I press play and the Star Wars iconic score hits us through the speakers.
“That never gets old. Don’t you think that never gets old?” Priya asks me.
I drape my arm around her shoulder. “I could watch this movie with you every day, twice a day, as long as we both shall live.”
Priya smiles up at me. “Is that a proposal?”
“Is it weird to propose to your girlfriend of six months at 18?” I ask her.
“Not when they’ve known each other since the first grade,” she tells me. “And they’ve secretly been in love with each other since they were 12.”
I consider it. “Well, I’ll keep that in mind.”
She shoots up on the couch and turns to me. “Okay, but don’tactuallypropose to me right now, because my mom would die. Wait until we are 22.”
I laugh. “I will try my best to wait until we are 22.”
For me, it doesn’t matter when I propose.
I know that I am going to be with Priya for the rest of my life.
I could marry her today, a year from now, or ten years from now.
I’m never leaving her.
“I love you,” I tell her.
“I love you more,” she says, kissing me quick, then settling back into her seat. “Now, rewind, because we missed a lot. And stop distracting me.”
I rewind back to the start of the movie.
And then, I kneel onto the couch and straddle her. I kiss her neck. “Distract you… like this?”
I kiss her further down her neck.
Then I take my hand and slide it down the front of her yoga pants, gently massaging the knob of her clit. Priya moans. Then she kisses me hard on the lips.
“Okay, fuck me into hyperspace,” she teases.
I kiss her through a smile and lay her fully onto the couch. “Hang on.”
I kiss Priya hard.
And I will keep kissing her for as long as I possibly can.
I don’t know how I got so lucky as to fall in love with my best friend and to have her fall right back in love with me.
But I will never take it for granted.
* * *