Page 59 of Sawyer
The memory that instantly rose up was of him and Phoebe laughing until they had tears running down their faces, lying on the floor, after they’d read aloud fromTaming of the Shrew.He could still hear their banter.
Petruchio: Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.
Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
He’d made a face and held up his hands before continuing with his lines, trying to match her theater-rich British accent and failing.
Petruchio: My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies.
Her insulting tone had him biting his lip to keep from laughing.
Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.
Katherine: In his tongue.
The throaty way she’d saidtonguehad made desire pool in the regions Shakespeare would have called nether. Why did no one use the termnether regionsanymore?
Petruchio: Whose tongue?
Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.
Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.
Then she’d rolled on top of him, tossed aside the book he had in his hands, and told him she didn’t want him to be a gentleman. That she very much wanted to come again.
And she had.
So had he.
“Earth to Doc,” he heard Kyle call. “Do you have your memory?”
When he came back to the present, he noted everyone inthe room was looking at him. Even Phoebe was leaning toward him expectantly. He was suddenly shy. That memory was so personal. So special. So theirs.
Another certainty seemed to rise in his heart. He wondered if it was his version of Arthur pulling the sword from the stone. All he knew was that Phoebe and his roommates were waiting for a response, and he wanted to share the truth of his happiness with them. Even if it meant sharing contents of his heart in a way he’d never imagined.
He took a breath and reached for that invisible sword. “Last night with Phoebe, reciting Shakespeare on the floor with a bottle of wine and laughing so hard we were wheezing.”
God, the satisfaction that infused him as he watched her smile turn into what the Bard might call tremulous…
The light in her eyes, from her very soul, brightened until he was sure she could light his whole universe and beyond. She lifted a trembling hand and stroked his jaw, showing him why love poems were written.
Because when you felt like this, had moments like this, you had to write them down. You never wanted to forget what they looked like. Felt like. How they had shaped your whole world.
“Ah, my dearest Horatio,” she whispered, “you have at last rendered me completely in your grasp.”
To which his reply came easily from his heart, “Then I am glad, for I was already in yours.”
Her mouth was suddenly sweetly kissing him, and he tangled his hands in her hair. The touch of their lips was brief because he was aware of his friends around him, but it radiated joy through him.
“Ah, they are so in love!”
Dean’s voice.
Sawyer gave Phoebe another smile, one that couldcompete with one of Thea’s, before turning to his friend. “Yeah, we are.”
He reached for her hand under the counter.
