Chapter 5) Revelations

An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.

~William James

The months following Blaine’s return were incredibly fast-paced and brought much change.

First, I quit my job so Blaine and I could move to Del Sol Valley, into a tiny home in a not so sophisticated part of town. It was all right, we were together, which was all that mattered. I quickly found a new job as the Assistant to the CEO of a local manufacturing company.

Blaine’s hard work began to pay off. Before long, almost every time we went out grocery shopping or for a meal people started recognizing him.
To Blaine this was awesome, to me, well, I was torn between pride and annoyance. Fame is not for everyone. I seemed to fall into the category that don’t thrive on it. Well, Blaine was on the road to fame, and for better or worse, by association, I was along for that ride.
Then things got crazy real fast.

Blaine was in the living room, I was on the laptop at the kitchen table working on some reports for my job, when his phone rang.
It was his manager. Blaine had been nominated for not one, but two Starlight Accolade awards!

It was near impossible to make a Blaine Cameron speechless, but that did it. Me as well. I honestly cannot tell you how long we sat there, staring at each other after he had told me what the call was about. Then we unfroze and celebrated. On a budget. Well, we just basically hugged and screamed for joy like crazy people, then ordered in pizza and toasted his first success with cheap wine.

Yeah, we were well aware that the chances of actually winning anything were slim, but we just moved here and he had just gotten started making music professionally, so just being nominated for anything, let alone receiving two nominations, was huge!

A few days later came the official invite in the mail. As I was staring in awe at the elegant wording on the thick, expensive paper with the gold embossed letters, suddenly a problem popped into my head causing my mood to sink below basement level.
A dress! A fine gown.
I had none.
No, literally, I didn’t own a single presentable dress, save a few clubbing numbers I used to wear when performing alongside Blaine back in San Myshuno, those would really not be appropriate.
I did not own anything even remotely resembling anything like those designer gowns you saw on TV, nor could we afford anything like that. Now what?

Over breakfast I was freaking out, sharing my worries with Blaine.

He acknowledged my frayed nerves with a groan and demonstrative rolling of his eyes, before casually telling me to chill out, everything would be fine. He was not one bit fazed, told me he’d wear the one dress shirt and blazer he owned and his dark jeans. Spoiler alert: he did. Levis among the Armani and what nots. Yup.

After some more time of sheer panic on my part Blaine dryly suggested a clothing rental, quick to add he would not let me talk him into wearing anything other than his own clothes. Blaine abhorred suits, always had.
Either way, that was it! We couldn’t buy one, but we had money to rent me a decent gown! Immediately I loaded him into my VW Beetle and we drove right over to one of those places, where mercifully I managed to find and secure a nice gown that fit me just right, looked super-sophisticated and I would be comfortable in showing up wearing. Disaster averted. All credits to Blaine Cameron.

And then Sunday night came.

The day of the awards ceremony at the prestigious PBP Studios & Lounge, where we were dropped off by a limousine.

My nerves were shot, my stomach in a knot (hey, that rhymes, maybe Blaine could use this in a song someday), I had shaky hands and knees, while Blaine was just excited and happy as a clam.

The imposing venue was huge and awe-inspiring. I went into fangirl mode for a moment.

But then again, so did Blaine. Selfie-time for the win.

When we were called to find our seats just before the award ceremony was supposed to begin, Blaine was a bit nervous, but shamefully, I was the mental wreck. Yeah, that’s me, the alcoholic lightweight who normally nurses a glass of wine all night with some stiff whatchamacallit again. Whatever it was, it was STRONG! And did nothing at all for my nerves. Lies, all lies in the movies!

Fast forward through all the eloquent, yet boring banter and verbal dry-humping each other’s achievements on stage by the presenter and other artists to the most important part: Blaine won!

Both awards he was nominated for, best song and best composition. Yeah, that’s right! My amazing super-star. Literally now.

He was a natural on stage, even now he just casually strolled up to the microphone, and in is usual charming, casual way won the crowd over with seeming ease, had them emotional with him, had them rolling with laughter and cheering.

I loved every minute of it, about to burst for pride, until he called me up on stage.

No use trying to igore it, spotlights were aimed at me and on shaky knees I wobbled up to a waiting Blaine, my face felt crimson red. Too many witnesses to strangle my lovely boyfriend, so I forced a smile until Blaine took over, publicly introducing me before showering me with affection on that stage for all to see – worldwide, thanks to the camera crews, while I cursed myself for not having gone to check on my hair and makeup before we sat down. Hopefully I looked decent.

Then came the after-party, a blur I barely recall anything about, aside that there was talking to a range of important people somehow connected to either the music or film business, everybody was congratulating us, Blaine’s manager sent him to go elbow rubbing with some VIPs, while I kept being handed a fresh drink as soon as the one I already had was barely half empty. I ended up hiding champagne flutes everywhere, a futile attempt to elegantly fixing a perceived problem without ending up totally drunk. Saying ‘no’ did no good, someone well-meaning would just stuff a fresh glass in my hand. No wonder so many celebs had addiction problems!
Then at some point we were finally in the limousine to take us home.

Finally we arrived after me having to ward off Blaine’s attempts to celebrate his victory with me in the backseat of a limo all the way home, now on Blaine’s arm I teetered over the very uneven and not very well illuminated driveway – which I swear every oath –  had grown several hundred feet since we left here earlier today. My chic 10 inch heels just weren’t meant for that type of off-roading.

“Oh jeeze woman!” Blaine finally had enough of my balancing act, swept me up in his arms and carried me into the house.

After he he placed me gently onto the floor, I stepped backwards to lean against the counter to take turns of rubbing each one of my aching feet against my leg, while Blaine seemed in no hurry to do anything other than block me in, looking at me with those incredibly gorgeous light green eyes, crisp and clear as crystals.

“Thanks.” I breathed, looking up at him, mesmerized, my heart already beating faster. Oh, that man.

He just smirked, while we stood there, staring at each other.

“Tell you a secret, babygirl. You are lucky the fame preceded the fortune in our case, cos if I already had enough money for a real nice ring, I would have proposed to you right there on that stage tonight. Maybe the next award ceremony then.”

“Propose? You mean, like to get married? As in a wedding?” I stuttered out in disbelief, while the little wheels in my head were squeaking and smoking. Huh?!

“Yeah, that. What else? Propose a business plan to you? Of course marriage, silly girl.” he chuckled, then kissed me softly, which I gladly and willingly returned, as it gave me time to try and process his words. Well, and because – you know – this was Blaine. Who wouldn’t want to kiss him?

As soon as the kiss was over, I quickly slipped out from his embrace and stepped away some to get enough space in between us to allow for me to catch at least one straight thought, without more of the highly distracting affections by Blaine. If this was one of his stupid jokes, it was tasteless, toying with a girl’s feelings like this.

“You never wanted to get married. You always said you don’t believe in marriage. You’ve been saying that ever since I can remember.”

“Well, that was before we became a couple. I changed my mind a while ago, or maybe I should say being with you did, gave me hope and faith back that a marriage could actually work, the topic just never came up and I wasn’t gonna force it, still too confused about my change of heart myself. But the more I thought about it, imagined us as old people in rocking chairs on some patio after a lifetime of typical couple stuff together, the more I liked the idea. Pretty sure that’s what I want and I think you always have, just love me too much to say it. That’s why I was in such a hurry to get started to rake in some dough, so I can grant you a decent living and the life you deserve and wanted. You and our future kid.”

“KID?! As in … a baby?” I exclaimed, my eyes big as saucers.

“Yeah, I am no expert, but I think that how they start out those kids, as babies.” Blaine now quipped.

At that point, all I was capable of doing was limited to keeping myself upright, breathe and wonder.
Who was this and what had they done with the Blaine I had known for almost 20 years now?! That Blaine would never utter the word marriage, let along wanting a kid. And was this really what I wanted? Marriage, kids? Hmm. I had wanted Blaine and just kinda kissed anything beyond being with him goodbye, knowing how strongly he felt about it all.

My shocked face about his revelation bemused Blaine, and his boyish chuckle was contagious, triggering me to lighten up, I relaxed and decided to play along.

“Blaine, are you pregnant?” I smirked.

He laughed.

“Boy, I sure hope not. I know am not great at biology and all, but something tells me that would be a grand old mess to try squeeze one out with the layout I got. I would never be the same again.” he smirked.

I chimed into his laughter.

“You had me going there for a moment. I thought you were serious about it all.” I told him, his laughter seized and became a patient smile, before he told me with a serious face.

“I am serious, babygirl. I am not saying let’s get to procreating right now and have a baby by next fall, even I am not that stupid and reckless, but I am saying let’s start talking about it, plan a future together. Soon we should have some money, probably still no wealth, but we could probably find a bigger house, something we could start making a home, for us, level up our relationship to engaged, a year or some later we get married and maybe one day a few years down the road from that we’ll have a love child. Or two, or a dozen, depending on how much money I can actually make us with my tunes.”

“You really never seize to amaze and shock me, Blaine. I don’t even know who you are right now. This is really not anything I would have ever expected to hear out of you. To be honest, I have no idea how I feel about this. All I know is that I will never be popping out anything even in the aura of a dozen kids. When we became a couple, I just assumed there would never be a ring on my finger, let alone anything beyond that and I was fine with it. This is a complete wipe-out scenario of all my beliefs about you, me and us.”

“In a good or a bad way?” he asked sincerely.

“Blaine, you know I love you and I want forever with you. We’re still young, we’ll figure out the rest as we go.”

“But if I – hypothetically – were to pop the question at some point, you wouldn’t just laugh in my face before running for the hills, right?”

“Hypothetically and realistically, no, Blaine, and you damn well know that. Just please don’t feel obligated to run out for a ring tomorrow. We have nothing but time, and as you already said, we have a lot of groundwork to lay first, plus a lot of our immediate future depends on your career, which is all still up in the air too much to make solid plans right now.”

“Speaking of things up in the air, how about celebrating my victory in our bedroom?”

“Aaand he’s back!” I laughed.