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Chapter Two
Jake
I hate that Emily thought I was rushing us. More so, I hate that she saw it as moving too fast. We've been together so long as it is. We are the married couple, even though we aren't married yet. As long as that's something she wants, then we shouldn't be moving at a rapid speed six years since we started dating. It doesn't matter though. We settled it. I should probably go speak with Drake now. When I ask her to get up a few minutes later so I can go handle Drake's attitude problem, she tells me no.
“Talk to him tomorrow, love. Stay with me,” she says.
“All right.” I run my hands up and down her back. “I need a favor.”
“What's that?”
“Can I have complete control over the house?”
Sweetness sits up and looks at me, completely skeptical. “What do you mean?”
“I want to do it all by myself.”
Emily frowns and slides off my lap to stand. She walks away, into our bedroom. I follow her after turning off the lamp, figuring that we're going to bed for the night. She's obviously thinking it over. That's all there is to it, right? Her frown was just surprise, I'm sure. Silence evades our space while we change and get ready for bed. In bed, Emily rolls onto her side, watching me. Her eyes are sad.
“You want to build our house without me?” I nod. “Why? I don't understand why you would want to do that by yourself when you want to be a part of every detail of the wedding. Why don't you want me involved?” Emily finishes quietly.
She got a totally different message, and it's my fault that I didn't explain it better. “Sweetness, that's not what I meant.”
“What did you mean then?” she interrupts.
“I want to do it myself, with a little bit of input from you, and build the house of our dreams. I want to surprise you.”
“With a custom house?”
Sweetness is entirely too skeptical of how well I know her. Surely, I can build a house by myself, and she'll still love it all because I know her inside and out. Right? I nod to her again.
“Love, I don't know about these surprises. What if you spend all this money building a house that I don't like? What then?”
She doesn't think I know her well enough to do this. Emily's my Sweetness and I want to do this. What better way to show how much I love her than to build the house we'll love and raise a family in one day?
“It won't happen,” I reassure her. “You'll love it, I promise. You'll be on my mind the entire time I'm making all those decisions.”
She squeezes her eyes closed quickly before allowing them to pop back open. “Okay, I trust you. Have at it.”
I grin and kiss her softly, pulling her to me. She wraps herself around me, and I love the feeling of her body flush against mine, her torso moving slowly as she breathes, and that teasing thing she's picked up when she's thinking where her fingers trail in slow circles on my stomach. Her head is resting just below my chin, so I dip it inward and kiss the top of her head.
“What's going on in that pretty head of yours, Sweetness?”
Emily sighs, her mind obviously not on our happy future. “Am I over thinking things or have we fallen into a bit of a rut?”
“What do you mean?” Please tell me she has not been inside my head. Part of me wishes she knew what's been going on inside my head lately, but a huge part of me is so thankful she doesn't know.
“When was the last time we went out by ourselves, Jake? We haven't had a vacation since Hawaii and our dates after your trips don't really count because that's routine for us now. We're like the old married couple that never does anything anymore and we're not married or old yet.”
“I-” I stumble with my words because she's hit the mark. “I guess we are in a rut.” That was something I never expected to happen with us, but I guess it has. Other things took precedence to tending to our relationship and the first example that comes to mind is the last two months. Guilt washes over me as it has done so often these days. I hate that I've neglected her, us, and our relationship. If she feels this way, does that mean that Drake has similar feelings? Maybe that's why he's been a smart ass?
Emily wiggles atop my body and props herself up on her elbows. I push a strand of her hair behind her ear as she says, “Love, I didn't mean to make you feel bad, so don't go there, okay?”
I nod as if it could go away that easily.
“Jake,” she whines somewhat playfully. “I mean it. The only reason I brought it up is because I want it to change. If things keep going this way, we probably won't even want to get married by July. We have to keep our relationship alive, not full of boring routines.”
I sigh as she rests her forehead against mine, her hair falling to each side of our faces. “Sweets, I love you so much.”
“I know you do,” she inserts.
“I suck, don't I?” It's the best I can manage to say right now.
“What? No! We both suck if anyone does. You always won the Boyfriend of the Year Award, you always win the Fiancé of the Year Award, and I'm positive that you'll win the Husband of the Year Award every...” She kisses me. “Single.” Another kiss. “Year.” Yet another kiss. “When the time comes, you'll definitely win the Father of the Year Award.”
“That's an awful lot of awards.” I smile. Sweetness giggles and I continue, running my fingers up her sides. “I'm just going to give you one every year, okay?” My voice tones down to a whisper and when Emily speaks, she matches it.
“What's that?”
“Most Amazing Person Ever Award.”
“Thank you, Jake. You get that one too,” she grins, moving to straddle me.
Ah, I want her so much tonight. To feel my heart race and to feel my love for her overwhelm me. Lately, the spark between us has barely been a spark. I want the fireworks back, but I know that it's my responsibility to get it back. My fault it disappeared in the first place.
Emily's only wearing one of my oversized t-shirts and it's hiked up to her waist, my hands instantly traveling up her thighs in confirmation. I inhale her strawberry shampoo only to realize that it's cucumber melon.
“What happened to your shampoo?”
