I was beginning to feel extremely lonely, as of late.  Despite our regular phone dates, it no longer felt like it was enough.  I knew it was wearing both Amelia and I down to a relatively thin point.  It had been six grueling and miserable weeks of me trying to put a front up.  My parents helped loads and wondered why Aiden had to speak to Amelia every night.  I had explained to my parents that Amelia and I were no longer, simply best friends; that things had changed and that our nightly conversations with Amelia was part of a promise made between she and my son.  My mother was on cloud nine.  It was like the day she found out she had a grandson.  She was over the moon and bouncing off the walls for weeks after she got the news.  My father was overjoyed about Amelia and me; telling me that it was about time that he got to see me happy and with someone that was right for me for a change.  I couldn’t have agreed more.  I was glad that she left to handle things with Adam but the longer it took for her to come back, the more my heart broke out of loneliness.  Last night was the hardest night.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was up and I really didn’t like the way she had become emotional with me and Aiden, over a simple story.  I was sitting on the couch, watching Aiden play with his Lego blocks, building me some kind of fort when my cell rang in my back pocket.  I looked and noticed a text message.

Scavenger hunt…  Are you ready?  Yes or No?  It was from Amelia.  I couldn’t help but smile.  I texted her back.

Yes.  I type.

First, you’ll need to drop Aiden off with your parents.  Don’t worry they already know he’s coming.  Text me when it’s done.

“Come on buddy, you’re going to Nana’s!”  I exclaim as I get up quickly.  Aiden jumped up and got excited.  I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on, what she had in store.  A scavenger hunt?  She wasn’t back.  I knew she wasn’t because she would have told me.

Half an hour later, I had dropped Aiden off at my parents’ place.  I looked over at Amelia’s house and smiled.  God, how I wish she was here.

I’m ready.  I tell her.

Good.  Let’s start.  She types.  My lawn is too long.  And I couldn’t help but laugh.

Is that a hint or a statement?  I write to her.

A statement.  Where am I?  And I thought about it.  I had my suspicion as to what she meant and I wasn’t off base when I walked out back toward the shed and found a note on some cardstock attached to the door.  It read:  Thanks for taking care of me all these years.  At the bottom, there was an arrow, indicating me to flip the card and so I did.  That one read: Follow the butterflies.  When I looked around her yard, I found that there were paper butterflies attached to sticks in her flower gardens.  I ran, picking each of them, realizing that they each had a word on them.  I knelt in the grass and realized I had to form a sentence with them.  After a few minutes of playing with them, I slowly read each word; castles, sand, beach.  I knew she meant the beach down the street.  So I jumped in my car, not caring how ridiculous it was for me to be driving there when it was a quick ten minute walk.  I saw a small plastic pale and shovel and a sign marked, Dig here.  I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else knew about this seeing it wasn’t exactly a private area despite the fact that only people from the neighborhood would pretty much come here.  After a moment with my thoughts, I grabbed the shovel and begin to dig in the marked spot.  I found another card.  This one read: Where you told me you loved me.  And I began to see the trend here.  I brought the pale and shovel with me, along with the note, and drove back to my parents’ place and parked.  I had told her that I loved her at her house, on her front porch to be exact.  As I walked up her empty driveway, I saw a little red heart hanging from her door knob.  I smiled at the memory of that night, then, looked down to read.  I love you.  I follow the little arrow indicating me to flip.  Our spot.  Call me when you get there.  I furrowed my brow, wondering why she wanted me to call her.  It was two o’clock in the afternoon.  She would be in the middle of visiting Adam right now.  I brushed the thought away and headed back towards Mom and Dad’s back yard.  I crossed into the thicket of trees.  My heart began to race, realizing that she had been taking me through time, making us relive special moments of our past.  I loved every minute of it.  As I started to see the clearing, I took out my phone and dialed her number.  I could have sworn I heard something.  As my feet moved forward, I realized I wasn’t making it up in my head.  I found Amelia’s cell on the ground, in a bed of leaves in front of our old fort.  I bent down to pick it up, holding it in my hands, staring at it, no longer able to process what was going on.

“I love you.”  I hear softly behind the fort.  I stand up straight to find myself looking at the most beautiful sight ever.  She ran over to me, jumping into my arms, crying.  I hadn’t realized I missed her so much until I myself felt my tears stinging my eyes, not caring of their betrayal.  When I felt my body able to sustain pulling away from her slightly, I grabbed her face in my hands and took a deep look into her eyes.  I love the smiles that reflected in those blue spheres.  I let my arms fall to her waist where they reached around her, pulling her into me as my forehead rested on hers.  We stood there for what felt like seconds when in reality, it could have been a few minutes; just staring at one another, feeling our contentment.

“I’m back.”  She whispers to me.

“For real?”  I ask her and her smile said it all.

“How does forever sound?”  She says as she kisses me long, hard and with such thirst that made my knees buckle.  She followed me down to the ground as we both sat there, on our knees, kissing.  As I assumed some of the control, I found that my body craved hers at an intensity I had never felt before.  I helped her into our fort and realized that she had planned ahead because we had blankets lining the floor.  We were running out of leg room seeing as this thing was built for two eleven years olds back in the day so I laid us down so our legs stuck out of the doorway, covering us with a blanket.  We spent the afternoon making mad passionate love in the comforts of our childhood hideout, secluded in the folds of the peaceful forest.  It was just my love and I and the serenity of the wilderness and I knew that if I didn’t have anything else in life, I’d still be the happiest I could be.  As per Amelia’s statement from earlier, forever had definitely sounded great.  As I looked into her eyes, playing with her hair, I couldn’t help but smile down at her.

“What?”  She asks me.

“Maybe absence really does make the heart grow fonder.”  I say.  “I never thought I could love you even more than I did the day you left but I was wrong.”

After collecting our phones and blankets, I walked Amelia back to her house.  She had told me that she had one last surprise but that this one, she needed my help with because it was for Aiden.  My heart rate picked up as I found myself curious as to what she had in store for my little man seeing as she outdid herself with me.   I, of course, agreed to help her out with her evil plan.  I had called my parents and made sure they were fine, handling my little monster for the night.  At Aiden’s usual bedtime, we kept up the guise that Amelia was still away and we conferenced ourselves in for our bedtime routine.

“Amelia, I want you to tell me a story.”  He tells her.

“Sure, little man.”  Amelia started and looked at me as I silently sat beside her.  “Have I ever told you the one about Mia, the little girl that came home only to fall in love with two boys?”

“No.  But it sounds girly!”  He giggled.  We could hear my mother and father chuckling in the background.

“You’re right.  It does.”  She says.  “How about you help me make it manlier then?”

“Sure!”  He cheered into the phone and he proceed asking if he could add fire trucks, police cars, monsters and goblins into the mix and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.  In the end, Aiden high-jacked the entire story which ended up not making much sense, except for Amelia’s part at the very beginning.

“I love you, little man.”  She told my son.

“I love you too.”  He said softly.  “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”  She says.  As we bid him goodnight, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Amelia.

“Now, what’s this thing you need help with?”  I asked her after we had hung up the phones.  When she showed me, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  She hugged me from behind and kissed my neck quickly.

“I told you that we’d be together and I’d never leave when I got back.  I meant it.”  She whispered.  “Do you think he’ll love it?”  And I stood there, in awe of the mural after mural of firemen, burning buildings, and the largest fire truck I could ever imagine.

“Love it?  I don’t think he’ll ever want to go home after seeing this room.”  I tell her, turning around, kissing her sweet lips.

“Good.  Because this is his home now, yours too.”  She tells me.

“Amelia Reed.”  I said, smirking down at her.  “Are you asking me to move in with you?”  She smiled sweetly, the lights dancing around in her eyes and nodded.  “Well you don’t have to ask me twice.”  I tell her and seal my answer with a kiss.

“Good.  Now that we have that settled, help me get this junk out of this room.”  She pointed to all of the furniture that still stood in the room.  “The new stuff is coming in tomorrow.”  She jumped up and down excitedly.

“There’s more?”  I ask her.

“Well, you didn’t expect him to sleep on the floor, did you?”  She tells me, teasingly rolling her eyes at me.

“But we just threw away a perfectly good bed.”  I tell her.  She laughed at me.

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Mr. Masterson?”  She poked my chest.  “When did you forget what kind of room this was and what I do for a living?”

We had gone to bed only to lie in each other’s arms.  Amelia had fallen asleep, almost instantly, whereas I, I could only watch her.  Despite the amazing day I had with her, I had a hard time convincing myself that this wasn’t a dream and that falling asleep would erase all of what had happened.

“Chris?”  She asked in a sleepy whisper.

“Mmm?”  I kiss her forehead.

“I’m not going anywhere.”  She tells me and lifts her head to look up at me.  “Now sleep.”  As I chuckle, I felt her hand move from where it laid on the side of my hip, up to my chest where she rubbed soft patterns with her fingertips.  I concentrated on that and her rhythmic breathing, fanning down my shoulder toward my chest and everything quickly became dark as I surrendered to a peaceful slumber.

I woke up with Amelia still in my arms; she was gazing up at me, smiling.

“Thank God, it wasn’t a dream.”  I breathe out the sentence, looking up at the ceiling.

“Good morning handsome.”  She says which causes me to look down at her.  I let a small chuckle.

“Good morning beautiful.”  I say as she begins to kiss my chest and into my neck and up to my face.  “Mia, don’t start something you don’t plan to finish.”  I warned her.  As she gets on top of me, straddling my waist, I see that mischievous gleam in her eye that she sometimes gets.

“What makes you think I’m starting something?”  She says as she leans over my face and gives me a nip on the bottom lip before she eases the sting with her own lips and a soft kiss that was meant to send tingles up my spine and that it did.  “I’m more than capable of finishing, if you must know.”  As her eyes darkened with lust, I felt her body flush with heat as she began pleasing every single inch of my body.  This woman knew what made me tick, how to pleasure, how to soothe, how to hurt and comfort; but most of all, Amelia Reed knew how to love me.