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She absentmindedly scrolls through gift-shop knick-knacks. Flowers. Teddies. Baby clothes. It makes my heart sigh when she clicks on a twin set of dresses. You would think she’d settle on the flowers, or the rainbows, or the unicorns.
But does she?
No. She stops on the matching red dresses with little white dinosaurs. One click, two, ‘do you want to confirm your purchase?’
Yes. She sends my heart and a bouquet of flowers over the internet to be delivered to the hospital while those baby girls are merely twenty-four hours old, and when she feels my stare, she glances up and meets my eyes.
“All done. Can we go now?”
“Thank you.” I look to the image on my screen and stare for a moment longer. Both women watch me. One wears a smile and adoring eyes, and the other looks like she’s worried for my mental stability. In all these years, Annaliese has never seen me act so… well… like Gunner, instead of Theo. “And yes, we can go.” I don’t bother opening my emails like I’d intended when I sat down. I can check those later, and Annaliese has full access, so if there was something I needed to see, she would have led with that.
Switching the computer off again, I stand tall and grin when Lib tosses the tablet aside with a happy squeak and slides straight under my arm when I lift it. I pull her into my side and luxuriate in the way she fits herself to me without hesitation. There was a mere second of uncertainty in the past few weeks, but once we made the decision we were in, it happens just like that. We’re in, and that means there’s no room for anything but us.
Because we don’t want to be seen heading out, Lib and I ride the private elevator up to my apartment so I can pack bags. There’s a large part of me that enjoys showing my world off to her. My apartment is massive and luxurious, the view is amazing – to anyone but her. I’ve considered telling the world that we’re heading to the cabin, only to actually stay here, but the way Lib turns green at the view outside my living room windows makes me reconsider.
We’re going to the tiny cabin hidden in the forest three hours from here.
I move through my things with practiced moves, pack a case, toss every electronic away except one cell, one laptop, and one tablet.
It’s the best I can do. It’s the minimum my brain can handle, so I tuck those into one laptop bag, and when I’m done, I head into my open-plan living space to find her looking in my refrigerator.
Tight jeans cup her ass, and strong shoulders flex as she holds on to the freezer door. She’s so short that the handle for the freezer is in line with her face.
“You good?” I ask her back.
“You eat way too much turkey, Gun–” She stops, closes the door, and turns to me. “Griffin. Way too much turkey. Don’t you feel bad for being the reason all those birds died?”
“You’d rather I killed more chickens? Are those birds more deserving of death?” I place my bags on the end of my L-shaped couch and continue forward until I can circle the counter and pull her against my chest. I tease her for being short, I complain of a sore neck and her inability to reach things up high, but I’m so in love with her exactly the way she is. She’s compact and stronger than any woman I know. She’s capable, and short or not, she doesn’t make me nervous for her safety.
Not while she’s here, anyway. Being on shift at work is a whole other story that I’m not sure how I’ll handle.
“I’m ready to go.”
“Yeah?” She reaches up and wraps her arms around my neck. “We’re stopping at the store on the way there, right?”
“Right. No servants, which means we buy groceries and cook for ourselves.”
“And no turkey…” she pauses. “Right?”
“Turkey is cheap, Elizabeth! Can you shut up about the turkey?”
“It’s gross. I likerealturkey. Like, the actual bird at Thanksgiving, with the drumstick and stuffing and sides. But you buy ground,leftovermeat they find on the factory floor. Of course it’s cheap! It’s leftover shit. How can you stomach that?”
“Does it bother you that you never grew since you were nine?”
“Ugh!” She pulls back and slams her fist into my chest hard enough to rob the oxygen from my lungs. “I am five and a half feet tall. That’snotshort. It is perfectly average. Google it!”
“You’re five-three and three quartersat the most. Don’t lie, Elizabeth. I’ll get the ruler out if I have to.”
“I hate ground turkey,” she growls. “And I hate you. I could solve all of my problems if I pushed you into the machine that grinds that meat up.”
“But then who would snuggle you at night?” Chuckling, I pull her in and bark out a laugh when she slams her fist into my stomach. “Are you sure a week alone is a good idea? We might not come out alive.”
“I’ll be fine. But you definitely should be scared.” She pulls away, but only to snatch a green apple from the crystal bowl on the end of my counter, and crossing my living room, she stops at the elevator doors. “I’m ready to go. Even if I hate you, I still wanna go.”
“Hey, Libby?” I pass my couch and snatch up my bags, then meet her at the elevator door as it dings open.
“Hmm?” This elevator is much smaller than the others in my building. Those can carry twelve people at a time. This one barely fits two, so we cram in close together, and when the doors shut again, I take up all of Libby’s space so she’s crushed against the side.
