn’t really known. But she’d been assigned to the patient and therefore felt responsible, even though there’d been nothing they could do but make him comfortable while he died from cancer. He’d been in a coma for two days and had finally slipped away while she’d taken five minutes to sit with him after taking his vitals. One minute he was there and the next he was gone and the machines were going crazy. The doctors rushed in but all that was left was to stop the noise and call the time of death. It was the worst experience she’d ever lived through and made her wonder if she was in the right profession.

“Oh baby, I’m so sorry. I guess that means you don’t feel like going up to the roof to look at the stars with me, does it? They’re beautiful tonight,” he commented and she couldn’t help but smile as she sniffled. Six months ago, when Jason moved to Paris for school, they’d started sitting on their respective rooftops at night so they could sit under the same sky and feel closer that an ocean apart.

“Can I take my stuff inside, change my clothes and get a beer? I just got home,” she requested.

“I think it would be better if you just went up to the roof,” he replied and she wondered what he’d done; he was never this pushy. She grinned as she picked up her stuff and walked down the hall to the stairs leading to the roof.

“What did you do?” she asked as she walked up the stairs, teasing him as the possibilities whirled around her mind.

“What makes you think I did something?” he replied. She could hear laughter in his voice and it warmed her. He’d just been home a month ago for a week at Christmas time, but that felt like a lifetime ago already. She missed him, today more than most days.

“You never tell me what to do,” she pointed out as she reached the top of the stairs. She gasped as she walked through the door and saw a table for two set up a few feet from the door. A white table cloth covered the small round table, a white candle burned as the centerpiece and a single red rose rested in front of her seat. Soft, romantic music played from a discreetly hidden stereo.

“Oh, Jason,” she breathed as her eyes welled up for a completely different reason. She crossed the short distance to stand by the table and lifted the rose to smell it. She couldn’t believe he’d done all this – who had he asked? “Who did you get to do all of this?”

“Who says I had to have anyone do this for me?” he asked.

“Well, you’re in Paris. How are you doing to do all this if you’re all the way over there?”

“Who says I’m all the way over there?” he asked again. This time, she heard his voice behind her and she spun around. She squealed as she reached out to pull him into her arms.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re here!” she exclaimed and kissed him. “What are you doing here? What about school?”

He chuckled as he kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry about school. I wanted to do something nice for you. I’ve missed you,” he told her and she melted in his arms.

“This is beyond nice; this is amazing,” she sighed as she leaned her head against his shoulder. Without thinking about it, they began to sway to the music. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he wrapped his around her waist, each other them holding the other close. He hadn’t even done anything like this while he’d been home for the holidays; he must’ve had this planned long before he came home. She couldn’t believe she was dancing with him under the stars.

“This is nothing,” he suddenly whispered in her ear and she looked up at him.

“What are you talking about?” she asked as he grinned and stepped away from her. She watched as he disappeared around the side of the electrical shed a couple feet away. Tears streamed down her face when he reappeared a moment later with what had to be two dozen long stemmed white roses, her favorite flower.

“This is too much,” she declared as she gathered the large bouquet into her arms and deeply breathed in their sweet fragrance. She looked up at him with a mixture of longing and curiosity in her eyes. “What possessed you to want to do all this?”

“Because we’ve been together eight months, six of those spent three thousand miles apart,” he told her and wrapped his arms around her again, a little more difficult this time with two dozen roses between them. He grinned down at her, looking into her eyes.

“And because I love you,” he added and she threw her arms around his neck, the flowers forgotten as he said the words she’d been hoping to hear since he’d left for Paris. She’d been so afraid he’d find another while in the city of love and now he was here with a candle lit dinner, two dozen of her favorite flowers, and those three precious words on his lips.

“I love you, too,” she told him and kissed him again.

Word count: 1097