“I won’t, beautiful, because I don’t know what I’d do without you. Not now. Not ever.”
He pulls me in for another hug and in my ear says, “As a matter of fact I’m tired of being without you even one second of the day, and I’m ready to take the steps to fix that. Right now.”
Dropping to a knee a few joggers around us slow, their mouths agape as they see what’s about to happen.
I don’t even notice them as he whips out a small black box, pops the top open and exposes a huge diamond ring that must cost more than it does to buy the entire apartment where he lives. I feel guilty, but the emotion quickly passes.
“Beautiful, individually we’re two imperfect people, me much more so than you. But together…we’re perfect, and that’s how we need to be forever. Together, until death do us part, not that it ever will. Be my forever. Will you marry me?”
I nod. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you, my perfect man.”
He slides the ring on my finger and everything makes sense in the world, everything is right. Cupping his face I guide him off the ground where his lips meet mine.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you.
Epilogue
Erica
One month later
“Wow,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “How am I going to go to class after that?”
“You want another round?” Sam says, lifting his weight off of me and handing me a roll of paper towels we keep close to the bed so I can clean up.
“It would be a lot better than the class I’ve got lined up.”
“The class or the teacher? Don’t hide the truth from me,” he says, taking a step toward me.
“Just the class, Sam. Only the subject matter.”
He nods and moves toward the bathroom of our new apartment, but the doorbell rings and he wraps a towel around himself and moves toward it.
With him out of the room I stand, move to the wall and knock on it. It sounds hollow, very hollow but only the echo of my sound comes back. I could have sworn when we were in the throes of passion just now I heard someone other than me moaning, but I guess it’s just my imagination.
“Are you Sam Sparks?” a voice at the door says.
I wrap myself in a blanket and peek around the doorframe.
“Who’s asking?” he says, a bit standoffishly, but it doesn’t seem to deter the man in the suit at our door. We just moved in, what could possibly be the matter already?
“I’m sorry to just show up at your door like this, especially unannounced, but it was hard to track you down so I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity if it indeed was you.”
Sam says nothing, still not confirming or denying his true identity.
“I can see that it’s clearly you from the photos I’ve seen,” the man continues. “I’m Larry Winters, CEO of Pan Pacific Enterprises. We supply companies like Boeing with the parts they need to keep their planes in the sky, which is why I understand the severity of what really happened almost two months ago on that runway at L.A.X. Young man if it wasn’t for your quick thinking a few hundred people wouldn’t be alive now. You’re truly a hero.”
“Thank you,” Sam says. “But it’s what anyone in my position would have done. I’m not special or anything.”
“I beg to differ, on both counts, because no one else did do what you did, which is why our company would like to present you with a check for a quarter million dollars.”
“A quarter million…?”
“Not only did you save my life, but a number of lives of our Japanese suppliers. And furthermore, you exposed a flaw in the system, which our company was able to help fix, resulting in a record-breaking quarter of profits. The least we can do is share it with you.”
“I can’t. Really.”