by S Berry

Disclaimers: This a sequel, sort of, to my story Leather. This is somewhat standalone, but it might help to read Leather first anyway. This takes place several months after the events of the first one. The characters are still all mine.

Love/Sex: Plenty of the former, none of the latter. Surprised the dickens out of me too.

Dedications: To all the kind souls who have been so patiently waiting to hear from the girls again, I’m sorry there’s no sex or leather; I tried, but it just didn’t work. And I’m also very sorry it’s taken me so long to keep my promise to write more about these ladies. Other projects have taken my attention. I wrote this for Valentine’s Day two years ago, but it wasn’t finished until March and I rather forgot about it in a rush of starting another project.

Feedback is highly appreciated at: sberry@e-scribblers.com and if you like how I write, I highly recommend you join my yahoo group at groups.yahoo.com/group/SBerrysStories/ and check out my files section. This isn't the first time I've forgotten to post something for some time... and unfortunately, it probably won't be the last either. I'm afraid to go look now. .

Copyright © 2008 by S Berry. All Rights Reserved.

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I look at the clock. Time to extricate myself and get her breakfast ready and her lunch packed. She doesn’t eat if I don’t fix something for her. I like cooking for her. I’m sure once we’ve been together for a couple years, I’ll start rolling over and mumbling that the cereal is in the cabinet by the fridge, but meanwhile, she gets a nice hot breakfast every morning. If we have time, she gets more than one. The things she can do with oatmeal… She’s the only person in the world that can make that vile concoction taste good. It does wonders for the skin as well. But we don’t have time this morning. She’ll have to make do with waffles. If I can get up without waking her. Otherwise, it’ll be me and a muffin. Pretty win-win, really. I mentally shake myself. Bad girlfriend. She needs a balanced breakfast to start her day. Sex might start our days with a smile, but it doesn’t keep her from feeling faint when she works through lunch.

“I can’t feel my arm, darlin’,” I whisper.

“Oh. Sorry,” she mumbles and rolls onto her side. Works every time.

“Smells good, darlin’,” Keira says as she comes up behind me and kisses my neck good morning and looks over my shoulder at the stack of waffles I’m brushing with melted butter and covering with apples and cinnamon. It’s not a whole lot healthier really, but it’s a good way to get fruit into her that isn’t me.

“There’s ham and hash browns on the table with your milk; these will be done in a minute.”

“Ham, hash browns, *and* waffles? You must’ve been up forever cooking,” Keira says in surprise and pleasure. She loves to eat, especially my cooking, and those are her three favorite breakfast items, other than Oatmeal ala Jordan. On Jordan, same difference.

“Not really, besides, my working girl needs plenty of fuel and pampering before a long day,” I say affectionately, then shoo her to the table. “Go eat, these will take a few more minutes.”

“Are you sure I can’t help with something? I know you have things to do today too.”

“You can help by eating your breakfast before it gets cold. I have everything else in control.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

“I am.”

She sits and tucks into her breakfast happily.

I finish her waffles and carry them to the table and set the plate in front of her and fetch my own breakfast, a much smaller and plainer version of hers. I have weight to lose and keep off.

Keira looks like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t. She thinks I starve myself. She loves me for me, not the number on the scale or my pants size. She doesn’t like it when I cook two meals, but she’s thin enough as it and she has all that muscle to maintain. We rarely fight -- mostly because she gives me my own way, I have to admit -- but most of our disagreements have been about my eating habits. But I was fifty pounds overweight when we got together and I still have twenty to lose, so it’s not like I’m anorexic or anything.

I just eat slowly and drink more skim milk than I really should. I need calcium, after all.

As soon as she’s out the door, I rush through my chores -- the apartment isn’t that large and it doesn’t take very long to clean. Keira isn’t the world’s neatest person, but she tries to control the chaos, especially after I moved in on the condition I did all the cooking and cleaning since I don’t work. I’ve been looking, but pickings are slim. It’s mostly clothes on the floor because she can’t seem to quite master the art of putting them in the hamper and messy stacks of books, papers, and god only knows what that litter the desk she does the work she brings home on, but that’s in one corner of the bedroom where I can just shut the door if we have company, so I leave it alone. She really does bend over backward to please me, so I let her have her way in that. She doesn’t leave dishes and food wrappers laying around so I count myself lucky. Okay, so I do, but I do the cleaning so I can.

I have to get things done so I can go ring shopping and find the perfect flowers. Okay so I like to comparison shop; thriftiness isn’t a crime. It’s thriftiness that allowed me to save up for today. I’m going to ask Keira to marry me. It doesn’t matter that we legally can’t. I’m just old fashioned and like the symbolism. Besides, I know Keira worries sometimes that I’ll leave her; that I don’t love her as much as she loves me. I’m not the best communicator for a writer. I try to make her feel loved and tell her I love her at least once a day. We kinda rushed into living together. (Long pause for U-Haul jokes.) She thinks I’m with her for the sex. Like I just settled for the first girl who’d do me or something stupid like that. I suppose joking it wasn’t the sex, it was the leather didn’t really help, but she said it while I was in a smart ass mood and it was the first thing that came to mind. Hell if I know why I love her, I just do. At first it was mostly just lust a! nd the fact she really liked me, but the more time I spent with her, the more she just… fit. She just fits. In my life, in my heart, in my soul… she fits. Like that last puzzle piece that the cat drags off and it takes you three weeks to find under the fridge, she completes me in some fundamental way I can’t explain or express; it just is. Hell if I know why she loves me, for that matter, I just try to take it on faith. Sometimes it’s harder than others, but ultimately nothing she says is going to make it easier to believe. I just hope she feels I fit her as well as she fits me.

Yeah, I got nothing for the romantic ‘I love you yada, yada, yada, will you marry me?’ speech. I’ve been trying to write one for the last month, ever since I decided I wanted a more formal commitment (though I don’t want a commitment ceremony, once she accepts the ring, that’s good enough for me), but I’ve given up. Asking on Valentine’s Day, on bended knee, with roses and a ring is romantic enough, if not the least bit original or creative. Keira loves things like that. If I can find a little moonlight, all the better. And really, it’s all about her, so who cares if it’s not an original approach?

It doesn’t take me long to realize flower shopping on Valentine’s Day is the stupidest idea I’ve ever had -- and I’ve had some real doozies. Like the time I got drunk and decided that serenading a girl through her basement window (hher bedroom was in the basement -- and don’t ask me how I knew that) was a brilliant way to profess my undying love. That was a bad idea on so many levels -- a) I can’t sing to save my life, b) the only song I could remember all the words to was The Itsy Bitsy Spider, c) everyone knows you have to be *lower* than the person you’re serenading or it’s just silly, d) she was more straight laced than a nineteenth century corset, e) her boyfriend was a linebacker with a jealous streak bigger than J Lo’s ass, and f) she didn’t know I existed anyway. Thank god my sister talked me out of actually doing it or I’d probably still be in a body cast. I manage to procure a dozen roses for an arm and half a leg, then I go back home to put the damn things i! n water.

I hate shopping as a general rule. I hate jewelry. I want to point out what an extreme sacrifice this whole venture is on the likely chance I manage to screw the whole damn thing up. Shopping for jewelry is hell on earth. Shopping for a woman’s engagement ring that obviously won’t fit you in Kansas, Home of Fred Phelps, is the ninth circle of hell on earth. Thus the putting it off until the absolutely last minute. I’m pretty sure I should be in a much better mood considering why I’m putting myself through this hell, but I’m on my last nerve and the next idiot who looks at me funny is getting a size nine and a half boot up the ass. If she doesn’t say yes I’m going to scream first and cry later. She damn well better like the damn thing. It’s nothing special, just a bit of gold plated cheap metal with a glass chip ‘diamond’, but it’ll do until I publish that Great American Novel or get a day job, which ever comes first. Keira won’t care about the price tag anyway. She li! kes simple jewelry, if she bothers with any at all. Now all I have left to do is get ready for Keira’s surprise.

“Honey, I’m home!” Keira booms happily as she enters our apartment. I get up from the couch where I was lounging, killing time watching cartoons, to collect my hello kiss.

“I see that. How was your day, darlin’?” I ask as she’s taking off her snow dusted coat.

“Not too bad. It’s colder than a well digger’s little toe out there. Started snowing just before I left the office.”

“Maybe we should stay in tonight. I can whip something up, maybe curl up on the couch with some hot cocoa, make love ’til the sun comes up or we pass out, which ever comes first,” I suggest. I don’t drive and I know Keira hates driving in snow (she hates rain worse, though). It not only makes her nervous, but the windshield wipers are fucked which doesn’t help matters in the least. She just keeps forgetting to do something about them. “We can go out some other time.”

She looks torn. “I really want our first Valentine’s day to be really special.”

“Any time spent with you is special, darlin’,” I say before kissing her. Sappy and not my best material, but she tears up and kisses me back like it is.

“Ditto, love.” She kisses me again. Then a few more times for good measure. My Keira doesn’t cut corners. Things are threatening to leave us no choice but stay home. Works for me, but not for her apparently because she pulls away with a groan. “Get ready, love, let’s go out for dinner, then we’ll come back and I’ll lick chocolate off your body, how’s that?”

It takes me a few moments to realize she’s waiting patiently for a response from me. She’s got that cocky smirk that I love so much. “All right, but then I get to have my favorite dessert.” I caress a breast and tweak a nipple to show her just exactly what dessert I’m talking about. “I have a hankering for some nice warm Bailey and butterscotch.”

Her eyes light up and she agrees eagerly.

She’s so easy. Have I mentioned I really love this girl?

Dinner is filled with laughter and teasing as Keira surprises me with a double date with my sister and her current obsession. She’d been too busy playing house (and doctor, but I try to avoid thinking about *that*) with Brittney to spend much time with me for the last couple months. My sis tends to shack up with some chick and get all intense and besotted for two or three months until she gets bored -- or scared or the girl gets sick of it -- then she plays the field (and more doctor, but again, don’t want to think about thhat) until some other chick catches her eye. I’ve lost track of how many times she’s been positive she’d found The One and she was oh so in love and it was gonna be forever this time, I’d see, blah, blah, blah. Then she disappears for a couple months until she comes crying or swearing about whatever the heck caused the break up that particular time. Okay, so I’m a little bitter. I don’t have many friends and despite being my sister, she’s also my! best friend.

Brittney, however, actually turns out to be a nice girl and I hope it works out for them like it seems to be for Keira and me. I’m pretty nervous, though, and the conversation kinda goes in one ear and out the other. I’m trying to figure out when and how to propose now that it’s snowing. I was going to ask her to go on a drive out to our favorite parking place and do the whole getting down on one knee thing. (I was curious about the backseat… It’s a very nice one, though as tall as she is it was a rather awkward encounter.) I can’t ask her at the restaurant. I didn’t want to ask her at home, but it’s looking like the best option. But where in the apartment? The living room? In bed? Kinda casually pause in my dessert and ask her if she’d like to get hitched?

I find myself agreeing to something I don’t hear. Turns out they want to go out to the bar where we met. That actually works nicely; there’s a nice covered, private area where I can pop the question and we can celebrate by dancing.

“Go ahead and go in and get us a table and a pitcher,” I tell my sis, pulling out my wallet and handing her a twenty, figuring chances are she’s short of cash. Plus I want to pop the question now before I lose my nerve.

Keira looks at me curiously, but she doesn’t say anything and dutifully (and shiveringly) follows me to a dark corner. I’m sure everyone thinks I just can’t wait until we get home for a good old fashioned make out session. Well, there’s that too. “Can’t get enough sugar, baby?” Keira asks pulling me close and favoring me with that cocky smirk before lowering her head for a kiss. I pull away after a minute or two before I completely forget what I was really after. Have I mentioned she’s damn good at that?

“You know you’re addictive, darlin’, but actually I, uh, wanted to ask you something,” I blurt out in a burst of brilliance.

“You wanna do it right now? Here? It’s a little lighter than we could hope for, but I bet if we go around the corner, it’ll be just fine. I’ve never done it standing up, but there’s a first time for every thing and this a good time to give it a go,” she says agreeably with a leer.

“Well, that actually is a very interesting idea and one we really have to try someday, but no. I was actually gonna say -- well, you know I love you, right?” I take a deep breath, trying to control the fleet of 747s flying formation in my stomachh.

She looks rather disappointed, but she nods. “I love you, too, darlin’.”

“We’ve been living together for a while and I think we get along pretty well, right?” I continue my nervous babbling.

“Yes, I think so too.” She’s starting to look nervous too.

“Well, I was thinking that maybe we could --” I suddenly realize I’m still standing and I don’t have the ring out. Plus this is a pretty damn stupid way of saying what I want to say. “Fuck, this isn’t coming out like I practiced,” I mutter, fumbling in my pocket for the little box.

“Oh, Jordan,” she breathes, her voice softer and more filled with wonder than I’ve ever heard it and I know she knows what I want without me having to say another word.

But I have to do this as close to right as I can. For both of us. I finally liberate the little box and sink to one knee, heedless of the icy mud staining my good pants. I take her hand in mine. “Be my Valentine forever. Marry me.” I open the box and offer it to her with my other hand. I hold my breath, waiting for her answer. I’m pretty sure I know her answer, but part of me doesn’t really believe this beautiful, wonderful woman could possibly want to stay with a loser like me at all, let alone forever.

“Oh, Jordan,” she says again, in the exact same way, only her eyes are tearing now. She takes the ring and says, simply, in the same tone, “Yes.”

“Yes?” I repeat stupidly. “Yes?” I can feel the stupid grin spreading across my face.

“Yes. Like there could ever be another answer. Put it on me?”

I stick the box back in my pocket absentmindedly and carefully take the ring back. I start to comply, then I blink. “Um, which is your left hand?” I ask sheepishly. I can just tell my right from my left, but I’ll be damned if I can figure it out on anyone else.

She quietly offers me her other hand. She’s used to my idiocy. I hurriedly wipe my sweaty hands off my pants and take it in mine. I awkwardly ease the ring onto her ring finger. It looks right, not nearly as cheap as I know it is.

“I love it, Jordan. I never expected anything like this.” Her eyes are so filled with love and delight. She looks as happy as I feel.

“I’m an old fashioned girl, had to make an honest woman out of you. As much as the stupid law allows anyway.” I try to stand. Uh oh. “Uh, honey, can you give me a hand up? I think my pants froze to the ground.”

My pants aren’t frozen; I was standing on my pants leg with my other foot. God only knows how I managed that. At least Keira figures it out before she goes in for help. She’s promised to leave that little detail out when recounting the story to the special few who will get to know what the true significance of the new jewelry is. We go into the bar laughing and leaning against each for support. Just another Only Jordan story. I make an idiot of myself on most of our milestones (and a great many occasions that *aren’t* milestones, if truth be told). Here’s to a lifetime of Only Jordan stories Keira is too nice to tell.

The End

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