Late Night Surprise

A staccato rapping noise wakes me up from a sound slumber. Someone is knocking urgently on the window behind my bed. Simultaneously, my phone starts vibrating, it’s blue light illuminating my dark bedroom.

“Ugh,” I mumble, lunging for the phone on my nightstand. I know who it is without looking.

“What do you want?” I ask grumpily, wiping my eyes.

“Let me in.” He sounds drunk.

“Why?” I ask. I try to sound angry, but my voice gives me away. I’ve already melted.

“I don’t have a ride home. I lost my house key. I miss you. And I’m sorry.”

His words spill out in a drunken jumble. I can hear in his voice that he’s smirking. He probably knows that I’m already half way to the door.

“Fine,” I mutter. I’m smiling now too. I cross the small apartment to the door. When I swing it open, I find John grinning, the porch light illuminating his high cheekbones.

“Hello,” he says slyly. His is so smug. I want to slap him and kiss him at the same time.

“What are you---“. He cuts off my sentence by snatching my glasses off my face. He wildly tosses them across my counter as they skitter into the sink.

“Hey!” I protest, but he pulls me into a bear hug, smashing my face against the center of is chest. I wrap my arms around him and breathe in his scent. John strokes the back of my hair and kisses the top of my head.

I missed you so much, I think, but I’d never say it out loud. Anyways, I’m sure he already knows.

He pulls me away from him, grabs my glasses out of the sink, and roughly puts them back on my face.

“Are you done being mad?” He looks at me and all of his smug bravado is gone. I get a glimpse of the lost little boy who lives under his fuck boy façade.

“I guess so,” I mutter. I’m trying not to smile. He sees me crack and take advantage of my weakness. He grabs my face with both hands and kisses me hard. I don’t resist. I really want him to.

I kiss him back harder, and he seems encouraged. He picks me up and I wrap my legs around his torso. I intertwine my hands into his hair as we continue kissing.

All of a sudden, he puts me down and says quickly, “I have a present for you!”

I roll my eyes. John’s presents are always either gag gifts or stolen.

“Greattttt,” I exaggerate the word sarcastically.

“Wait a second!” He says, looking around my living room. “Speaking of presents, where is our love rock?!”

He ransacks my bookshelf where he had left a smooth, garden rock that he stole from a home down the street. I look at him sheepishly.

“Well, I threw it away. I never wanted to see you again.”

He dramatically throws himself on his knees in front of me, and grabs me around my waist. Shaking me around, he says, “How could you?!”

I giggle at his drunken antics. I’m used to them by now. I’ve known him for almost a year, and he is always silly and rarely serious. He likes to keep things surface level. I can tell he’s deflecting. He doesn’t want to talk about the fact that I told him to leave me alone. We haven’t seen each other in two months.

He jumps up from his knees and shouts, “Wait here!” as he flings open my apartment door. I had been so distracted by his arrival, that I hadn’t noticed a few items he had left on my porch.

The first was a take-out bag containing his favorite messy noodle dish that he always gets all over my apartment. It’s his signature after a night out. The second object, he picks up quickly and hides behind his back.

“Close your eyes,” he says smiling.

I comply.

“Hold out your haaaandssss,” he says, in his silly sing-song voice.

I do, and he sets something in my hands. I open my eyes as I simultaneously recoil from the damp, crumbly object in my palms.

“John, what the fuck!!” I scream.

In my hands, he has placed a huge clump of dirt. In it, sits a spring of three orange marigold flowers. I can feel their roots touch my palm as I gape at him incredulously. A handful of damp soil with some sad looking, half crumpled flowers was not what I was expecting.

My voice gets shrill as I berate him.

“First, it was the old, shitty stolen door mat from the realty office down the street. Then it was that stupid rock. Then, the pumpkins, one of which was already rotting, and now you put a clump of dirt into my bare hands at three in the morning and you expect me to be happy about it?!”

He throws his head back and laughs. John is honestly like a mischievous, rambunctious little boy.

“Here, let me help you.” He gingerly takes the flowers out of my hand, as though they’re precious and important. I sigh as he sits the dirt on my counter. I start washing the dirt off my hands. When I’m done, he steers me towards the couch and makes me sit down.

“Sit down, babe, while I take care of it,” he says. I roll my eyes again.

He rummages around in my kitchen cabinets and pulls out an old tea cup. He takes the clump of marigolds, and plants them gently in the cup. He walks them over to my front window, and sits the teacup of flowers right in the center.

I sigh. “Where did you even get those?”

He smirks and says, “Don’t worry about it.”

Later, I’m lying in bed next to him in the dark, listening to him breathe. I assumed he was asleep, but all of a sudden, he quietly says, “Hey.”

“Hey, what?” I reply.

“I think might I love you.”

I wasn’t expecting him to say it.

He continues, “Not in the normal sort of way, but in a different way. But I do. I love you.”

I smile even though he can’t see me in the darkness.

“I love you too,” I reply. And I mean it, as I think of the teacup of marigolds on my windowsill.