Worth it

After Maria had emptied her heart, telling Steve what had been weighing on her mind, Maria looked up at Steve to see his reaction. However when she did, to her surprise, he had a big smile on his face. So, she asked him, "Why are you smiling right now?" But Steve had a perfect reason according to him and explained, "What is there not to smile about? You basically just told me that today I was your number one priority. That your feelings for me made you so distracted you forgot about all other things and people, including my biggest competition in your life, Laila. To me that is a pretty good victory and gives me every reason to smile."

Maria was dumbstruck. She had expected a lot of reactions out of Steve but this wasn't one of them. From the moment she met him, he was a bit different in what he took out of a situation. That is probably the reason they are where they are right now. But for him to be so blind to all the things she had said and only focus on her unintended confession, she couldn't help but respond in shock as she said, "Are you kidding me right now? That is what you took from all of that?"

But Steve was on cloud nine and nothing could make him come down at that moment. With a love-filled look and overall feeling complete in that moment, Steve replied with an equally big smile as before as he said, "I can't help it. I can't believe that this is happening to me right now. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to hear this. This moment, that one sentence, was enough to make all the last minute stress and worry worth it. It makes Noah's angry glare worth it and any potential reprimand it would have caused me. I have never been unpopular with women. I have never been shy of female attention. But somehow, that one sentence of you, affects me more and means more to me than any type of attention from any girl. Or any number of girls for that matter."

Maria felt herself flabbergasted and at a loss of words once more, while her personal Don Juan was showing his impeccable way with words. How did he always know just what to say? Even in a situation like this, he managed to turn his moment of insensitivity into another declaration of her position in his life. A declaration that somehow reassured her and made her feel more special in the life of a man that could have almost any woman he wants.

As a feeling of shyness came over her, Maria placed her head on her knees and lowered her glance as she said, "Well, if it means that much to you, I guess I let this one slide." Fortunately Steve was becoming more and more in tune with what Maria actually meant when she said such things and happily nodded before he said, "Yes, it does mean that much to me since you mean that much to me."

Maria felt herself blushing and could not understand how Steve managed to have such an effect on her. She was feeling more and more like a teenage girl with her first crush than a grown woman who has had been with plenty of men before. But she didn't dislike it. In fact, she enjoyed feeling this way very much. It added to the sincerity of her feelings and of his. It showed her that having this kind of love was still possible and it made her wonder if she had actually loved the men before him. She had liked them. She had liked how they had shown her they liked her. She got used to having them around. But after experiencing this, she wasn't sure if she had really loved them.

In her thought-process, subconsciously, she had begun to stare at Steve. Returning the gaze from his crisp blue eyes. As she did, Steve addressed the real issue that had been in her words from before and said, "As for the guilt, there is no need for you to feel any of that. I agreed every step of the way and I was overjoyed that you did all of that for me. If anything, all you did was make a long day a lot more pleasant. When we started our dinner, there was nothing for me to do. I had done all that had been asked for me and it could have been hours before I would be able to assist them in any other way. In that time all I could have done was stare at the screen or watch some TV. Time which could have been wasted waiting because they never managed to get her phone alone long enough to get the job done. Besides, in the end everything turned out well and I didn't mind the work. There is no use in beating yourself up over bygones when the people affected by it have long since let it go."

With these words said, Maria had no way of coming back and just smiled as she let the little bit of guilt she had left go.