Point of Retreat

my neck, almost knocking me backwards.
     
    "I'm so sorry, Will. I'm so, so sorry." She kisses me on the cheek, the neck, the lips, the nose, the chin. She keeps saying she's sorry over and over between each kiss. I wrap my arms around her and pick her up, giving her the biggest hug I've ever given her. When I plant her feet back on the ground, she takes my face in her hands and looks into my eyes. I don’t see it anymore…the heartache. She’s not heartbroken anymore. I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off my shoulders and I can finally breathe again.
     
    "I can't believe you kept that damn gnome," she whispers.
     
    "I can't believe you threw him away," I say.
     
    We continue to stare at each other, neither of us fully trusting that the moment is real. Or that it will last.
     
    "Lake?" I stroke her hair, then the side of her face. "I'm sorry it took me so long to get it. It's my fault you had doubts. I promise, there won't be a day that goes by from now on that I won't show you how much you mean to me."
     
    A tear rolls down her cheek. "Me too," she says.
     
    My heart pounds against my chest. Not because I'm nervous. Not even because I want her worse than I've ever wanted her before. It's pounding against my chest because I realize I've never been so sure about the rest of my life than I am in this moment. This girl is the rest of my life. I lean in and kiss her. Neither of us closes our eyes. I don't think we want to miss a single second of this moment.
     
    We're two feet from my car, so I walk her backwards until she’s up against it. "I love you," I somehow mutter while my lips are still meshed with hers. "I love you so much," I say again. "God, I love you."
     
    She pulls away from me and smiles. Her thumbs move to my cheeks and she wipes at the tears that I didn't even realize were streaming down my face. "I love you ," she says. "Now that we have that out of the way, will you just shut up and kiss me?"
     
    And so I do.
     
    After several minutes of making up for all the kisses we missed out on for the last week, the cold temperature begins to affect us. Lake's bottom lip starts shivering. "You're cold," I say. "Do you want to get in my car and make out with me or should we go inside?" I'm hoping she chooses the car.
     
    "The car," she says and smiles.
     
    I take a step toward the car door when I realize I sat my satchel on the booth where everyone's sitting. "Crap," I say as I step back to Lake and wrap my arms around her. "My keys are inside." Her whole body is trembling against me now as she grows colder.
     
    "Then break your butterflying window and unlock the door," she teases.
     
    "A broken window would defeat the purpose of trying to keep you warm," I say. I do my best to warm her by pressing my face against her neck.
     
    "I guess you'll have to try and keep me warm in other ways."
     
    Her suggestion tempts me to break the damn window. Instead, I take her hand in mine and pull her toward the entrance. As soon as we walk inside, but before we pass through the entryway, I turn around to kiss her one more time before we head to our booth. I was just going in for a quick peck, but she pulls me into her and the kiss lingers.
     
    "Thank you," she says when she pulls away. "For what you did up there tonight. And for trapping me in the booth so I couldn't leave. You know me too well."
     
    "Thank you for listening," I say.
     
    We head back to the booth hand in hand. When Kiersten sees us walking in together, she starts clapping.
     
    "It worked!" she squeals. They all scoot toward the center so Lake and I can slide in. "Will, that means you owe me more poems," Kiersten says.
     
    Lake looks at me and then at Kiersten. "Wait. You mean you two were conspiring this whole time?" she says. "Kiersten, did he put you up to begging me to bring you here tonight?"
     
    Kiersten shoots me a look and we both laugh.
     
    "And last weekend!" Lake says. "Did you knock on my door just so he could get in my house?"
     
    Kiersten doesn't answer her as she looks back at me. "You owe me an early return fee," she says. "I think twenty bucks should do it." She holds out her palm.
     
    "We didn't agree to monetary compensation if I remember correctly," I say, pulling twenty dollars from my wallet. "But I would have paid triple that."
     
    She takes the money from my hand and puts it in her pocket with a satisfied look on her face. "I would have done it for free."
     
    "I feel used," Lake