I hurriedly laid my glass down on the tray and walked to where she stood.

“Are we laying this out on the floor?” I guessed as she yanked on one long edge of the thick sofa cushion.

She nodded, “Uh huh. We’ll use one of the throws as a kind of bedsheet, and then cover ourselves with the other throws.

After we fixed our make-shift bed, I fluffed the sofa pillows up so that we could lay our heads comfortably on them while she unfolded a big, pashmina type throw.

It smelled of her.

I stretched out on the bed, smiling, eyes shut, as I heard her move about, getting things ready for the night.

I felt her ease into our make-shift bed and automatically stretched an arm out so that she could snuggle next to me. She lay her head on the space between my shoulder and my neck, turned on her side, facing me. I felt her lay a leg across mine, and gently rest an arm over my chest.

She whispered into my ear, but, in the still and quiet around us, her voice was as clear as if speaking to me through a mic, “If thou must love me, let it be for naught … except for love’s sake only. Don’t say, “I love her for her smile – her look – her way of speaking gently. For trick of thought that falls in well with mine, and certes brought … A sense of pleasant ease on such a day” – For these things in themselves, beloved, may be changed or change for thee. And love, so wrought, may be unwrought so. Neither love me for thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry: a creature might forget to weep, who bore thy comfort long. And lose thy love thereby!”

I finished the poem for her – I knew it well for it had been one of the last ones my Nana helped me memorize. It was a poem that Nana said I would learn to appreciate when I finally fell in love “that moment when you find the special person the universe has made for you, darling Aerin. And you find that person recognizes you, too.”

I cut in quietly, “But love me for love’s sake, that evermore thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.”