“Work.”
“No, not today. I’m the boss, you are taking a day off.”
I push her back and raise myself above her. “No. I’m working, we’re going to do this right. Part of our problem is having no normality. I was visiting you, you were visiting me. It doesn’t work. I’m staying here for good now and until you are back on your feet, I have a job to do. So we’ll have breakfast with the guys and spend some time together. But I’m working a two till two, no arguments.” I kiss her when I’ve finished. “You can sit at the counter and distract me if you like. You’re good at that.” She sticks out her bottom lip. “I’m off tomorrow though,” I say to ease things slightly. “Come on, let’s shower.”
'I can’t,” she says, but then remembers she has no cast anymore.
“Not on your own, but I’m here.” I hold out my hand. She smiles and takes it.
Holding her body close to mine in the shower feels great. She obviously can’t do it by herself, so I stand behind her with my arm protectively around her waist, while she washes. I’ve helped her bathe a few times but nothing like this. I kiss her shoulder as I slide my fingers between her legs.
“Danny! Not in here, I’m having a hard enough time standing up.” She laughs.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur into her wet hair.
She shakes her head and carefully turns within my hold, breaking the contact my wandering fingers had established. I pout. But then she takes her soapy hands and runs them down my chest, further down over my abdomen and grins as she does. I watch her, aching for her to finish the journey, but then she carefully parts her hands and continues down onto my thighs. I sigh with disappointment and even as she starts retracing their path, I know she will overlook where I want her most.
“Tease.”
She just smiles and carries on washing.
“I’m guessing you threw all my stuff out,” I say as I wrap a towel around my waist. “I’ll text Max and have him bring me some clothes.”
She looks sheepish and pulls open the bottom drawer. Everything I left behind is packed neatly away. “I couldn’t do it,” she mutters.
I laugh, picking her up and kissing her. “I love you,” I say as I set her back down on the bed. I rifle through the drawer. “I only have sweats, I guess it’s casual for breakfast.”
“I thought it was black tie,” she says sarcastically. “Do the boys know you’re coming?”
“Well, they know I took you out last night and I’m not home, I think they’ll put it together.”
“Oh God, Max is going to be unmanageable!” She groans, flopping back on the bed.
“I’ll handle him, don’t worry,” I say pulling her back up. “Now get dressed, the longer he waits, the worse he’ll be.”
Liv wears sweats too and we are having fun as we finish getting ready. I go ahead of her on the stairs and turn my back to her. “Hop on.”
“What? No!” she cries.
“Hop on!” I insist and she gives in, laughing. At the bottom of the stairs, I don’t stop to let her down, I push through the door.
“Danny, put me down!” she shouts hitting my back as we steam into the diner. Max, Charlie and Connie are waiting, with huge grins and knowing looks when I finally ease Liv down to the floor. “Bastard!” She giggles.
There is an exchange of congratulatory kisses and backslapping handshakes as if we have just got married.
“I knew you could do it,” Connie whispers as she hugs me tight.
“I think you helped,” I reply kissing her cheek.
“Hey! You two!” Liv shouts. “No whispering. I’ve had enough of all the meddling and scheming around here. From now on everything goes through me!”
We all laugh.
While coffee and juices arrive I duck out the back to my car. I grab the little red box from the glove compartment and put it in my pocket.
On the way back in, I text Jen. I wish I could call her but it’s 5am.
‘I have news! Call me later x.’
I grin as I take my seat beside Liv.
“So, are we celebrating something here?” asks Charlie.
“I think so,” says Liv, looking to me.
I shake my head. “There you go again, with your insecurities! Yes we are.” I confirm to Charlie and hold out my glass. We all chink glasses and I kiss Liv. Everyone makes approving noises around us, stopping short of bursting into applause. It’s a little much, but I feel like these guys are my family now, our family, so it’s great. Liv and I are so lucky to have them.
After breakfast, Connie leaves to pick something up from the dry-cleaners for Jack and Charlie takes Max shopping. So Liv and I have some time to ourselves.
“Come with me,” I say to Liv once we are alone.
“Where?” she says getting up to follow me.
“You’ll see.” I smirk.
I help her into the car. It’s not far, but I don’t think she’d make it on foot. She frowns when we pull into the parking lot beside the park and she is even more confused when I lead her down to our tree.
“Do you remember the last time we came here?”
Liv hangs her head, then looks up at me and nods. It was that awful day. The day she made sure I would go with my parents. The day I told myself it was soon to be over and I just had to live with it.
“Why are we doing this today? I thought we were putting all of this behind us,” she says with sadness.
“We are, but I have to do this first.” I smile, hoping to put her at ease. “Do you remember that conversation?”
“Yeah, I wish I could forget.”
“Did you know you’d been offered an interview at UCLA then?” I ask her.
She nods.
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“We’ve been through this Danny. I didn’t think it was what you wanted.” She’s getting frustrated. “I was embarrassed that I’d taken it so far, when it seemed like it was the furthest thing from your mind. So I told you you should go, to make it easier for you.”
“But you didn’t want me to?”
“No.” She sighs. “Can we drop this now?”
“No, because you’re not letting me say what I want to say, just like that day. You went on and on and I thought I’d got us all wrong if you wanted me to leave so badly.” I look out at the view, remembering how I felt when I walked away from here, it was the beginning of the end. “I came here that day to do something so stupid. I would have made a total mess of things, just so you know, so I think you did us both a huge favor. But I still wish I hadn’t had to be without you so long.” She looks at me, not understanding. “I was going to give you this.” I pull the red box from my pocket and place it on her knee.
Her mouth falls open and she looks from the box to me.
“I’m not asking you now,” I add. “Trust me, I’ll do a much better job. But I was going to back then. I’m showing you because I just need you to know that you weren’t the only one that came away from this in pieces.”
“Are you serious?” she stutters.
“Painfully.” I sigh. “I thought that you somehow knew what I was planning and you said all that stuff to stop me, so that you didn’t have to turn me down.”
She stares at me in disbelief. “I would have said yes,” she whispers.
“I know. It’s taken Jen over a decade to convince me of it, but I realise that now.” I laugh. “But we were kids and it was twelve years ago, by now we’d have had kids, you wouldn’t have your business, I’d be doing a nine to five, if we had made it this far, we’d hate each other. It was for the best.”
She reluctantly nods in agreement. “I honestly had no idea,” she says.
“I know, and I didn’t know you’d thought about coming with me. We both did everything wrong, we could
