I ran after Gideon, but I lost him in the crowd. I walked in and out of the different alcoves trying to find him, but it was useless. He was gone.
As I turned back to find Taylor again, the music stopped and someone annoyingly tapped on a microphone
"Excuse me, folks. Is this thing on?"
I spun around to find Gideon on a stage by the bar. I started to make my way closer to the stage to find out what he was up to.
"I don't know how many of you know who I am, but that really isn't important right now," he said. "You see, it was at this fundraiser almost a year ago that something in me changed. I was friends, best friends, with this incredible woman." He pointed to me and smiled. "She's smart, she's funny, and she can tell a dirty joke that would make a sailor blush. I'm telling you, any of you single guys out there, if you ever meet a woman like this, don't make her your friend. Because having her as your friend is torture."
"What do you mean having me as a friend is torture?" I asked as I reached the stage.
"Did I mention she's feisty? I love that. Just let me finish please, honey," he said with a tender look in his eye. "You see, this whole talking thing is the problem. I'm a man, she's a woman, and in all reality we should speak the same language, but we don't. She's just too smart for me. I know I joke around a lot and I try to keep things lighthearted, but she was the only one who could ever see through all of that. And that meant a lot to me. When you find someone that can look past your bullshit and still care about you, you hold on to that person. That's unconditional, that's the kind of relationship where you can be away for months and come back and pick up exactly where you left off."
"Keep going," I said. "You're getting better."
Gideon laughed. "I'm not done yet. You see, folks, when we were at this fundraiser last time, I didn't see my friend standing at the bar in a dress that left no room for the imagination, I saw her for the first time as a woman. It was then that I realized how much I cared about her and what I really felt for her. But you know what? We were great friends. I didn't want to lose that, and neither did she. I'm not going to bore you with all the juicy details of what happened after that. But trust me, there was some hot stuff going on, am I right?"
He looked at me expectantly and I just shook my head.
"Get to the point, Gideon," I said. "No one needs to know about that."
"Well, what happened between us was incredible. But despite all the wonderful things and my telling her that I loved her, we didn't work out. And that was my fault."
He looked at me apologetically before looking out at the crowd again.
"You see, folks, I was immature. I would think with my dick more than anything else and every time I got hard, I thought I was in love. You guys know what I mean, the loss of blood to your brain is pretty intense. Now, when you have a friend that you tell everything to, they know what an idiot you are. So when I told Becca that I loved her, she rightly stepped back and told me to go to hell."
Gideon scanned the crowd that was listening quietly.
"It's a tough thing when the person you love tells you to take a hike," he said quietly. "But once I stopped feeling hurt and angry, I decided to take some time away and focus on myself. She was right, I wasn't ready. Yes, I still loved her, but I was too immature. Being the best man that I could be for her was all that mattered to me, and I made sure I became that. So now I'm standing here and I don't know how she feels. She's here with another man, and I don't know if I lost my chance. But if I didn't tell her that a day didn't go by without my thinking about her, I would never forgive myself.
"Becca, I left so you could be happy. I left to make you happy. While I was gone, I made sure to become the man that deserved you. I have always been a man who would do anything for you. I don't want you looking at me like that kid that slept his way through the city. I want you to look at me as the man that I've become, the one that still loves you. The one that will always love you."
I couldn't believe what he was saying. Again Gideon said exactly the right thing. He said just what I needed to hear. But this time I was really listening.
I thought about all the times our friends told us we were perfect together and how we were both too stubborn to admit they were right. I couldn't remember a time when I didn't love him, but while he was open and told me how he felt, I pretended our friendship meant more than that.
"Listen, Becca," he said, "I don't know what's going on with you and Dr. Blond over there, but I don't see a ring on your finger. I don't want to waste any more time. I know what I want. I know the rest of my life would be a waste if I didn't spend it with you. I know that this might sound crazy, but Becca, will you marry me?"
My breath caught in my throat. Did I hear him right? He had to have lost his mind. But what was crazier was that I wanted to say yes.
"As I look around the room, I can see you all think I'm crazy, but hear me out," Gideon said. "All of you married people, you dated for a while, right? It doesn't matter how long it was, it could've been weeks, it could've been months, it could've been decades, let's be honest. In the end you all end up in the same place, married."
Gideon looked around the room and as I turned around, I saw couples nodding with him.
"Becca and I have been friends for over a year. Let me correct that, we've beenbestfriends. We talked about everything. We were the last person to say anything to each other before we went to sleep and the first person to say something when we woke up. For all that time, we might as well have been dating, just without the sex. Sure, we had our own lives. I'd go out with the guys, she'd go out with the girls, but at the end of the day, we always came back to each other because that's who we enjoyed being with most of all."
"Isn't that what marriage is about?" he asked as he scanned the room. "I honestly believe that the key to a successful marriage is to be friends, because if you're not, then what's there? I see some of you nodding. I see you finally coming around to the Gideon side."
He pointed in the direction of an older couple with grey hair that was nodding with him. Then he took the mic off the stand and jumped down from the stage and walked over to them.
What is he doing?I wondered as I followed him through the crowd.
"I noticed you agreeing with me," he said to the couple. "I'm gonna guess that you’re married."
The woman nodded with a smile that lit up her face. "If we weren't friends to begin with, I don't think our marriage would've lasted this long," she said. "At least not happily."
Gideon put his arm around the woman's shoulders. "And what are your names?"