Sold #2 - A Desperate Love

Chapter 12

For the remainder of the weekend, the Saturday morning after they woke newly engaged and the morning of the Sunday, before their flight in the afternoon, Michael wouldn't allow himself or Darcy to do anything other than relax, pack for their trip and enjoy each others company. They sat out in the back garden together, talking and enjoying the privacy that Tai's busy weekend schedule at the garage gave them and when they were tired and had nothing to do in the mid-afternoon hours, they went for a long walk to clear their heads or Michael would read to his sweet girl as they lay in front of the fire in the living room. He quickly began to notice that there was nothing Darcy enjoyed more than to sit with him and hear his voice, while he read her favourite book to her. It had been by pure chance that she found it, late on the Saturday evening already in his library and ever since the first second he had indulged her love of the words it consisted of, he had been aware that he would never be allowed to go any further than the first chapter. Then again, when he saw the look in her eyes as he read those words of love to her, speaking the words that he found it hard to believe S. Morgenstern had been able to write all those years ago and he saw the passion and emotion it provoked in her, he couldn't deny her the experience, reading the same lines over and over again until she decided, whenever that may be, that she wanted to hear more of The Princess Bride. It wasn't a title that had ever inspired him to read what lay inside, but his father had bought it for his mother in the last few months before she died and he would never get rid of it. He was just glad that, something that had brought so many happy tears to his mothers eyes and that had made her smile so often, was still able to rouse that same emotion from his fiancée almost fifteen years later.

Michael knew, even before the taxi arrived on the Sunday afternoon to take them to the airport that things were different. Being engaged to Darcy had made him different enough from the few days before, but overall he knew that the new addition into his life, his new fiancée had managed to change him in more ways than he was ever able to thank her for. Over the past two days alone he had read a book, the first chapter at least, that he would never have even glanced at had it not been his sweet girl's wish to hear the words through his lips, he had spend more hours in the kitchen preparing dinner and helping Darcy with the random, daily cleaning tasks than he would have spent working, if he had been at the office. He had sat reading his paper as she ironed in the living room archway, frustrated by the steam constantly being thrown his way whenever she stopped and the very fact that the air between himself and the newspaper became fogged and cloudy. They had argued and debated, talked and laughed about countless things, he had cooked and cleaned and slaved away in the garden with her, for her and without her knowledge until he had to scrub the dirt from his hands until they became little individual prunes. He had watched her sleep and had fallen asleep in front of the TV with his head on her lap, he had argued with Tai and snuck out the house to visit him at work so that he wouldn't have to help his fiancée making yet another healthy meal. And he did it all with a song in his heart. With little angels under his feet, guiding him in everything he did until he was so madly in love with his beautiful girl that he could barely think of anything else. It had been only two days, but it had been two days that Michael couldn't have lived his life without experiencing, or without sharing with his precious girl. He wasn't the man he used to be and they both knew it. But somehow, he didn't think he'd ever want to go back.

But the events of their past two days together were irrelevant as he wandered aimlessly between the living room and downstairs hall, pacing the floor and continually checking his watch as he waited for Darcy to finish getting dressed. It was typical that after two mornings of neither having to care about the time nor be in any particular place at a specific time, they had been able to wake early at just before eight o'clock and yet when it was important for them to be on time, they slept in just enough that the taxi had already arrived and neither of them were out of bed.