Page 143 of Love Is an Art
Steam billows out of the kettle. I pull away to make the tea, but I keep hold of her hand. I don’t want to let go of her. I take my mug while she grabs hers, and we make our way to the dining room table, hands still clasped. We lean against the table.
She updates me on everything that went on yesterday. “Did you get your transfer?”
“I got the transfer. No more Arthur. And it’s in no small part due to all your work on my account.”
We both put our empty cups down on the table.
I reach out to pull her close. I’ve missed holding her so much. As she fits within my arms and curls into my chest, a happy warmth fills me. I’m never letting her go again. I squeeze her tightly.
She looks up at me. I kiss her, trying to convey how much I love her. She kisses me back, and there’s a desperate energy to our kiss—like we’re both trying to reassure the other that we’re back, that we’re never going away again. I cradle her head, and my hand rubs under her soft hair.I’ll never get enough of her.As we stumble slightly, I pick her up and put her on the table. But as I do, I push aside my PowerPoint. There’s a slight rip of paper.
My PowerPoint.
She puts her hand down on the table. “What’s this?”
“I made a PowerPoint to express how much I love you.”
“Repeat that.” She tilts her head.
“I know. A PowerPoint is kind of lame.”
“No. Not that. The second part of that sentence.”
I kiss her cheek. “I messed this up too. I love you.”
She smiles, and it’s as if she glows from within. “I love you too.” She kisses me quickly on the lips. “And I don’t think a PowerPoint is lame at all.” She leans back in my arms. “I want to see it. I wrote a short ‘legal brief’ for you.”
“You did?”
“Yes. With arguments as to why we worked. Although fundamentally, I want to say you have my head and my heart.”
I place her hand over my heart. It’s beating so fast. I’m sure she can feel it. “You have all of me too.”
“But I still want to see your PowerPoint.”
“All right.” I take her hand and my PowerPoint and tug her over to the couch. I sit down and pull her into my lap. I’m not letting her go. I flip to the first page. It has a picture of the art gallery invitation and a photo of us. Ben snapped it secretly to show me how happy I looked talking to her. And it’s true.
“I fell for you at that very first meeting,” I say.
I show a picture of the swing and the café we visited on the next slide. “And I fell hard.”
“How’d you get the picture of the swing?”
“I ran around this morning and went to every place we’d visited.”
I turn the page. This slide has our text exchange with our two terrible drawings.
She laughs. “I put that in my brief too.”
And then the next slide is a picture of the two paintings from the art auction.
“This is when I realized that you could be everything I was looking for. We had so much fun creating that painting. Both us of were terrible, basically, and yet combined, we actually succeeded,” I say.
The next page has a photo of the painting from the MoMA calledLies and Other Truths I’ve Been Told. “The truth was always peeking out. And I got too hung up on the artist/lawyer thing.”
“I’m still sorry I lied to you.” She nuzzles my neck.
I turn to the next page with a picture of us in Mexico City. “You’re an amazing lawyer, and we make an unbeatable team. I want to be there for you with your career, and you’ve already shown how much you’re there for me with mine.”
