To see you in the morning light

I had been nervous up to this point. So nervous. Could I do it? Could I walk into that room and look into his eyes in person? The eyes of the man I've spent months getting to know? Eyes I'd looked into over a webcam, seen in a dozen pictures? The eyes behind a hundred funny stories, a handful of sad ones; eyes that would speak the story of my future.

Could I hear his voice in person? A voice whose accent had made me weak in the knees? A voice that spoke opinions on things that mattered to me, things we agreed on and sparred over? A voice that had already confessed "I love you" hundreds of times and a dozen different ways? A voice that had christened me with literally dozens of petnames, some funny, some cute, some tender, but all of them sweet and intimate?

Taking a deep, shaky breath, I smooth down my blue flowery sundress, the one I'd picked just for this moment. The moment we'd find out if we were as kismet in person as we'd been online and then for what had to be hundreds of hours on the phone. The moment I'd sacrificed so much for, taking a leap of faith and finally getting out of a marriage that was okay at times and *really not okay* at times. This moment that would make or break them as a couple.

Nerves, nerves, nerves as I shakily knock on the door.

He opens the door, dressed in slacks and a dress shirt, looking dapper and handsome, his captivating eyes even more entrancing in person, his delicious lips even more amazing this close to them. Before I can even stop to think my nerves and every ounce of anxiety or doubt or wonderment melts away. He reaches for me as I let everything I'd been carrying fall to the floor. The door to the hotel room doesn't even close before his arms are around my waist, pulling me in close to him. My arms slide around his neck and with a breathy, whispered, "hi", lips almost touching, I realize this is everything. This is what romance writers write about. This is why those crazy kids, Romeo and Juliet, drank the poison. This is why Johnny died so soon after losing June.

Our lips touch and I'm overcome with the sensation that I might be literally falling. I feel lightheaded and my heart is pounding out of my chest. It's as if the world has melted away, but is spinning all at once. I wonder for a brief moment if I might actually faint but know that if I do he will catch me, as he's always done. As the kiss deepens and he pulls me closer still, his hands travel up and he runs his fingers through my hair while I travel my hands down and clench my fists in the soft fabric of his shirt.

After several minutes, the kiss ends, though the embrace remains. We press our foreheads together and he whispers at me again, "hi Beautiful". A simple sentence, one he's said to me a hundred times, but it has so much more power with it now. I've never felt more beautiful in my life.

The night goes on, with lots of time spent simply lying in each other's arms talking, though we have spent so much time deep in conversation already. We walk down for pizza at a place he's been talking up for weeks. I spend a lot of time just looking at him, studying every single feature he has. He does the same with me. Despite his assertion that he's not into PDA's, he holds my hand everywhere we go. Like the true gentleman he is, he takes my hand to help me out of a chair. But mostly we just talk...which is funny because that's what we've spent months doing.

Because we're old We go to bed early, listening to the tv, sleeping back to back because sleep is about sleep and neither of us are huge believers in snuggling when one needs to sleep. I wake up a few times in the middle of the night when he reaches for me or to reach for him. I press my face into the soft flesh in between his shoulder blades and kiss the back of his neck. I take his hand. I feel his arms slide around my waist and pull me close against him a few times. I feel myself smile at this and how even in the middle of the night with sleep being of the utmost importance to us, we still feel the need to touch each other. Perhaps it's the distance or the knowledge that I'll be going home in a few days, but it's sweet and romantic and tender and intimate.

With the first morning light streaming through a crack in the curtains I awake, surprised. I am not, however, surprised at where I am or who I am with...and that's the surprising apart. I occasionally awake disoriented in my own home. Not only am I not in my own home, I'm in a hotel room, in a state I've never been to, sleeping for the first time next to a man I have loved for just 6 months. Just before opening my eyes I say a little prayer - "Please God, don't let this be a dream...let this, let him be real". He's already awake and sitting up and has turned on the news, a fascination and habit for both of us, but he isn't watching the news. He's smiling down at me and, as if he can't stop it, he's stroking my hair. Seeing my eyes open at him, he whispers, "good morning Princess". He lays back down and wraps me up again in his arms and we share what feels like a million good morning kisses. I can think of nothing but how I wish I could linger in this moment, in this place, in this bliss, forever, with him.