The Engagement

As expected, Anna called me the day after our date to grill me about what happened after she dropped us off and why I seemed so sad about being in love with my boyfriend.

“Did you guys get into a fight?” She asked anxiously.

“Uh…almost but not really. He told me that he thinks I’m too good for him and is waiting for me to leave him for someone better and I told him that I wasn’t really looking for anyone else. I almost told him I loved him…but then I chickened out.”

“Oh. Speaking of which-“

“It’s complicated Anna, I can’t really get into the details without breaking Sean’s trust.”

“You can’t even try to explain it?”

I sighed, I felt bad, Anna was the only person besides Elise who didn’t know about Sean’s impotence issues and if she ever found out about that I know she would feel really offended…I mean, even Theo knows about this.

“I guess I can try….Sean…is afraid of commitment…so he won’t open himself up to me fully until he’s in love with me but I’m afraid that if I say it first it’ll put more pressure on him and he’ll have even more commitment issues.”

“I guess I can see the reasoning behind that.”

“I called Elise, by the way…”

“WHAT!? WHY!? You said you wouldn’t tell her what I told you!”

“I didn’t tell her anything, Anna. I just realized that I haven’t been a very present friends since I started dating Sean, so I thought I’d invite her to lunch so we could catch up and stuff. It doesn’t matter anyway…she hasn’t returned my calls. I think she’s ignoring both of us.”

“Wow…I wonder if she’s ignoring Zoey, too. They have to work together on a shoot next week and it’ll be really awkward if Elise won’t even look in her direction. She’s probably still talking to her though, Zoey would have mentioned it to me if she wasn’t.”

“Is Wesley going to be there too?”

“Yeah. I might come up with an excuse to go down there…Elise wouldn’t ignore me in front of Zoey, would she? She wouldn’t want Zoey to get suspicious and start asking questions.”

“Oh, Anna, I don’t think that’s-“

“She won’t talk to anyone else, Faith. I am not going to watch her ruin one of the best relationships Zoey has ever had. What if she had been hitting on Sean?”

I could see Anna’s point but I also think that if Anna uses Zoey’s presence to force Elise to talk to her, things are going to be absolutely awful for all four of us. Just then someone hit my buzzer and I told Anna I had to go, hung up, and opened the door to find Sean standing in my hallway.

“Hey,” I said.

He walked in, gave me a kiss, and then walked me into my living room. We sat on the couch and Sean rubbed Murphy’s back to get him to stop meowing over his arrival.

“I’ve got a present for you.” He said smiling. I looked at him with confusion.

“Why?”

“I can’t give my girlfriend a gift?” He said reaching into his coat pocket.

Sean pulled out a black velvet jewelry box and placed it on my knee. He watched my face closely as I looked down and realized what it was. I picked it up with a little bit of fear and panic; if this was an engagement ring…it seemed a little premature and I would have to turn him down.

“Are you going to open it?”

“Uh…what’s in it?”

“Just open it, Faith.”

I pulled the box open and saw a flash of silver tied to a red ribbon. It took me a moment to realize what exactly was in the box.

“A key?”

“It’s a key to my apartment. I thought that you should have one since you’ve been spending so much time there.”

“Oh,” relief washed over me.

“Here, where are your keys? I’ll put it on your key loop.” Sean extended his hand so he could take the key from me.

I handed it to him and pointed to my purse sitting on the armchair next to my couch. He slipped the key on the loop and then slid off the couch.

“What are you doing?”

“Freaking you out even more.” He said. He got on one knee, took my left hand, and slipped the key loop over my ring finger, “Faith will you do me the honor of taking this key to my apartment.”

“Oh, shut up!” I said hitting him with a throw pillow, “What was I supposed to expect? You put the thing in a ring box!”

“I thought it was a fun idea….” He said pulling me onto the floor and holding my arms down so I couldn’t hit him with the pillow anymore, “Just because you had a panic attack doesn’t mean it wasn’t funny to me.”

I moved my left hand from his and held it out, “It looks good, right?” I said looking at my hand as if it had a ring on it.

Sean laughed and gave me a kiss which quickly developed into a pretty heated make out session. It wasn’t long until his hands started moving up my legs and eventually my dress where he put his guitar-playing skills to work. After we got done, well, after I was done, Sean lifted himself off of me and helped me get up.

“I have to go,” he said, sounding disappointed, “Gerry will be really angry if I’m late again.”

“Okay,” I said, I wanted to ask Sean what exactly was going on with Gerry, but it wasn’t the best time to ask him.

He stood in my doorway, not wanting to leave and things were teetering on the verge of having another make out session when I stopped him.

“Do you want a key?” I asked.

“Not if you don’t want to give it to me…”

“Just a minute.” I walked into my kitchen where I had a bill box with an extra key hanging off of it, grabbed it, and met Sean at my door. I pressed it into his hand, gave him a kiss, and then sent him on his way so Gerry wouldn’t get angry again.