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“Curtis?”
Trina stepped cautiously down the stairs and into the empty, dimly lit club.
“Trina, hey,” N'neka poked her head out from behind the bar. “Curtis isn’t here.”
Trina looked puzzled. “Well, I got a message at work telling me to come to The Savoy as soon as possible. Jake is an incredible young artist, but his administrative skills leave a lot to be desired. Is everything OK?”
“Everything is perfect.”
Trina paused and a smile creep across N'neka’s face as she looked on at the man who had just spoken those words. It was Spencer, standing up from a booth that had hidden him from view.
“Spencer, what is going on?”
Spencer grabbed her hand and led her to her seat. Trina’s eyes were full of questions.
“N'neka, thank you.” Spencer nodded. N'neka nodded her understanding and disappeared to the back.
Spencer took a seat opposite of Trina and looked around with a sly grin. “I’m sorry if I made you worry or anything; that was not my intention.”
‘Not worried. Was just a little curious. Still am.”
N'neka returned to the table with a bottle of champagne and two flutes.
“Are we celebrating?” Trina asked.
“Well, yes, in a way…” Spencer answered before turning to N'neka. “Thank you, N'neka.”
“Of course,” N'neka offered before departing the table.
“This is the place we met. The day we met. Unofficially.”
Trina rolled her eyes in remembrance of that night two years ago during her graduation party when she descended those same club stairs doused in fake blood.
Sensing where her mind had wondered, Spencer continued. “It was a big night for you–a big celebration of your graduation and I ruined it. It seems so crazy to think about now. That I followed you here from the gallery. I just had to see you; to talk to you. And I’m not sorry that I did–I’ll never be sorry for that. Because without that, there wouldn’t be this, and I love…this. And I can apologize to you everyday for the rest of our lives and it still wouldn’t be enough. But I wanted…as much as possible, I want to undo that day. Undo the damage I’ve caused you–”
“Spencer–” Trina interrupted. “You can’t.”
Spencer looked at her dejected,
“We can’t go back, Spencer. And, honestly, I don’t want to. We’re here now. Look at us. After everything that’s happened–everything that we’ve gone through. Look at where we are. Look at who we are. I’m a better version of myself. I’m stronger than I ever knew I needed to be. And you…you’ve started to recognize that you get to write your own story. That you get to be Spencer. Not a Cassadine. Not the mayor’s grandson or Sonny Corinthos’ nephew. That you get to laugh and be silly and wear light colors and know what it’s like to be weightless because you can share what burdens you, what frightens you with people who love you knowing that that love, itself, is not going to float away. I’m not going away–”
“Trina-”
Trina nodded her head, hyping herself up to continue. “I do. I love you, Spencer. I’m in love with you. You make me feel crazy and a little bit dangerous. You make me laugh. You make me angry. You make me think. You make me feel things I’ve never felt before. And, I don’t want to look back to see how we got here, because I don’t care. I want to live in this moment. With you.”
Tears welled in Spencer’s eyes as he listened to her and tried to regain his composure.
“Part of me,” Spencer stutters, “doesn’t believe. I mean how can…why? And the other part of me is just grateful. Your mom and dad hate me, but I couldn’t be more grateful to them for bringing you into this world. And that I get to live in this world with you. You scare me because I cannot believe it’s possible to feel so much for another person. I mean, I come from money. I come from power. I know how those feel–how all consuming they can be–the pursuit of it, the retention of it–and yet, that all pales in comparison to this. I don’t know love like you do. Enough to identify it and call it by its name and have it recognize you and light up at the thought of you, run full speed to embrace you. Love for me has always been loss, or distance or…pretend. I’m learning–you are teaching me what it means to love. You trust me, when I’ve given you multiple reasons not to. And still, you just handed me your heart, and you trust me not to break it. And I want to be that brave.”
Spencer’s emotions ran so high that he could barely get the words out. His eyes were so heavy with fear and shame. Trina reached across the table and grabbed his hand, and they sat there in the dimly lit club in a kind of weighted silence, but for the soft jazz coming through the speakers. Trina stared at Spencer, while his eyes jutted around unwilling to settle on anything.
Trina let out a long, soft sigh. “Spencer,?” she called out quietly.
“Hmm,” he responded, his head still bowed.
“Look at me. Please.”
Spencer looked up at her. Her eyes were pleading, her voice determined.
“Do you see my face? Do you hear my voice? Do you feel my hand in yours?”
Spencer nodded his head slightly, unsure of whether these were rhetorical questions.
Trina continued. “I’m here. I’m real. This is real. I love you. You’re safe with me.
Spencer felt his body fill then release. A single tear tread down his cheek as he listened to the woman whose affections he had pursued for the last two years bestow them upon him. He clutched her hand tightly in his, then raised it to his mouth. “You are an incredible woman, Trina. I don’t deserve you–I don’t think anyone does.”
Trina stared at him, all smiles. If her eyes could have formed stars, they would have.
Spencer grabbed the bottle of champagne, jostled the cork loose, and poured each of them a glass. He raised his flute in the air and handed Trina hers to do the same. Clearing his throat, he toasted, “To making new memories in the places of our…troubled history.”
Trina rolled her eyes again and clinked her glass to his. “I have one,” she said.
“Go for it.”
“ To…you…my man, for always going out of his way to make me feel special. To make me feel desired. And loved.
They toasted and sipped their champagne.
“This is so good,” Trina remarked.
Spencer smirked. “Special order. Curtis’ selections left much to be desired.”
“Yes, The Savoy doesn’t generally cater to the uber rich, utterly pompous crowd.”
Spencer laughed. “Which is shameful! Where can people the likes of me go to celebrate with their incredibly smart, incredibly talented, incredibly gorgeous girlfriends?” He stood up and extended his hand to her. “Shall we?” He nodded towards the empty dance floor, where the rotating lights bounced hues of pink and blue off the glossed hardwood in the empty nightclub where only N'neka moved–in secret, playing everything from hostess to DJ.
Trina grabbed his hand and he escorted her to the floor, him, craning his neck down, her, up, so as not to miss a moment of each other, and they danced while the music filled the room.
“...What would I do without your smart mouth…drawing me in and you kicking me out…you’ve got my head spinning,
no kidding, I can’t pin you down…what’s going on in that beautiful mind…I’m on your magical mystery ride…”
Four minutes and thirty seconds. The length of the song. The length of the dance; Trina laying her head against Spencer’s chest, feeling it rise and fall with each breath, hearing his heart pound beneath it. Their movement in unison was effortless; the space between them, nonexistent.
Spencer was grateful. And afraid. Two years to the day he had walked up to this woman–nervous for various reasons, his heart in his throat. All of the lies. All of their hope. The confessions. The anticipation. The desires. The fights that kept them apart and the ones that kept them together. Would they–could they always return to this? Or…Shut up, Spencer, he thought to himself, interrupting his spiral. Just shut up. We’re right here, right now, and that’s all that matters. And with that, he quieted his mind and let the music overtake them.
“You're my end and my beginning…Even when I lose, I'm winning…'Cause I give you all of me…And you give me
all of you…”