The End of Everything

Aella POV:

I had been with Derek for five years and this was the first time I saw him twitching with nerves. I was with him when he played his first game with the Rangers in 2010, but he was calm then. Now he kept glancing between the table that was being set in the back corner for us and me.

He loosened the Windsor knot of his tie and pulled down the cuffs of his jacket while staring at the table. As the waiter started walking towards us Derek wiped his hand on his pants then took my hand and leading me to the back of the restaurant.

We had lived in New York together for two years and ate dinner out almost every week, but we’d never been here. It was some fancy frou-frou place that forced Derek to wear a suit and me to be in a dress.

I looked around at the nearly silent restaurant. Some people were making small talk, but otherwise there was no conversation. This was not a place for two regular twenty-three year olds to eat dinner. We should be sitting at a McDonald’s eating two Big Macs, instead I was debating between a forty dollar filet mignon or a forty three dollar lobster: the cheapest meals on the menu.

When the waiter came I picked the filet and Derek got a seafood pasta dish that was around sixty dollars.

He kept looking at my hand and then he tentatively reached for it as if I would deny him. I laced my fingers through his and smiled up at him. Again he wasn’t looking at me he was looking out the window at the packed and snowy city streets.

I sighed and pulled my hand away asking, “Is everything okay? You seem out of it.”

Derek shrugged and took a swig of his Pinot Noir to make sure he didn’t have to answer me with words. We sat in silence again until the waiter came back over.

“Your orders Mademoiselle and Monsieur. “ This wasn’t even a French restaurant and our server clearly didn’t speak the language. I smiled at him as he placed my dish in front of Derek and me.

After the waiter left I burst out laughing, disrupting the silence. Derek looked at me like I was crazy and I couldn’t stop the giggles. I pointed at my steak that was about the size of half my palm. He finally realized what was funny and joined in my laughter quietly.

I reached for my napkin to drape across my lap. I pulled the ring off the rolled cloth and out fell my silverware and a piece of paper.

The paper had Derek’s illegible handwriting scrawled across it. I sat there for a minute with my napkin a few inches off my lap trying to figure out the first word of his sentence. It was my name, but the rest of the words I couldn’t figure out so I just looked up at him smiling knowing he had to be something sweet.

“Thanks Der,” I reached for his hand and accidentally knocked the ring that had been around my napkin onto the floor. He looked really scared for a second before swallowing back his emotions.

I leaned over, careful of my low cut and tight dress, reaching for the ring. Easily I grabbed it and sat back up in my seat. It was a pretty silver ring and small with an engraving inside. I read the engraving: you are my everything. This restaurant was really nice.

I picked up Derek’s to see what was written on his and there was nothing. I picked mine back up and finally registered what was happening. There was a small bugle on the other side of the ring. It was a diamond.

Cautiously I picked back up the note and struggled with the four words after my name: will you marry me? Tears brimmed my eyes and I looked up at Derek who seemed very interested in one pepper flake on his pasta.

He looked over at me and smiled sheepishly. In between giggles I gasped, “Yes.”

Derek sighed heavily and blew a kiss at me over the table, “ I should have waited until dessert so we wouldn’t have to eat all this.”

“Who says we have to? Leave the money and a tip then leave.” Derek reached into his back pocket fished out three fifties and we were on our way out of the restaurant thanking the servers.

On the street a cold chill ran up my body from the winter snow falling. Derek put his jacket over my shoulders and hailed a taxi quickly. Once inside he gave out the address and wrapped him arms around my waist tightly. I turned in my seat to face him and grabbed his blue tie to pull him closer so our noses pressed together. He tilted his head and slipped his lips to mine.

They were warm and soft compared the cold air around us and his scratchy stubble. He pulled me off the beat up seats and into his lap. His hands left my waist to rest on the back of my neck and my cheek to deepen the kiss. He tasted like wine.

The jacket he put on my shoulders fell off, but the chilly air within the taxi didn’t bother me. I was wrapped up in the warmth of the kiss and Derek himself. He slowly slipped his mouth to my recently exposed shoulders and collarbones. I pulled at his shirt trying to get him as close as possible as his lips moved back up my neck.

The taxi slammed on the breaks and I almost flew off his lap. The driver glared at us through the mirror and I threw the door open. Derek grabbed his jacket and a twenty for the driver. I was already done punching in the code to get in the building and now held the door wide open for Derek. He ran in the door grabbing my hips and dragging me to the elevator.

He was about to push me against the wall when an elderly voice asked, “Which floor?”

Derek’s eyes grew to the size of saucers and his mouth fell open a little before I breathlessly said, “18.”

As we stood next to some sixty-year-old woman Derek pulled my hair and kissed me when I winced. She stood there not looking at us directly, but staring in the reflection of the metal. Then the bell rang and she exited leaving us alone for thirteen more floors.

Derek started to trace the low V of my dress with his warm fingertips as I undid his tie and started on his button down shirt.

“Ding.” We both raced down the hall to our door and Derek dug around in his pocket searching for the key. I started to tap my foot and roll my eyes at the flustered look on his face. After a minute he pulled it out and we walked in to the barks of Hutch, my German Sheppard. I leaned over and pet the big dog and heard a zipper come undone. The spaghetti straps of my dress fell forward and I felt a cold breeze down my back.

Derek slipped his hands through the opening and left paths of warmness across my sides to my belly button, where his hands laid at rest. He walked us forward into the bedroom and closed the door with his foot.

Without a word I was spun and then pushed onto the plush covers beneath his firm warm body.