6.

April 8, 1994

Hey, I'm on a roll today. I refused an assignment to Rwanda today citing conflict of interest because the co-agent assigned is doing my ex-wife, but the ball's honest truth is that I just didn't want to leave Charlie for a month. It will probably mean my exile to the shit list and I'll get the first lame thing to come along, but I don't care.

Tonight I told her I loved her, and damned if she didn't say it back. But I pissed her off later when I still wouldn't have sex with her, much less stay the night. I'm probably an idiot. Hell, not even probably.

He killed his career that day, and I didn't realize it. If I had, I would have told him to take the assignment, because I would still be there when he got back. He knew it would mean more than exile to the assignment dregs; it would mean being taken off the roster that would advance him and put him into the pool of those who just didn't get the sensitive jobs, and would eventually land him behind a desk, but he did it anyway. I naively assumed it meant he would just have to wait for another good assignment. If I had understood, I would have realized then how much he already loved me, and I wouldn't have been aching to hear it.

I also naively thought that when he did say it, and when we both knew how each other felt, that ache would diminish, but it only got worse, and so did he. When we went back to my apartment that evening, I just thought he would stay; he'd told me he loved me and was obvious that he meant it. I told him I loved him, too, and I was sure that it didn't sound like I was saying it just to say it back. We'd had an incredible evening together; he'd been goofy and charming, telling me he was taking me to this 5 star restaurant (that he knew I would not want to go to; our first date had been someplace outrageously expensive and pretentious, and we left after appetizers because I was so uncomfortable there) and then dancing; he drove to Chuck E. Cheese first. He'd orchestrated getting me to dress for fine dining; instead, we played Skee Ball for an hour before heading for Red Lobster. We ended up at a club near my apartment, and danced for at least two hours. When he said he loved me, I nearly melted onto the floor, and I just assumed that when he took me home, he would stay.

I was more hurt than ticked off when he went back to his own apartment, and before he was even to the parking lot I was on the phone crying to my best friend. How could he possibly say he loves me, but not want to be with me? She laughed, amused with how dense I really was, and told me I was asking the wrong person.

And she was right. If I wanted to be with him, I had to be able to talk to him about it, so I did the only thing I could think of. I drank half a bottle of wine and drunk dialed him at two in the morning. I don't think I even let him get two words in, he just listened to my crying, whiny, tipsy questions, and when I finally stopped to catch my breath, he just sighed I'll be there in five minutes.

He wound up spending the night, but not like I'd hoped. He pulled me out onto the balcony, as far from my bedroom door as he could get, and held me until I wasn't such a sobbing mess, and then he started to explain. He wasn't that guy and never would be; all those women I forced him to go out with, they all knew what he was up to and he did nothing more than kiss a few of them on the cheek, and that was out of gratitude that they were willing to help him get even a slim shot with me. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd had sex and wanted to be with me more than I could even realize, but...he wasn't that guy. He thought that if I had waited that long (I was 23, pushing 24) then I waited for a reason and he wasn't going to take that away from me if it wasn't one hundred per cent right.

When I tried to counter with “I thought you said you loved me,” he was as gentle as I could have hoped for when he said that was exactly why he would wait. He loved me, and when he was completely sure that I was truly ready and not just slightly horny and very curious, he'd hold nothing back.

He may not have known, but by the time morning rolled around and he was still there with me, on the sofa with his arms wrapped around me, I knew I wanted to marry him.