The road to love (editing!!)

Chapter 31 - Challenge Accepted

Every once in a while, there is a moment in life that simply takes your breath away.  It makes your knees weak, makes it hard to breath.  It can be a sad moment, a happy moment or simply a stunned-beyond-words-moment like the one I was currently experiencing.

I had pulled off the road after my initial shock at Sharon’s exclamation and my first glance at the object of her surprise, before I’d gotten out of the car like a bat out of hell to stare at the billboard now in front of me.  Sharon rounded the hood of the car at the same time I did, jumping up and down in the process and grabbing my arm, almost yanking it out of its socket in her excitement.  “I knew it!  I just knew he would do something over the top like this!”

On the billboard, the very same billboard I had wanted to use for another client’s campaign, was a declaration to me from the man who had just stopped his car behind mine.   On it was the same picture of us dancing in the club that had appeared in the very first tabloid I was ever mentioned in, the one where I’d been labeled his ‘flavor of the month’.  If Dean was looking for a picture to get my attention with during heavy traffic, this was certainly it.

Yet Dean had taken that offensive picture and made it into something beautiful, by softening the picture’s edges and overall look and adding two dark red roses to the side of it, making me think of the lone rose I received on my desk this morning.  Next to the roses were the most beautiful words I’d ever read:

Jessica:  All the love that history knows, is said to be in every rose.  Yet all the love that could be found in two, is less than what I feel for you.  Dean.

It was a simple message, yet the words and the picture were conveying so much more than what could be read on that board and it filled my heart with wonder.  He loved me.  This was more than just an effort to rekindle a relationship – this was a confession of the heart.  I felt his presence at my side, before turning my still trembling body to him, feeling the tears start to pool in my eyes.  I saw him anxiously searching my face for a sign of my emotions, of what I was thinking, yet not making a move to even touch me yet.

“Dean…” I rasped.  “The billboard… it’s…”

“I know, it’s a bit extreme,” he spit out, raking his hand through his hair in a frustrated action and looking extremely nervous before gesturing wildly with his hands when he spoke, “but you said you wanted a grand gesture and when Adam suggested it, I thought it was brilliant.  Maybe I should have gone with something simpler, something less…”  I stopped his verbal diarrhea with a simple finger to his mouth, stepping close to him and smiling brightly through my tears.

“It’s perfect.”  I assured him.  “I couldn’t have done it better myself… and I’m in advertising!”

“You like it?” he smiled down at me, before slowly pulling me even closer to him, finally fitting his perfect arms around my waist as if he was claiming me to be his.  “I have to admit I had a lot of ‘help’ on what you’d like,” he said, looking up at the stretch limo which had just stopped behind his car, followed by a guy on a motorbike. 

What the heck?  We have an audience now?  Sharon didn’t quite count as an audience, as she was my best friend and we all know besties share things like this.

I sighed heavily.  With a billboard declaration like ours, I guessed nothing was ‘private’ anymore.

I saw the limo’s passenger door being opened by the driver, before Mr Parker climbed out and turned to help someone else out of the car.  To my surprise, the person he assisted was my mother, followed by my scheming-behind-my-back boss Mark, a grinning Joe and a hyped-up Bianca. 

“My dad doesn’t usually take the limo in heavy traffic, but he said this was a special occasion and they couldn’t miss this for the world,” he whispered in my ear and draw small circles with his warm thumb on my side, making me moan slightly from his touch as I stared at the small group of five people now approaching us, while the biker took off his helmet before fishing out his camera from the box on the back of the bike.  “Dad took your advice and contacted your mother last week.  They’ve been trying to mend the fences since then… for us, you and me,” he said, as I turned back to face him.