A Quiet Kismet

Chapter Twenty Seven

AGE:26

When my sisters went back inside, I turned to Derek. He was smiling from ear to ear, I shook my head. "No." I said.

"No what? I didn't even say anything." He smirked. What Derek probably didn't know was that he didn't have to talk to speak. His eyes could say everything for him if he ever chose to go mute.

"You want to go with me to get coffee."

His eyes lit up with amusement. "Well if you insist..." Then in one smooth move, I was back in his lap, a breaths away from his lips. "You're beautiful in the morning." He mumbled.

I smiled and pushed him on his back, "Nice try, but you have to be with Leo. He'll need you and this day isn't about us."

Derek sighed, "You're right, but," He lifted his eyes to mine with an earnest look in them, "They get forever, you only gave me..."

"Twenty four hours." I reminded him.

He nodded, "Right, only twenty four hours and a good chunk of that I'll have to be at Leo's beck and call. So I'm getting coffee with you because you only gave me twenty four interrupted hours of us."

"You make a good point." I said softly.

His eyes bored into mine and he nodded, "I make a lot of good points. Come one let's go get everyone some coffee. This could be considered our first date. A cute little coffee date."

Derek sat back up and gave me a quick chaste kiss, as if he'd done this a million times. It didn't have to be a big passionate kiss, but I still felt it rock my soul like an earthquake. Suddenly, I envied whatever woman had him for the rest of their life because if small busied kisses like that shook my soul, then I knew forever with this man would undo me in the best possible way.

"You really are beautiful though, day or night." He added with a gentle smile that felt like soft morning rays.

***

"All I'm saying is that Delia drinking black coffee straight scares the shit out of me. I mean I understand liking dark coffee, cool, but having straight black without even a pack of sugar is terrifying." Derek said as we found our seats in the back of a Bahama brew while we waited for our orders.

"She's raising two rowdy boys on her own, I think she'll need every ounce of caffeine she can take." I laughed, "One time when the boys were newborns, she was only working on fifteen minutes of sleep and accidently fell asleep in the parking lot of her job. The security guard had to drive her home and she cried all over his shirt then paid him in baby wipes for his service."

"I promise I won't leave you to raise the kids all on your own." Derek said. I choked as he laughed.

"That's not funny!" I snapped, punching his shoulder. Derek yelped and rubbed his arm.

"To be fair we're pretending that we could work. So in my defense, if we worked out we'd get married and have kids. I figure since you're you, I'd have to propose at least five different times before you said yes. We'll have a fall wedding because you get hot and annoyed in the summer. We'll marry somewhere quiet with only our closest friends and family because you don't like big extravagant weddings. You hate wearing high heels so you'll probably wear tennis shoes or something and your mom and sisters will have a stroke over it. But it's okay because it's your day and it's exactly like you to wear tennis shoes on your wedding day. We start on baby number one right away, and by our tenth anniversary we'll have a whole baseball team of kids, four boys and a little girl. We'd probably live in a small town right outside of the city so we could have the best of both worlds. You get your book published, sell the movie rights and we could easily live off of that but don't worry you didn't marry a gold digger. I work in social work, and I find it fulfilling and my job makes me appreciate my family even more. I'd work and you work, but not too much because we're hands on parents. We take turns going to PTA meetings, you coach our daughters softball team, and I coach our boys baseball team. We're known as those crazy sports parents who spew our profanities against our kids rivals at games, so much so that we're on a permanent ban somewhere down the line. We're semi-traditionalists so our little girl will have a quinceanera, I'll sob like a baby and you'll tease me relentlessly. We'll send off our kids to college and let them know that they can be whatever they want. They'll get married and we'll both sob like babies each time we have to give one away, then get drunk together and reminiscence about all their embarrassing baby stories. They'll give us grandkids and we'll be the cool grandparents who let them get away with anything. They'll call you Grams, and me Gramps, and we'll spoil them rotten which our kids will hate but we're old so we get away with it. We'll grow old together, never taking one single day for granted. I'll go first because I don't want to live in a world without you."