Worth Any Cost

Adam was due to return home tonight. He’d only been gone three nights and four days. Not as long as some trips, but still. It never failed that we’d fall into a routine of normalcy, and just as quickly, he’d have to pick up and go away. Sometimes to the East Coast, but more often, lately, up to Silicon Valley. The pluses were that it was a short flight and still in the same time zone as me.

Of course, he’d squish two weeks’ worth of work into that four-day stay in Northern California. He ran from meeting to meeting to facility tour to yet another meeting. And if he did catch a meal that wasn’t filled with power lunch meetings or dinner networking, I was in class or lab or study group. We hardly found a moment to Skype or call, apart from the group emails to our wedding planner.

But as I’d told April, we always found a way to stay connected, in spite of how crazy things got.

So this week, we rocked it with text messages.

In some ways, it was like the old days, when we’d first met over chat on Dragon Epoch. I’d send him a text…sometimes about any old random thing. And he might respond immediately, or he might respond hours later.

A normal conversation that would take minutes at home over morning coffee or a wee spot of pillow talk could span a day or more.

Me: I’ve been thinking about pet names. When we’re married, we should have pet names for each other.

Him: What? Really? Like Honey Boo?

Me: Not that one.

And his mobile phone, the instrument with which he conducted business constantly, the device that often distracted him in my presence, became the very vehicle he’d use across the miles to flirt with and tease me.

The irony was not lost on me.

Him: Wifey? Little woman?

Me: Only if you want me to remove your man parts. Painfully.

Him: Ouch. Okay… Your Majesty? Love Bug? Sweet Bumps?

Me: Sweet Bumps? For real?

Him: Okay, maybe not. But they -are- sweet. Your bumps, I mean.

Me: Definitely not Sweet Bumps.

To accept this man into my life, to love this man, was to take him in with his flaws and foibles as well as those qualities that made him the closest match to perfect for me. So, with no other choice, I turned my enemy—his phone—into my ally.

I sent him a headless shot of those very sweet bumps he’d been extolling.

He reprimanded me, as he usually did, whenever I sent him a naughty photo.

“Security lapses, blah blah. Not safe. Blah blah.”

My fiancé was a computer nerd. I’d take the risks because if I wasn’t safe sending him dirty pictures, who was safe?

His answer—predictably—was no one.

He got back to the subject at hand a few hours later when I was in class.

Him: How about I call you Goddess?

Me: Getting warmer.

Him: What will you call me? I suggest Iron Man. I would answer to Iron Man.

Me: Hmmm…

Him: Or RoboCock.

My mouth was full of tea when that text chimed on my phone, hours later, during my study time. I almost sprayed the full contents of my mouth all over my phone screen and my open textbook.

Typical Adam. He’d probably sent that in the middle of some boring think tank meeting.

Me: Dude, No way am I calling you that.

Him: L No?

Me: Nope…that one, you’ve got to earn.

Him: That’s what our honeymoon is for.