Guy and Reason

Chapter 20 (Guy): Love Languages

Two nights later, I was at Reason's place again in the early evening.

"Hey," she said as she opened the door.

I noticed she stood in the opening as if she was afraid I'd just walk on in.

Maybe someday I'd earn back that right.

"I have some more questions for you," I said in greeting, and this time, there was no wariness in her eyes. She simply nodded.

"Kung Pao chicken?" I held the bag up to her.

"Always a great option," Reason said. "But lately I've been on a beef and broccoli kick. However, since I haven't even thought about dinner, I'll happily accept it if that's for me."

When she took the bag I offered her, I couldn't help but smile when her fingers brushed mine. I used to have this woman's touch whenever and wherever I wanted, but I'd lost it and now I was like a cat with catnip just from a casual brush of her fingers against mine. I wanted to roll around in it, bask in it over and over, relive the moment... Fuck. Stop being so damn pathetic, Guy, over a less-than-one-second touch of her fingers.

Holding up the other bag, I hoped this old favorite hadn't changed.

"Triple chunk chocolate chip cookies from the bakery in Harbor's Edge?"

"I don't think that'll ever be surpassed as my number one dessert," she sighed, then grinned as she swiped the bag from my hand. "Thank you."

"The last one doesn't come with a bag," I said, trying to sound sure of myself with this next question I was debating the wisdom of asking. "It's just a question."

The wariness crept into her eyes again, and maybe with this question, it should have. If the other questions were jumps off a normal-height diving board, this one may have been a leap from the high dive. I was hoping it didn't end in a painful belly flop.

"Once upon a time, your love language was never perfectly clear, but it was somewhere between physical touch and words of affirmation. Has that changed?"

Reason had discovered The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman in our senior year of high school, and we'd read the book together, talking about which of the languages we'd preferred. 

Eden's face froze and her eyes got bright with tears, surprising me. It was too soon to ask that, you idiot. What happened to patience?

"Never mind," I rushed on, almost panicking, pissed at myself as I watched her blink rapidly to hold back the tears. "Don't answer that. Forget I asked. I'm sorry, Eden. I'm so sorry."

"I don't know if I can answer that," she said, ignoring me fumbling my words. "Because it hasn't been a consideration for the last three years. But if I had to guess, words and touch wouldn't matter now as much as maybe quality time and acts of service."

"Love requires action," I said to her. She didn't know it, but I'd had that tattooed high up on my left bicep two years ago.

"And that action can take different forms depending on the need of the person receiving the love," she finished the old conversation we'd had many times in the past, her voice reflective.

"So thank you for answering a difficult question, Eden, because it's important to me that I speak your language."

Ah, fuck it.

I touched her chin with my fingertips, there and gone so fast I only knew it registered with her because of the flicker in her eyes. And because she grabbed my wrist. To push me away? To rebuke me for touching her? To break it for being so daring?

"And what's your love language, Guy?"

I hadn't expected her to ask me that, so I just blurted out my answer, not stopping to think about it, even though I should have. She probably wasn't ready to hear my answer, but her nearness scattered my common sense.

"You. You're my love language, Reason. Whatever you give to me, I'll accept it happily and gratefully. You look at me, I'm flying high. You touch me, you've made my day. You talk with me, my heart goes wild. You smile at me, I'm on top of the world. Every last thing about you is a gift to me."

Her hand dropped from my wrist, and I missed the feeling of her skin against mine.

"I'm not a love language, Guy."

Instead of keeping my mouth shut, I rattled on. 

"To me you are. You're all of them rolled up into one." I gently poked at the Chinese food bag. "Better go eat that before it gets cold, Eden. Have a good night."

I listened as the door closed and locked behind me, unsure if I'd just made things worse with the honesty I'd given her. But that wasn't what her eyes had told me. They'd reflected confusion, maybe a reluctance to accept what I'd said, but she'd also been surprised.

My phone chimed with a text from her just before I pulled out of the parking lot. Thank you for dinner and dessert.

Grinning, I headed for my mother's, and two more texts came in from Reason, which I asked Siri to read to me since I couldn't wait until I hit a red light or got home before finding out what they said.

Sweet and sour pork?

Brownies from Miller's Deli?

My smile was unstoppable and huge. If the people driving next to me would have looked over, I'm sure I would have looked Joker-insane with my smile so impossibly wide. I asked Siri to send a reply so Reason wouldn't have to wait until I got home for a response: Yes to the brownies, but I'm into chicken, beef and vegetable dumplings now.

It would be so easy to remind Reason of who we were before I'd cheated, to focus on the eight years of good times we'd had, to try to recapture that for now. It was tempting to trade solely on the past to make it easier to forge even a friendship at this point. But there was no going back, and I knew that because three years ago, I'd tried every way I could think of to erase what I'd done.

As the years ticked by, I had to accept that there was no erasing the past because neither one of us came through that hell I'd created as the same person. Our innocence had been badly scarred, so while we shared a beautiful history that had ended because of my ugly choices, that wasn't enough to build on. That would be denying the ways we'd evolved and matured over three years.

Who were we today? Who had we become in the aftermath of the pain? How had we grown and changed? How had we remained the same?

Rediscovering who we were was critical. I had easy questions to ask, ice breakers essentially, but I also had deeper ones, like the one I'd tossed out there between us tonight. The easy ones were important, but the harder ones were absolutely crucial if we were to move forward.

Her answer had about killed me. For three years, Reason had had no one to speak her love language to her. That meant there was no one to care for her, watch out for her, do the little things and the big for her. That sin fell directly on my shoulders, and it pressed down on me so heavily that I felt like an old man again. 

But now that I knew her love languages, I'd begin speaking them to her.

Starting with quality time when I asked her to have dinner with me.