Love Letter

Lynne:

A good half an hour later, I broke away from Ian, who had pulled me down on top of him... "Okay, we need to get out of here," I say, this time standing up knowing that what self-control I had left was slipping, and I was not ready to take that plunge with him yet. He must agree since he lets me walk away this time instead of grabbing me.

I let Ian drive me, thinking he will take me out to eat instead, we end up at his cabin, and I swallow nervously as we get out of the car and walk up to his cabin. That kiss was real, the most real thing I had felt, but it could have given Ian the wrong impression. "Ian," I say, standing at the door of the cabin before walking in.

Ian, not listening, grabs my arm pulling me in and shutting the front door. "Yes," he says after standing inside the warm cabin. Looking at his face, I wonder if I was wrong about his intentions to bring me here. It was Ian. He must know what I am thinking since he steps forward, taking my face in his cold hands. "Lynne, nothing is going to happen – I just wanted to cook you food," he says.

"Food," I say, questioning him.

"Food," he says, smiling and kissing me on the lips before he heads to the kitchen.

We are sitting in his living room after supper, quizzing each other about each other's life, trying to grab onto all we can.

"Okay, so how did you become a big fan of Casablanca?" I ask. I had been curious ever since we had watched it the other day.

He snuggles in next to me while he thinks, "my mother," he says.

"Your mom?" I ask.

"Yes. She was the reason why I liked Shakespeare along with Casablanca and other romantic things out there," he says back.

"And yet you have never allowed anyone over to your house? Well, I mean a girlfriend over to your house?" I ask, trying to figure him out.

"I have. I mean, now I have," he says, looking down at me.

I shove him a little, trying to joke around but to give me more distance from him to think. "This is a cabin, not the same thing," I say, sitting up straighter. "And I am not your girlfriend," I add in at the end, wishing I would not have brought this line of questioning up.

"This cabin is my home right now... And you are my girlfriend," he says in a matter-of-fact tone as if this has been clear for some time now. He was not asking me, not even allowing a yes or no – it was just a fact out there. How far we had come from that first lunch, we had together.

"You barely know me," I say back to him.

"Lynne, I know you better than any of my last six relationships. You are stubborn and act like nothing affects you when it does. You try to make people think you don't have this chip on your shoulder, but you do. And you may be as dorky as I am, but I know you." He pauses, taking a moment. "And I do not go around kissing a random date like I just did," he says, and I know my face is as red as a beet, thinking of the scene in my bedroom. I had not wanted to talk about this. I had tried to give him a month or even two to see if he would even track me down when he got back to NYC.

"It's fine," I say, trying to create space between us.

"No, it is not fine. I want you to know this before you leave. I want to be with you. Not just in this Winter Wonder Land that you have grown up in but in New York too." He says, standing and embracing me like he had been doing for the last week.

"Fine," I puff out, which causes him to laugh as if he had won a small victory. I was happier than I was letting on. Still, I did not want Ian to know that I was head over heels, happy that he had told me we were taking this from casual dating to something more serious. There was a hope that we would be continuing this in New York, which means it is not a dream I will be waking up from. It will all stay in reality right where we both belong, together.

Kelly asked for my help for the New Year's Eve party she was throwing. I was happy to find out that this party would have fewer guests than my welcome home party. Fewer people meant fewer conversations I could get drugged into.

"Small and elegant," she said while setting up a tree in the corner of the living room.

"What is that?" I asked, eyeing the very bare tree with no leaves on it.

"This is a wish tree," she says like this explains it. She looks up and goes into more details "throughout the night, people grab a piece of paper, write down a wish or a goal for the upcoming year and then stick it in on the tree. By the end of the night, the tree will be completely white." It was a pretty sweet idea. I do not know what I would write down; everything seemed to be falling into place, for once. "I bought you a dress, by the way. I didn't know if you would have one, so I left it on your bed this morning," Kelly says as I leave the living room and head upstairs to my room. The dress was more risqué than I would have liked, but it fit me well. It was a red backless dress that flowed down to my ankles. I would have to wear heels, but I could put up with them for a night. I pinned back my curly hair before the party and slipped the dress on while strapping on my heels when there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," I say.

"Wow," Ian gasps when I stand up to greet him. He was in dress pants with a tie-on.

"Wow yourself," I say since this was the first time I had seen him dressed up. This was also the first time I had seen him since he told me we would see each other in NYC. I felt like a teenage girl with butterflies in her stomach.