Valentines Weekend – Part 1

It’s been… more than a rough week. A rough few months, really. The recession is not fun, nor was being without my laptop, so with money worries and the inability to get some release via art and writing, I’ve been a bit of a stressed-out mess.

I like Valentines, though. In the past, when I was young, it was just a sort of embarrassment-ridden sideshow that I hoped would pass by without any stupid pranks coming my way. Once I actually started doing that whole relationship thing, it’s always been something i enjoyed – though for Dave and I, who keep up a pretty-much constant stream of romance, trying to think up a way to make Valentines different was always going to be a struggle.

This week, in particular, has been quite the mix – I only just got my laptop back, and having the tool for my artistic release back within my reach has infused me with an odd, work-obsessed desperation to use it and to create. Around mid-week, Dave kept me on the phone all the walk home and I stated, too sharply, that I wanted to have some peace at home to work instead of going to Inverness – only to step into the door and find the house candlelit, and Dave waiting on the coach with a movie night prepared. Thoughts of work were quickly abandoned, but that didn’t stop the feelings of guilt… I try very hard to balance work, art and love and keep running semi-independently, and it’s very easy to mis-step.

Valentine’s Eve

On the Friday before Valentines, I was asked to head into Inverness after work. After messing up with my unwillingness earlier that week, I boarded the next bus after work and headed in – plotting to get off at a shop along the way and meet Dave in the restaurant/pub with a bunch of roses.

Just as I entered the city, a phonecall saying that police had led to some amount of unsettlement amongst our group and moving of locations led to a quick side-step from “I’m still outside of Inverness” to “meet me in three minutes”.
I met Dave on the street and we headed to another pub, before myself – all tea-drinking aside – had to leave due to lack of under-18s license. So we headed to Wetherspoons, a personal favorite due to half-decent prices and comfy seating, and met a huge group of friends – some old, some new, many… questionable (:P), and… well, were about as social as a besotted, eyes-only-for-each-other couple are expected to be pre-Valentines – which is to say, not very.

All the while, plans of a secret event this evening prevented ny real movement on my part for my own Valentines plans – but I still manged to pull a few strings and head out in search of a scanner cable, where my lover found me at the tills moments away from hiding a dozen red roses. Pocketing my credit card and sheepishly handing him the bunch wasn’t my most suave moment, but it did the trick, and one quick ‘Valentines meal’ at Burger King later, we were on a bus and I was trying not to be intruiged by Dave and our close friend Alex (designer of the ‘em’ logo on the main page of used-goods) passing cryptic exchanges about champagne.

As we left the city and drove onto the dark road between Inverness and Nairn, I tried to rest a little against the window, something that never works for me due to the way they rattle on cars and buses. Dave offered his shoulder, and I accepted, only to hear as I was snuggling there – “Shhh, sshhh…”

I glanced up, a little surprised, only to have Dave explained it was something he did to help me return to sleep when I had nightmares. Okay, I’m a sap… d’awww.

Not long after that, the status quo flipped a bit and Dave ended up asleep on my shoulder while I brushed his hair with my fingers. The main roads passed us in darkness, and I only woke him as we neared out stop.

After that, Dave and I, along with Alex and his Valentines date, Denise, headed home, where I was promptly commanded to tidy the living room and keep out of the kitchen. This order was interpreted by me as a request to go upstairs and browse the internet until I found out what was going on, and I did
Out of nowhere, midnight arrived.

As I contemplated the warmth of the bed-covers that were currently being hoarded by Denise, and busied myself forcing my scanner into compliance with the Macbook, Alex himself appeared with a comment that’s probably best not repeated in type. It was an imaginative way to tell me Dave wanted me, to say the least.

Avoiding the tug of the off-limits kitchen’s mystery, I stepped into the kitchen. The lights were off, the the room was lit a soft orange by the glow of our most recent furniture addition, a beautiful electric fireplace. Dave was sitting close to it, and we wished each other Happy Valentines as he pulled me onto his lap.

My news flash on how I’d finally got the scanner working was deftly muted by his soft words about how much he loved me, and always wanted to be with me.. and then, he took out a small, silver box. I think you can guess what was inside.

Everything suddenly slotted into place. A few days ago, when Dave was getting me to try on a collection of fashion jewelry he was going to give to Alex to hawk, and he convinced me to try some of my more ‘proper’ rings; the small box I’d been curiously prodding in the front pocket of his hoodie all night, assuming it was a small, ornamental present; even the comment that got me down here all wove into each other into a cunning plan that really, truly, could not fail.

Of course I did. This was the most wonderful man I had ever met – a shining example that romance, chivalry and kindness was all alive and well, a perfect example of good-looks. He was my boyfriend, my housemate, the man I woke up to each morning, or had fall asleep beside me. He was the one who put up with all my moods and quirks, as much of a challenge of a girlfriend they made me, and as little as I deserved his care. The one who only seemed to get more handsome, who could look like a god in a thrown-on hoodie, whose hair only seemed to look more brilliant as it did more disheveled. My Dave.

So it was that with a few phonecalls – some excitedly received, others (at midnight, not unexpectedly) less gratefully taken – and far too many texts, coupled with a few Bebo and Facebook status changes and sayings, the world came that this wonderful man wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I was engaged.