Chapter 85: Talk Talk

Warren and Sophia were on a plane, flying from the last stop on the tour, back home.

"Warren?" Sophia said.

"Hmph?" Warren looked up from the book he was reading.

"Can we talk?"

"Sure, Pookie," he said, putting his book away.

"I've been thinking. Something's wrong, honey. I can't completely put my finger on it, but we're a little bit... I don't know. Disconnected, somehow. Unraveled."

"What makes you say that?"

"Lots of things." She sighed. "We've been through a lot. But we broke up, and then we got back together, and almost immediately after that, you got beat up. Then, we barely get through that, and I decide I want to experiment with my sexuality--and I feel guilty about it, so I talk you into having a couple of flings." She sighed again. "It just seems so crazy."

"Honey, we got through it. We did."

"Yeah, but what do we have left?"

"We have us."

"Do we?" She looked at him. "Warren, why is there an 'us'? Why do we stay together?"

"Because we love one another?" He looked at his hands. "Or has that changed?"

"No, that has not changed."

"Then I guess I'm missing something."

"Warren, is love enough? Do you really thing it is? Warren, what do you want from life?"

"First question first. After all we've been through, and we made it through this past year, and we're still together. Do you really have to ask if love is enough?"

She smiled at him. "Touche."

"As for what I want from life? Lots of things. Mostly to make sure I spend it with you. Everything else is negotiable."

Sophia smiled, but then got a serious look on her face. "After the past year, you still feel that way?"

"Absolutely. Now more than ever. What do you want from life?"

"Just that. A nice, normal relationship with the man I love. We haven't had that for a while." She looked down. "I can't help but feel I did a lot of damage to our relationship by insisting on experimenting. God, when I found out about you and Liz... I thought... hell, I don't know what I thought."

"Sophia. Listen to me. It was a one time thing. It was never, ever going to be more than a one-time thing."

"I know," she smiled. "What did you think about what I was doing?"

"I admit, it bothered me. However, I figured, better you figure that stuff out now."

"You didn't want me to do it? Why didn't you say anything?"

"The first time, with Alexa, just happened. After that, after the feelings that awoke in you, I didn't feel I had the right to say no. If I had said no, you would have just resented me. Better you sort that one out on your own."

"OK." She looked down. "Sometimes you're too accepting, you know."

"If I had been that accepting, I would have gone to bed with Stephie Eberhardt." Sophia looked up at him, startled. "Now, most of the reasons I picked Liz were the right ones--she wanted to lose her virginity to a nice guy who wouldn't talk, I thought it would be fun, and I knew it would never go past that day. I also had no idea you'd be that upset that I had picked Liz. However, I did know that picking Liz would not be what you expected."

"Why was that important?"

"Because I felt controlled. I didn't feel I could stop you from sleeping with Shawna. You needed to know. But you almost begged me to sleep with Stephie. 'I'm doing this, and you must even the score, so go sleep with Stephie.' The problem was, I did not want you to sleep with Shawna, and I did not want to sleep with Stephie. I couldn't stop the first, but, because you gave me a loophole by not specifying Stephie, I could stop the second. I would not have slept with Stephie under any circumstances. When the opportunity arose with Liz, I went for it."

"So you were rebelling, is that it?"

"Consciously, no. But thinking back on it, I think that, subconsciously, I might have been trying to send you a message that you could not control this situation as perfectly as you thought you could."

Sophia smiled ruefully. "The message was received, I can tell you that. Warren, what do you want from me?"

"Just you. Only you. And I want you to want only me."

She smiled. "Deal. That having been settled, Warren, we still need to reconnect. We didn't spend hardly any time alone while we were on tour unless we were having sex."

"Well, the role of Social Butterfly and Grand Hostess comes naturally to you. Truth be told, I like it, too."

"I know," Sophia smiled, "but the tour is over, school is over, and we're home for two months. Yeah, we need to spend some time with Jessie and Crash, and we'll have to hit a party or two. And we have to skate. However, outside of that, I just want to spend time with you. Just the two of us. When's the last time we just read together, or played chess, or just went for a long drive? It seems we've been hopping from crisis to crisis. I need you, by my side, just being together."

Warren smiled at her. "Do you know how wonderful that sounds?"

"So you see what I mean?"

"Yes. Absolutely. You're right."

She smiled back at him, and reached over in the seat to take his hand. "You're the most wonderful guy in the world, you know that?"

"Well, I'm hopelessly in love with the most wonderful girl in the world, I know that much."

When they had been on tour, they had gotten ice time almost every day. With their schedule a bit crunched, they had decided to start choreographing a free dance while on tour. They had picked "Riverdance". By the time they got home, it was about half done. They worked on it for a couple of weeks, and got it to about three-quarters done. However, they had taken a break one day, and Sophia skated up to Warren.

"Warren, honey? I've been thinking."

"Oh-oh," he smiled.

"You just shut up. I've been thinking--Riverdance. For the Olympics. Us. I'm not quite sure it works. You know how much I love it, and I'd like to skate to it some day, but I'm not sure it's right for the Olympics. Hey, Bourne and Kraatz didn't set the world on fire with it."