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“Well,” I murmur as I kiss the back of his hand, “it was just a dream. Everything is okay.”
He murmurs back throatily, tiredly, “Yeah. You make it that way.”
Touched, I lean in and seek out his mouth with mine. He returns my long, easy kiss.
I can’t believe I fought this for so long.
He is such perfection.
Rae tosses in her sleep, so I whisper against his lips, “I’ll hold your hand when I lie back down, okay?”
I feel him nod. “Okay.”
After I get in my spot on the other side of the bed, I face inward and slide my arm under the pillows. He gets his under there, too, and then we find each other’s hand over Rae and tangle our fingers together.
“I’m crazy about you, Liv,” I hear him say softly.
“I’m crazy about you, too,” I tell him in kind.
He’s asleep again in no time, breathing as quietly and evenly as the angel between us. So I let myself drift off once more, too.
Yeah, this is the way to end a day.
*
Between how safe and how fun it is with Landon, Rae and I don’t end up going home after one night. But over the next few days, nothing more happens as far as break-ins go; we check with other tenants at the mailbox and in the elevator, and they say things have been quiet around their places, too. So we go back to our apartment after spending three nights away.
In no time, we’re missing how nice it was to be around Landon like that.
“You’re not scared, though, right?” he asks over the phone on Saturday night. Bill covered his usual morning shift so that, in turn, Landon could handle the closing hours for his ill assistant manager. He’s on his last break, and I’ve informed him of how bored Rae and I have been over here.
“Nope, not scared,” I say as I get situated on the couch. “Just disappointed to be by our lonesome again.”
He sighs. “I know that feel.”
The line falls quiet except for the music that’s just audible from the other side of his office door.
After several moments, he adds, “My bed feels too damn big with just me in it now. Whole place does, really.”
“I bet,” I murmur.
A certain question has been in my mind for some days now, and this seems like a good conversation for asking it.
I clear my throat and go for it. “While we’re kind of on the topic, I want to say I’ve been wondering if…if you think you’d ever like to, um…uh….” Well, Itryto go for it.
“Live together?” he guesses in his own murmur.
I nod, then realize he can’t see me. “Yeah.” Before he can answer, I assure him, “I know we’ve only been dating a week. I don’t expect…you know. I just wondered.”
The sound of his lighthearted laughter relaxes me. “I enjoyed being domestic with you and Rae evenbeforewe started dating.”
The words have me laughing lightly, too. “Oh.”
“Mmhmm.” He pauses before he says more seriously, “So, yes, I would be comfortable with that. Would you?”
In my heart, in my mind, and in my body, I know I would.
Like I said, I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve taken the time to decide how I’d feel about the personal aspects, which I think are the most important ones: him probably seeing Rae between bathing and putting on pajamas, him being around when it’s my time of the month, all of us having to deal with each other through illness and everyday messes and stressors.
