Dear Diary,
Once again, AJ had managed to surprise me. It wasn’t that I didn’t suspect that AJ had
feelings for me; it was that he had never said anything to my face about
them. He had mentioned a little more on
the phone during our conversations, but never directly to me. I wasn’t sure what to say.
After AJ
admitted his little deception, we just stood there for a while. He still had his hand on my arm and as I
looked up into his eyes, I saw that they were completely unguarded. I could see that he had deep feelings for
me, but I never knew how strong they were before. I could also see a hint of worry.
"I
didn't mean to deceive you, Sarah. I
was going to tell you," he said softly.
I stepped
closer to him and touched his arm.
"You buying the plants to begin with was no more deceptive than me
trying to buy some to replace them. I
was going to tell you but I wanted to wait until after I got the new
ones." He smiled as he lightly
wrapped his arms around me in a loose embrace.
"I still don't believe that I killed all of them."
"That's
okay, Sarah. I usually kill plants
myself. That is why I don't usually
have them." I smiled up at him as
I looped my arms around his neck. I
looked up into his deep chocolate eyes and thought to myself how nice it was to
finally just be this close to him.
"I'm
glad you're back," I admitted.
"I am
too. I think that I annoyed Francesca
by thinking about you all the time."
"Oh,
really?" I asked.
"Yes,
really," he smiled again. “My mind
kept wandering back here to DC and not in Italy," he tightened his arms
around me a bit.
“I hope it
didn’t cause problems.”
“No. She is very happy for me, for us. She knows me well enough to know when I am
trying to hide something and she always thought there was something between us
anyway. She guessed it easily, but she
won't say anything."
I looked
at him questioningly, not sure why he wanted to keep things between us
quiet.
“Sarah,
you know that nothing was able to happen between us and that is one of the
reasons why I retired. But I want to
keep what is between us to ourselves for now because it may look
suspicious. I don’t want to do anything
to effect your career.”
“I
know.” I stopped wanting to comment on
one thing he said but I was a bit unsure.
Deciding to go for it anyway, I asked, “You retired for me?”
He was
quiet for a moment as his hand moved from my hip to take my hand. “Sarah.
I have wanted to be with you for a long time now. I know that my retiring was the only way,
because even if you transferred there is too much of a difference our ranks to
be acceptable. One of us had to leave
the service. Since I decided that I was
tired of waiting to see if there was any chance of anything between us, I knew
that I had to do this.”
“AJ, you
didn’t have to do that for me.”
“Yes I
did. I knew that there would be no
other way for us to find out how good we can be together.” He turned his head and kissed my hand in his
before he continued, “And I know we will be.”
I squeezed
his hand and leaned toward him meeting his kiss halfway. This was the kiss that had lingered between
us for years and finally we finished it.
He pulled me closer to him and I reveled in the feeling of his body
against mine. Eventually, we broke the
kiss and resting our foreheads together we caught our breath.
“You know,
I would do anything to invite you in,” AJ said softly.
“Well, I
would do anything to follow you in.
But…” I replied hesitantly.
“I know,
it’s too soon. I understand Sarah.”
I smiled
up at him and said, “I mean it’s one thing to sleep with someone on the first
date but before the first date?”
He just
smiled at me then after he tenderly touched my check, he leaned down and kissed
me. After breaking the kiss, he eased
back and said, “Good night, Sarah.”