Bridges-23

Chapter 23

…………………. Sigh….oh Brandon…..I’m crying but not bawling at what just happened and what he said and just everything that just happened. I pull my jacket around myself some more and hug my travel mug more and leave just going for a walk out and over my clearings and stuff. I kind of do have a nice place property wise. I haven’t walked it since I was a young teenager.

I don’t get too far just to the edge of my woodlot and walk along it until I’m lined up with the house. Tears and winter’s not a great mix even though I’m rubbing the tears away from my face it’s still wetness and even if it’s not that cold compared to a lot of other places in Canada I’m still good and chilly when I get back into the house about forty minutes later.

There is this feeling though coming inside. It’s warm and there smells coming off of the kitchen from Jenny baking what smells like a pie and the lights are down low so just the Christmas lights are shining and the…and my family (Smiles for that thought.) are in the living room still doing Christmassy things.

I hear the sounds of A Charlie Brown Christmas playing on the TV. I get out of my jacket and Dad’s boots and slip into the hall and take a peek inside at them on the floor and the couch and just watching the show like we’d have done if we were kids.

I can’t help but to smile at the whole scene.

My life’s gotten so different than it was before.

I slip upstairs and hear Cass talking on the phone in our room.

Our room.

I look in and sort of lean on the door frame and hug myself but in that kinda good way. Y’know holding onto myself to make sure this is real, that it’s not all a dream.

Cass is in one of my armed forces t-shirts and pajama bottoms with the drawstrings hanging out the front and I can see the top part of her panties peeking out cutely front and back. She’s wearing her Chilly-Willy panties (Little old era cartoon penguin.) and they look so cute on her. But she looks more that cute she looks beautiful…

She’s talking and while she’s talking she’s got the bottom of my t-shirt pushed up and she’s absently running her hand over her belly….

Oh God Brandon you were right, you were right.

How can I not have gotten how head over heels I am with this woman? Just watching her doing that and seeing, really seeing Cass with her guard down like this open and talking to her Mom is just.

I feel it now. Flooding out from my heart until it’s filling the top of my head to the soles of my feet.

Messy blonde hair, the way she bite, scrape, chews at her bottom lip, the way she moves, padding around the room barefoot…I love her like that, it’s not a barefoot and pregnant thing but I just love the sight on her feet and legs over the floor of Our room as she’d slip out of bed to go to the bathroom… even just this. Cass being unaware of me watching as she moves just so…it’s not the sexy part of it that gets me. It’s the fact I know the way she moves and feeling that Cass is just that part of me that’s been missing for so long.

All my life long really.

I walk in and wrap my arms around her from behind and sort of bury my face in the sweetness that’s her hair and the smell of her skin and just in holding her. I put my hand over hers and rub her belly again.

“I love You.”

“Oh…Sam…, Sam…Momma? Can I let you go?” She leans into me and I know there’s fresh tears slipping down her face just from the tone of her voice just like I know that there’s a smile there too. “I love you too Momma…” she hits the button to hang up and I take the phone from her and set it on the night stand and open up the second drawer where I keep Mom’s jewelry box.

Yes I take out the ring while my back’s turned to her and when I turn around I reach out and pull her into a long deep sweet kiss. She returns the kiss with so much love and so much passion it nearly sucks the breath out of me.

There is a little hint there of what Brandon said, that well hidden slice of lonely, desperate, please let me be good enough buried under the happy stuff.

I sink to both knees and look up at her.

“Casey Cavanaugh, I’ve been in love with you I honestly think since the day you pulled into my yard. There’s been a lot in my life I’ve fought with myself over and a lot of second thoughts and a lot of doubts and stuff. But I’ve never been more sure in my entire life about this.”

“Sam…?”

“Cass… I love you, I love you and I Need you in my life, I Need you so much in my life, lover, mother of our child, My best friend…But I want more…I need more…”

“More?”

“Cass…Please, be my wife? Please marry me?”

I take out my Mother’s ring and then take her hand and look up at her and there’s tears streaming down her face and dripping onto the floor from the dimples of this smile that I’ve never seen on her face before.

I’ve seen her happy but this was…oh god is this what it’s really like? I swear just being able to make Her smile like that took part of that war torn part of my heart and just …just healed some of the emotional hamburger that it had been made into.

It’s when you look into to the eyes of THE one and you got to make them feel like that.

Guy, girl, in-between….when you find that real heart to heart match and you made a hurt like that stop.

Soul mates are real.

There it is… finally the Why to everything really.

“yes…” her voice is weepy squeaky and tiny like she’s trying to find the words and she nodding her head up and down and once I slide Mom’s ring on her finger she slips to her knees and she looks me into my heart and soul and says in this love laden whisper through her tears.

“yes.”

Then we’re kissing and I’m not sure who’s the top in these kisses because I’m kissing her as hard and as soft and as gentle and deep as she’s kissing me and we both stay like that and kiss and cry, sweet happy tears for a long time.

We’re leaning in each others arms almost that snuggle tangle of arms and legs with her head against my cheek and me resting my head on her shoulder when she asks what I was sure she was going to ask.

“What about you and Brandon?”

“He told me to ask you, pretty much kicked my butt emotionally out of being scared to admit how much I love you.”

“You have a nice butt.”

“So do you.” I kiss nibble on her neck.

“No but really I know that you love him.”

“Yeah, I do but I’m In Love with you, there’s a difference.”

“You still want to sleep with him?”

“Not at the moment?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know. The thing is I’m not a Lesbian, I’m really, really selectively bisexual. Well really selectively sexual I can count the people I’ve been with in my entire life on one hand and most of them are here in this house. I thought I was just pretty much Het but that I’d never really get the chance to see that side of myself. But the two of you changed everything.”

“Sorry.” She tickles my side with her fingers a bit. I laugh a bit and slap at her fingers until she stops…well me gnawing on her neck to give her a hickie might have done that too. I lean my head against hers and sigh.

“Brandon’s my first guy, my first love and honestly when it comes to men he’s pretty much it. I know I’m not all that experienced but I’m not blind either and really there’s no one else guy wise that attracts me. But you’re completely different. He’s that Guy, like my Dad and that might just be part of it. But you Cass…”

“Me what?” Cass turns to face me looking into my eyes. She’s just so beautiful; I can’t help but touch her face memorizing it, just so…

“You’re it, you’re everything I ever wanted and while he’s that guy Cass you’re that happily ever after knight in shining armor that every little girl dreams of. I just never dreamed she’d be a lady knight and that she’d be so beautiful.”

She blushes even as my fingers trace her cheek and I kiss her again but somewhere inside I’m really digging deep and yeah…there’s that little girl inside that was kissing her dream prince and now she knows that her dream prince is this sweet, brave, amazing princess instead with the softest lips ever…

And when we break that kiss our eyes lock as they open and we both have to inhale this long breath…a gasp…

No…

It’s that one true love Snow-White waking up breath.

We hear Ryan yell upstairs to us. “Who want’s pie?!”

I push Cass back onto the floor gently and lean over and kiss her and make my way down tugging off her pajama bottoms gently then inching off her cute little penguin panties and smile at her.

“I do.”