Smiling, I reached for the rose and sniffed. I was impressed that he had made my bed, but the rose was a nice touch. With the rose in hand, I walked into the kitchen to find the other eleven roses sitting in a vase on my counter. A Post-It note stuck to the vase read:
Thank you for the best night I’ve had in years.
Literally.
In years.
I can’t wait to see you again.
Preferably before our next reunion.
Yours–Dalton
That was when I noticed the plate that held the cookies was suspiciously empty. Nothing but crumbs remained and I whined to myself, wishing I had a couple of them to eat. Another Post-It lay on top:
It’s your own fault for making cookies that taste so good.
Burn them next time and I won’t eat them all.
Probably not.
At least, I don’t think I will.
Hell, you never know with me.
Rolling my eyes, I peeled off each note and stuck them to the corkboard in my bedroom that hung above my headboard. It might have been a cheesy thing, but I had saved everything from Dalton when we were kids, and I planned to save everything from him now that we were adults. There were simply some guys you wanted to hold on to—every memory, every note, every conversation—you longed to keep it all. And that was how I felt when it came to him.
Kristy called to tell me she was on her way over and she was bringing food, so I stopped staring inside my refrigerator like it would magically make a meal appear if I looked hard enough. I really needed to go shopping, especially if a man was going to be hanging out at my place.
“What a freaking day I’ve had.” Kristy’s voice echoed through my hallway as the front door slammed.
“Ugh. Me too. What’s going on with your work?” I grabbed the bag from her hand that she held out to me and moved toward the couch.
“Who cares? Tell me everything that happened last night. He came over here, right?”
I reached into the bag and pulled out a bag of oven-baked chips, a chocolate chip cookie, and an oversized sandwich that had Turkey/Swiss written in black marker on the white paper wrapper. “I love you. Thank you so much for this.”
“No problem. Now tell me,” she demanded as she unwrapped her own sandwich, which I assumed was most likely something chicken related.
“He came over. He brought dinner from the Thai place around the corner. We talked about so much stuff,” I admitted, feeling the relief wash over me again at our confessions.
“Oh my God, did you ask him why he took Carla Benton to prom?” she asked through her mouth filled with food. “Sorry.” She pointed at her face before wiping it with a napkin.
“Yeah.” I took a bite and chewed until I could swallow it. “He said that he asked her because he heard that I was going with Mark. Remember when he asked me?”
Kristy’s eyes grew wide. “Shut the fuck up. That’s why he took her?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “That’s what he said. That he heard I was going with Mark, and he decided to ask the next girl who flirted with him.”
“Typical male,” she murmured.
“I know, right? It’s sad to think that everything could have been avoided if we’d just talked about it then, instead of not talking about anything.” I sighed. “We really didn’t communicate well.”
“Most of us don’t at that age. We’re too hyped up on raging hormones and invincibility.” Kristy took another bite, and I did too as I waited for her next question. “So then what? You guys cleared up everything from the past and hopped into the sack?” she asked with a snicker.
“Yep. That’s how it happened. He told me why he took Carla to prom, and I dropped my pants right there and said take me!” I stuck out my tongue at her, and she threw a chip at me. “Stop wasting good food,” I chided as I dug around me for the chip and popped it into my mouth.