Chapter 4: FULL CIRCLE

He almost made it out the building's front door.

Audio notification on his mobile: text message received.

From the only person who texted him regularly.

He reactivated his phone and read the new message. He was surprised she found his note so quickly; he was equally surprised by her swift response.

=== E: Totes ready. I'm ready for us. Like no-bullshit legit ready. #thetimeisnow

=== E: Happy you caught up. But don't make me wait. LOL ;) :-* 3

He wore the face of a happy hopeful man.

=== H: I'll be quick I'm coming back.

He retrieved the case of ginger ale, and flush with her emojis, he returned to her building. Walking up to the elevator, he passed an elderly gentleman attending reception. Unfortunately, the elevator had returned to the top floor. He pressed the "up" button. He pressed it again. And again. And again.

Does this button even do anything?! What's the point of this button?, he thought, unknowingly echoing from what the annals of Eliza-and-Henry would be known as "the elevator incident."

As the man at reception began eyeing Henry a little suspiciously, Henry looked over apologetically. "Sorry ..."

A very long minute later, the elevator arrived on the ground floor with a friendly "ding!"

As he pressed the button for '3', he received another text.

=== E: `SUP?

The phrase had become something of another inside joke between them. But this was no query, because this was simply a very impatient Eliza.

=== H: `SUP, yourself. Elevator took its damn sweet time.

=== E: `SSSSUP?!

=== H: Eliza ... I'm almost there.

=== E: SRS, dude. Not. Fast. Enough.

He laughed.

=== H: SRSLY.

He shut off the phone and tucked it away. He might have been her mentor (plainly ignoring the word "elder"), but where the art of texting was concerned, he had learned from one of the best in social media.

When the elevator door opened on the third floor, he walked out into the hallway and turned left to find the door to 307 wide open. An expectant Eliza stood in the doorway, left arm extended with her hand against the door jamb; head bent low; bright knowing eyes beaming at him.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. "Uh, you're sick, and you should be in bed ...," he said from the hallway, approaching her front door.

"If you think that way and feel that way, why did you come back?" She asked, her chin jutting out defiantly, both hands now on her hips.

He held up a case of Canada Dry in the air. "I got you your ginger ale."

She nodded, a little smile on her face, still enormously touched he remembered that little detail.

He walked right up to her. "Besides, I care about you. I want to make sure you get better as quickly as possible."

"I'll feel a whole lot better once you're inside, Henry." She stepped to the side, allowing him just enough space to enter her apartment.

"Guess I'll just have to make sure ...", he said as he walked past her, making sure he trailed his hand on her shoulder, squeezing her arm, and trailing off at her fingers. " ... that I tuck you in myself ..."

"Henry, you tease!" She closed the door to her apartment, and turned to face him. "Right now, I'm not thinking about tucking, but something else that rhymes with tucking ..."

Having placed the case of ginger ale on the floor next to her couch, he turned to her, looking suitably scandalized. "Eliza!"

"Henry, I know you're thinking about it too; don't lie to me."

"It's not exactly a lie if I'm not actually thinking about it ..."

She made a face. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well ... okay ... yes ... I'm thinking about it, too ..."

"AHA! That's more like it ... aaaaaaahccchooooo! Euurrrgh!" Embarrassed, she went in search for a tissue or two.

"Wait, I have some for you ..." He removed his jacket and reached in his pocket for a packet of tissues, coming equipped just for the occasion.

"Thannng yuuu ..." she replied through a wad of tissues. She blew her nose a couple of times and tossed the wad aside onto the floor.

"Elizaaaa," he said in his most long-suffering Higgsian tone. "I just picked up all the crap you had on your floor ..."

"Oh sorry." She looked sheepish. "Thank you, you really didn't have to."

The corner of his mouth turned up in a half-smile. "It's okay. I wanted to."

"Right now, there is one thing I'd like to do."

"What's that?"

"It's this ..." She grabbed him by his shirt collar, hooking her arms behind his neck, and running her fingers through his hair. He had no choice but to hold her by the waist.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am. Unless I really am grossing you out ..."

"No! No ... I came back up here to tell you in person: I'm ready."

"I don't know, Henry. I think this image you have of me right now might be a little butt ..."

"No, you aren't. I personally guarantee that the person I'm seeing right now is most ... definitely ... not ... butt. What I see is my beautiful friend with perfectly symmetrical features and hair like Ariel." She blushed, looking briefly away. "But I would like to ask," he continued. "Do you think you're a better person?" He smiled at their little game, going back to their very first conversation.

Her eyes fluttered back to his, and her smile shone brightly. "Yes, thanks to you. And with you here, with me: totes ... a-ly ..."

He leaned in the rest of the way and pressed his lips to hers.

To share a kiss. To taste her breath. To seal what had been a long time in coming.

After a long slow heated gentle brush of their lips, she tilted her head to look at him. "Oh my God, Henry. What took you so long?"

He smiled, his eyes softened, apologizing with a look he couldn't say out loud.

"It's okay; I get it." Eliza continued. "You getting legit feels?"

"That is entirely within the realm of plausibility." He brought a hand up to cup her cheek. "I believe in you, and I believe in 'us.'" And he smoothly slipped his hands again around her waist, stroking and caressing her through her shirt.

The way he was touching her was stoking something hot and elemental. "And there it is again, that smolder ..."

"I don't know what that means ..."

"It's the way you look at me sometimes ... would you like to know when I started having feelings for you?"

"Do tell." He was genuinely curious.

"You asked me to eat lunch with you, and we shared our first lunch over a trash can ..."

"... the one that's sitting here in your living room?"

She smiled. "You found it, did you? I was wondering when you were going to find it."

"Really? You left it lying around, so I'd eventually see it? A hint?"

"Uh huh. But like seriously, I def had a super big case of the feels. And I couldn't stop looking at you."

"Yeah, I'm going to have to seriously revise my score, because on a scale of 1-to-10, you're a ..."

"... better be higher, because for the record, my initial score of 6 was higher than yours ... " she warned him with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

He laughed. "You're my 10, Eliza. It'll be my honor and privilege to show you every day just how true that is."

Henry led her to the couch. He sat back fully and she sat on him astride, one hand on his chest, the other in his hair. He tightened his arms around her.

"Good. I'm glad. How about you? Do you remember when you started having feelings for me?"

"Yes, I do. We had just finished babysitting Kevin, and we figured out how to save our best-selling orange elephant vitamin. We finished our presentation the following day, and you went over to join Freddy, while I had a chat with Saperstein. He made a comment about us, and there was a moment where you looked at me, and I looked at you ... and I thought, maybe ... that there was something between us. It was the spark, a hope it could come true."

"What did Saperstein say?"

"He said we'd make exquisite offspring ...

"Really! And what did you have to say to that little gem?"

"That red-headed Koreans weren't a good look ... typically."

"Typically, huh? Well, you should know I'm not typical ..." She smiled, and leaned forward.

"No, you certainly are not ..."

For the next few minutes, they focused only on kissing and on expressing what they were feeling through mouths, stroking, probing, and caressing.

"Mmmm ...," she ran her tongue across his lips. "You do realize we have a couple name: specifically, Heliza; more specifically, hashtag-Heliza."

Because it'd be completely out of character if he didn't ask, he pulled a classic 'Henry'.

"Okay, first of all, what is 'Heliza'? Second, there's a thing called couple names? Third, we have a hashtag?!"

"Relax, Henry. First of all, our names, Henry and Eliza, smushed together becomes 'Heliza'. H-E-L-I-Z-A, get it? Hell yes, to the second. Third, I want us as a couple to become a Twitter trend, even if it's just me tweeting about it. Unless ... of course ... you'd prefer I not tweet about it?"

"No, no, that's all right. I don't mind if you shout our status to the world. I know it's self-serving of me to say, but it feels good to know you want to shout us out from the rooftops. Besides, you know what you're doing with social media, and I trust you."

"Awwwwww, thank you Henry; that's super sweet of you to say."

"You're welcome. Hey, I just thought of something ..."

"What's that?"

"With Heliza, if you switch the 'i' and the 'z', that spells "Helzia", which is pronounce 'Hells-yeah!'"

She groaned then laughed. "O-M-G, that's terrible!"

His eyes opened wide, another realization giving him a humorous shock.

"What?"

"I just got it. You and Freddy were ... 'Frey-za' ... which rhymes with 'Scheisse'!"

"Awwww, Heeeennnryyyyy ... stop it ... don't mock me ... besides he's history and you're here now ..." She stuck her

lower lip out for pouty emphasis.

"OK, ok, I'll stop. And yes, I'm here. I've always be here." He reached up with his hand and teased her lower lip with his thumb. "Besides, you can't blame a noobie for trying," he smirked knowingly.

"Yeah, you're my lovable noobie ..."

"Well, when you put it that way ..."

Their second kiss was slower, relaxed, caring, intimate; nibbling on each other's lips; learning and savoring the taste and texture of each other's lips, teeth, and tongues.

She drew back, a finger on his lip. "And ... I ... I heard you. What you said to me in the bedroom."

"What? I thought you'd fallen asleep."

"Uh huh, I know." she replied affirmatively. "In the past, I often felt like I was easy to abandon. I know a lot of it isn't true. But real truth is, Henry, you gave me feels, and I wanted to hear everything you had to say to me. Without scaring you away, or scaring you from stopping. Are you mad at me?"

"No, I'm not mad. Really, I'm not. You heard everything?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Honestly, as much as I'm terrified of screwing up, what I trust most is our friendship. A lot comes from that, and where we go is based on that solid foundation. You are the most important person in my life."

"I'm happy to hear you say that. I'm glad you're my friend: you're my best friend."

"You are too; sometimes, I think you're my only friend."

"I think it's safe to say we feel the same way about each other. But I still have issues about self-esteem and abandonment. " Eliza admitted. "And you have your own issues of insecurity and keeping people away. "

"I do, yes."

"So, we're really going to do this?"

"Yes, we are. I don't want to go back to the way things were," he said with conviction. "And I don't think you do, too."

"No, I don't."

"As I've been trying to tell you, Eliza ... I know you. And ... I worship you."

"I know you do." She rested her hands on his chest. "I defs don't want to go back to just friends. I want more."

"You deserve more. And I do, too."

Her lips turned up. "Yes, you do," she replied softly.

"Come on," Henry pulled on her hand. "Let's get you into bed."

"Oh really?" She waggled her eyebrows.

He laughed. "Not right now, and before you pout," as she stuck her lower lip out, "I want our first time with you fully healthy. I want you; please believe me. A lot, actually, but I also know I want you when we're both on the same page in every way ... with us as equals."

Her pout unabated, she had to give him props. "You're right. I don't like it, but you're right."

"Hol' up. Eliza Dooley, did you just say I was right?! Because I may have to mark this moment for posterity ..."

"Heeeyyy!"

"J/K ..." He couldn't stop smiling now.

"Ha-ha. You're ..." She poked him in the chest. "You're hilarious. Now stop copying my lines, and get me into bed."

"Okay. But there's one more thing."

"What's that?"

"I ... I love you, Eliza ... very much."

"Thank you, " she replied in a tiny whisper. "I love you, too ..."

They sealed their declaration with a slow kiss. Reluctantly, they parted.

"Henry, I'm cold. Please get me into bed ..."

"Yes, dear ..." He leaned over and kissed the top of her head.

They shuffled towards the bedroom. His arm was around her shoulders, hers around his waist; her head leaning against his shoulder.

Less than 48 hours later, Henry began sneezing, wheezing, and coughing. Reluctantly, he forked over a 20-dollar bill to Eliza, lying next to him in bed. At the very least, they were in his big bed this time. She was just as familiar with his place, as he was with hers. She made it a point of being at home with him, and to take good care of him.

She didn't exactly cook for him, but she got him chicken noodle soup, and when his own hacking cough improved, she got him an order of salad.

With grilled chicken on top.

Accompanied by a glass of ginger ale.

Sure, that Siri bitch was helpful and all, but looking at Henry now asleep, she couldn't imagine a better person, a better friend, a better partner. Sure, he was far from perfect, but together, they made great harmony, a winning combination.

She recognized the enormity of the last two days. The promise she made to herself - about Henry and her getting together or else - had come true. There was no "else"; there was never any other option.

She leaned over to kiss him on the forehead, fingering strands of his hair on the top of his head. She lay next to him, pulling the covers over them both. She watched him sleep in wonderment and with affection. She shuffled closer and draped her arm over his chest, and listened to him breathe, until her eyes became heavy, and she fell asleep.

Minutes later, he opened his eyes to a very warm presence next to him. Gingerly, he lifted his arm out of the way, and wrapped his arm around her. She made a little purring noise in her sleep, and she moved in, tucking her head against his neck. He brushed her hair aside, and kissed her on the cheek.

Eliza, my Ariel: to have found you, for you to want me, I'm the luckiest guy in the world.