In This City

My hand stayed firmly gripped in Jamie’s as he dragged me down the murky side streets of New York City. It was 10 o’clock at night, it was cold and I was hungry. We had managed to miss our dinner reservation because we had gotten – ahem – distracted, or more accurately Jamie had become distracted when he ‘accidentally’ walked in on me getting dressed.

“So much for a romantic night,” I muttered my breath, cursing again as the heel of my boot got caught on yet another crazy paving disaster of a pathway. I heard Jamie chuckle from beside me; I didn’t have to look up to know that his signature smirk would be plastered on his face. The very same smirk that made me fall for him in the first place.

Time Elapse

“Hi, I’m James.” He said, a lopsided grin illuminating his delicate features. He brushed his fringe out of his chocolate brown eyes, before offering his hand for me to shake, which I did, all the while trying to keep my breathing steady and the butterflies in my stomach at bay.

“Hi.” I breathed back, releasing his hand and signalling for him to follow me out of the reception area, and into the school grounds. The bitter September air nipped at my cheeks and I pulled my jacket tighter around my waist to prevent it from chilling me even further.

“So, you got a name?” he asked with a smirk as we headed towards the new students registration centre. I mentally slapped myself for my stupidity and quickly conjured up an answer before I could let his smooth American accent distract me any further.

“Yeah, sorry, I’m Laura.” I said trying to laugh it off, “It’s just, you know, first day of term and stuff. I’m still trying to get my head together.”

He chuckled at that, shaking his head a little, the same contagious grin still lighting up his face. I couldn’t help but smile too as he looked back in my direction and parted his lips to speak again.

“So...” He trailed off, seemingly trying to think of something to say.

“Not too good with small talk?” I asked. He replied with a shake of his head and a shy half-smile. “Don’t worry we can skip it.” I concluded.

“Skip it?” He looked confused now, something told me he wasn’t used to the ‘not-so-polite’ side of the British culture. I could pretty much guess that in his head, when somebody said ‘England’ he thought of Buckingham Palace and families settling down in their drawing rooms to afternoon tea. Well, clearly he has never been to or heard of Coventry until now.

“Yeah,” I replied, “Skip it. Like avoid the awkward ‘what-do-I-say-to-this-complete-stranger’ stage and just go straight to pretty much casual friends. Believe me, it’s a much better way to meet people.” I laughed inwardly at the memories of meeting my close group of friends that is until I noticed that James hadn’t really spoken in a while. Oh crap, I’ve probably scared the cute, new guy away with my incessant rambling. How could I have managed to embarrass myself twice in the space of about five minutes? I was about to try and make some attempt at a recovery but – thankfully – he spoke before I could.

“Okay, in that case I am going to nickname you...” He drummed his fingers against his chin in a thoughtful gesture, “What’s your middle name?” He asked suddenly.

“Uh, Jane.” I answered sceptically, wondering where he was going with this.

“Perfect.” He exclaimed excitedly, “I will nickname you L.J, it’s much more American.” He deduced confidently.

“Okay then, I will nickname you Jamie, it’s much more British.” I retaliated. We both laughed at our offhand stupidity and he caught me off guard by slinging his arm over my shoulders. I abruptly stopped giggling when I felt him pull me a little closer; he looked down at me with a smirk. A smirk that was way too seductive and sexy to be present on a 15 year old boy’s
face.

End Time Elapse

I was forced to extract myself from the blissful memory when I felt Jamie’s hand on my shoulder, shaking me slightly to bring me back to reality. My eyes focused on his face, which was now a few inches away from mine, he smiled when he noticed my recognition. Not a smirk or a playful grin, a genuinely content smile that he reserved only for me, one that made my stomach do somersaults and turned my heart into a jackhammer. I returned it and felt myself moving closer to him, unwittingly stretching my arms to reach around his neck.

His smile slowly faded to an intense stare as his hand that was previously on my shoulder, moved up to caress the curve of my neck. His slight touch sent thrilling shivers throughout my body and my eyelids fluttered shut when I felt the warmth of his breath on my lips. His bottom lip lightly grazed mine and I outwardly sighed, tangling my fingers in his naturally thick hair. Soon, his lips were moving against mine in what was supposed to be a quick, tender, romantic kiss but it swiftly became deeper and deeper.

We both parted after a few minutes, gasping for breath and trying to figure out exactly when Jamie had found a wall to crush me up against. He looked up at me through lustrous lashes and let out a small, almost girlish, giggle.

“How do you always manage to distract me my love?” he enquired, with an extremely poor attempt at an English accent. You would think that after living in the UK for 6 years he would have picked up a little bit of a British twang, but then again, he has always been stubborn. His lips were slowly pecking at my neck and I arched my body slightly towards him. I felt him smirk into my skin.

“Well, I guess I’m just unbelievably irresistible” I replied, giggling slightly as I felt him tense up at my self-flattering response. He moved his face level with mine, a mocking stern expression adorning his features.

“You do realise that was your cue to compliment me, right?” I stayed silent with a teasing smirk on my lips whilst he watched me expectantly. “Goddamn, why can I never break you down?” he sighed exasperatedly.

I chuckled and pushed him away from me, brushing down my clothes and trying to fix my hair as best I could without a mirror. When I was satisfied that I looked halfway decent, I glanced across at my boyfriend who was – I’m ashamed to say – imitating my actions, only with much more precision. And a mirror. I cleared my throat; he looked up giving me a sheepish smile and fumbled to conceal his mirror in the pocket of his denim jacket.

He then gracefully made his way over to me and linked his fingers with mine; pulling me towards the mouth of the dark alley we had cut through. As we got closer to the end of the alley I could make out lights, lots of them, little fairy lights that twinkled and multiplied as we got closer. The dim, white glow that they produced allowed me to make out small details of our surroundings and I began to get a faint idea of where we had ended up. Although, why we had to take an unsafe backstreet route to get here I will never know.

We finally reached the beginnings of the strings of lights and my suspicions were confirmed. Jamie had brought me to our ‘secret spot’, a secluded corner of Central Park that we had frequented in our youth. When my parents and I had flown out to see his family it was often the only place we could go to get some peace; away from screaming mothers and guffawing fathers. The last time I had come here was my final trip with my parents – just before I turned 18 – and it felt so strange to be back five years down the line.

By now we had walked to the direct centre of the clearing; there were so many lights. Wrapped around the branches of overhanging trees and woven through the tangled leaves of the bushes. I was so taken aback by the elegantly simple beauty of the place that I didn’t even think to question why all of this was here. I suddenly felt underdressed in my vintage black cotton and lace dress, and I self-consciously ran my hands down my sides to smooth out all the invisible creases.

Then I felt Jamie behind me, his hand met mine on my right hip and his other swept a lock of hair over my shoulder. I could feel his warm breath at my ear.

“Why are you nervous?” He released my hip from his hand and instead, locked his arms around my waist, gently resting his head on my shoulder after placing a light kiss on it.

“Why did you bring me here? With all of this?” I asked quietly, gesturing to the decorated foliage surrounding us.

I heard him sigh lightly, “Because I wanted this to be special.” He answered in a low, tender voice.

“Wanted what to be special Jamie?” For some reason my heart was fluttering in my chest, skipping this way and that as I waited for his response. He didn’t say anything. Just as the anticipation was beginning to develop into anxiety, he sighed again and released me from his grip.

He walked so that he was standing in front of me and cupped my face in his hands. The softest of kisses was shared between us and then he leaned his forehead against mine, our lips a scant inch apart so that I could feel his shaky breaths mingle with mine.

“James.” I breathed. Running my hand along his taut bicep, urging him to continue with whatever it was he was doing. He kissed me again, simple yet complicated – firm yet tender. He released me from his delicate grip and lowered himself onto one knee.

“Wh-What are you doing?” I whispered, knowing full well what he was doing. If I thought my heart was skipping one too many beats before, it was nothing compared to now. My stomach dropped but my heart jumped up into my throat, my head seemed to disappear altogether, feeling lighter than the air around me. I hadn’t noticed my shaking hands until Jamie gripped them inside one of his, the other hand reaching inside his jacket pocket. He swiftly flicked the small, velvet box open to reveal a simple white gold ring with a diamond resting on the top of the band. By now tears were rolling down my cheeks constantly though I made no effort to wipe them away, I was too transfixed by Jamie’s eyes, deep pools of chocolate brown that twinkled in the dim light. He glanced up at me one last time and then cleared his throat.

“Laura, you know how much I love you. I’ve told you pretty much every single day since we’ve been together, but I’m just gonna tell you again,” He giggled slightly, making me smile, “God, whenever I’m away from you, I’m counting the seconds until I can see you - touch you again and when I’m close to you it’s never close enough. And now I’m gonna kick in with the clichés; you really are a drug for me – I can’t imagine my life without you, without seeing your face every day or being able to kiss you awake every morning. So with that being said; Laura Moore – will you marry me?”

So many emotions were crashing through me at that point, that it took me awhile to realise he was waiting for my answer. My voice couldn’t be trusted, so I simply grinned even wider than I already was and nodded my head franticly, knowing that if I opened my mouth the only thing to come out would be incoherent sobbing. He smiled back at me and slid the ring onto my finger – a perfect fit.

Jamie scooped me up into his arms, lifted me off the ground and swung me round – both of us laughing and beaming like maniacs. He eventually set me down but still held me as close to him as was physically possible.

“You tell anyone that I got so emotional and I’m gonna have to kill you,” I said into his chest, mocking seriousness. He just laughed and kissed the top of my head several times until we were both giggling again for no reason whatsoever.

“That was extremely cheesy by the way,” I said to him once we had calmed down.

He kissed me softly and said against my lips;

“Unashamedly cheesy.”