Chapter 26
Luke
Annie should be home from her first day any minute now.
I didn’t let the conversation with my dad—or lack thereof—affect the rest of my day, and I had to finish the schedule before my midday shift started.
I purposely gave myself a shift that let me be home in time to see Annie when she got home from her first day of rotations, her days being the equivalent of a work day, along with work she has to bring home and do before repeating it all the next day.
She warned me about how busy she’ll be because this year involves long hours of hands-on clinical training across all the different specialties. She has to manage cases while also adapting to different teams before rotating to a new placement and doing it all over again. I hope that I can make things less stressful for her—I plan on doing so whether she wants me to or not.
I hear her keys outside the door, Rosie hopping off the couch to meet Annie, just as I press a big, white bow to the top of the stand mixer I got her yesterday.
Maybe now that she’s my girlfriend, she’ll be okay with me buying her presents.
My Annie girl deserves the very best .
“Happy First Day!” I shout as she walks through the front door. Her brown waves are twisted back in a clip, pieces falling out to frame her face.
She’s dressed in black scrubs and her white tennis shoes, a white lab coat and her stethoscope hung over one arm, her backpack hung over the other.
She smiles when she sees me with my arms out as I stand in the kitchen, intentionally blocking my gift for her, but also wide open in case she needs to fall into them.
Her lips curve into a smile, and she looks like she wants to roll her eyes at my antics, but I can see her ears pinken as her smile grows and she walks towards me.
She drops everything she’s holding on to the floor and wraps her arms around my waist. My arms immediately pull her in close and lean down to press a kiss to the top of her head that’s resting against my chest. She smells of her usual scent of jasmine and roses, and a hint of antiseptic hits my nose.
“Did you have a good day?” I ask into her hair, and I feel her nod against my chest.
“I’m tired,” she mumbles against my chest, making me chuckle. She lifts her head to look at me. “What?”
“I like tired Annie—she’s cuddly.”
Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t let go of me. “You’re lucky you’re cute. And that I’m too tired to think of anything brattier.”
“Lucky for you , I’m going to ignore that—except for the part where you called me cute—and still give you your surprise.”
She bites her bottom lip to hold back her smile. “Surprise?” she asks, taking a step back from me and instantly seeming more awake than she was ten seconds ago .
“To clarify, I got this for you before we got back together, so just imagine how much I’ll spoil you now .”
She puts her hands on her hips. “Just because you’re my boyfriend doesn’t mean you can spoil me.”
Boyfriend .
She called me her boyfriend.
The word makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even though the term doesn’t feel like enough. Not after everything we’ve been through.
I clear my throat, trying to hide the emotion clogging it. “We can save that conversation for another time because . . . Surprise!” I move out of the way and her eyes widen as her hands go to her mouth. The red stand mixer is bright against the dark counter tops, and it fits just right in the space under the cabinets. “Now, you can do all the stress-baking you want.”
“Luke, this is—” she pauses, walking over to the counter, “this is too much.”
“You deserve it, Annie girl. Plus, don’t forget all the desserts you promised me.”
This makes her laugh. “How could I? Only cookies and cupcakes between now and October 15th, remember?” Her smile is wide, exactly how it should be, and it makes her brown eyes sparkle.
It doesn’t take much to make me happy, but seeing Annie smile reminds me that she isn’t as outward with her own happiness. Seeing Annie smile makes me feel like I’ve won a prize, like my hard work paid off, like I’m deserving of something special that she doesn’t just give out to anyone.
And I finally got her back.
Fuck starting slow or not picking up where we left off.
We have so much lost time to make up for.
“Or forever.” The words slip out of my mouth before I can stop them, but I would’ve said them even if I took the time to think about them. “Move in with me.” I don’t even have to hear her answer to know that I will be letting the complex know first thing tomorrow that I know longer need the hold on the unit down the hall.
“I already live here, dummy.”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m asking.”
She turns from the stand mixer to me, leaning against the counter. I can read what she’s feeling on her face, even as she tries to will any emotion away.
She’s surprised, so she’ll pretend she wasn’t.
She’s scared, so she’ll fight me.
She’s hopeful, so she’ll tell herself this is too good to be true.
“I’m going to shower,” she says before walking as fast as she can to the bathroom, always doing the exact opposite of what I want or expect her to do.
I can’t help but smile at the way she rushes out the words, trying to hide all those feelings to no avail. I resist the urge to tease her about it and instead pick up all her stuff she dropped on the floor a few minutes ago and just walked past. “And I'll heat up the rest of the leftovers from last night for dinner.” I set her backpack down at the chair on the other side of the kitchen counter and lay her lab coat and stethoscope on top.
I don’t even care if I spend the rest of my life cleaning up after her. As long as it’s in our apartment, our house, our home.
I hear the shower start running through the cracked bathroom door as I pull out the to-go containers from last night and heat us up the leftover lasagna.
I know this will be the first of late dinners over the next twelve months of Annie’s rotations, but I want to be at her side every step of the way—supporting her, praising her, cheering her on.
After warming up the food and cleaning up the kitchen a little, I hear the shower turn off. A few minutes later, Annie comes out wearing her stupid little cherry pajama set that I haven’t seen since she wore it to the hospital the night Lennon was born.
“Don’t you think that’s moving a little fast?” she asks, warily. “We just got back together.” Her voice is a notch quieter and more serious than it was before she showered, but she didn’t say, ‘No, Luke. I’m not moving in with you’.
I round the kitchen counter with our dinner and sit down. “All the more reason to go full steam ahead.” I pat the seat to my left for her to join me.
“Luke, I don’t know. We still have a lot to figure out.”
“So, we’ll figure it out together,” I answer. “Come sit down. You need to eat.”
I can see the conflict in her eyes. She doesn’t want to accept that she doesn’t have to do it all on her own anymore. I’m here for her to ask for help, and I’m going to help her even when she doesn’t ask.
We eat in a comfortable silence; the only noise is the TV playing in the background from when I was watching before Annie got home.
I keep an eye on her as we eat, and she looks like she’s miles away. I can almost see the wheels turning in her head, so I don’t even bother saying anything.
Still, she doesn’t say anything as I grab her empty plate, rinsing both our plates and silverware in the sink before putting everything into the dishwasher.
I grab each of us a brownie, one with chocolate frosting for her and one with powdered sugar for me. Putting each of them on a paper towel, I push hers towards her, knowing she’ll want to get to bed soon but always needing a sweet treat after a meal.
There’s a soft smile on her face when the brownie is in front of her, her features not as tight and drawn as they were before. Whatever spiral she was in before is starting to unwind in her mind, and I hope she talks about it instead of rushing off to bed like she did with the shower.
She breaks a piece off and popsit into her mouth and chews slowly, her eyes on the counter in front of her.
We’re both finishing our last bites when she finally says, “A lot has happened in the last few days, we aren’t the same people we were when we did this the first time.” She looks down at our hands in her lap before looking back up at me.
“Trust me, I know that better than anyone. I knew from the moment I found you at Lenny’s all those years ago that you were not the same girl I knew four months before.”
I’ve never told Annie how I watched her for longer than I’d like to admit before she saw me that day. She doesn’t know how surprised I was to see her or how I felt frozen in place when I heard her tell that old guy at the bar to fuck off. She has no idea that I recognized her from the outside but felt like she was a stranger on the inside—one that I wanted so badly to get to know.
“And I knew I was going to fall more in love with you the more I got to know this new version.”
“I treated you like shit for years , Luke.” Her voice is raw with emotion, it’s laced with anger as she raises her voice.
She balls up the paper towel her brownie was on and throws it onto the table, bringing her knees into her chest, her eyes on the counter in front of her .
“I pretended that everything that happened between us meant nothing to me. I threw it all away without going to you first. You . The person who I trusted more than anyone. I just ran away from it all, only to waste all this time over something that wasn’t even your fault.”
I lean forward on the counter, reaching to tuck a piece of damp hair behind her ear. My fingers trail down her neck, around her jaw, until my fingers find her chin, and lift her face so I can make sure she looks at me when I say, “You and I both know that you did what you did to protect yourself. I will never blame you for that.” I press a kiss to her forehead. “You are so strong, Annie girl. You built walls around that heart and pretended like it didn’t exist, and I will never fault you for that.”
She shakes her head, and I drop my hand. I need her to look in my eyes when I tell her all of this. I round the counter and sit back down in the chair next to her, pulling her hand into my lap. “Look at me, honey. I want you to seriously listen to what I’m about to tell you.”
I can tell she wants to scoff at me, but she doesn’t. Instead, she looks up and finds my eyes. “You did not waste any time. Things happen the way they do for a reason, and now we have our second chance. A second chance that I have no intention of wasting.” I squeeze her hands in mine, giving her a soft smile. I watch as her lips curve upwards, and she squeezes back. “So, I’m going to say this one more time—move in with me.”
Her smile fades, but she doesn’t let go of my hands. I take that as a good sign. “I want to say yes, but—”
“But what? There’s no buts. Say yes.”
“What about rotations? How are we going to make it work? I’m barely home, working over 40 hours a week, plus research and reports, and all my additional requirements for evalu— ”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“What about what you’re going to do? You have your own life and your own decisions to make with what to do with—”
“Annie.” I stop her because she’ll keep going until she tires herself out, trying to think of all the reasons this won’t work, even though I know that it will. “Say it with me, ‘we’ll figure it out.’”
“No, because you’re just saying that we’ll figure it out so I move in with you.”
“So, it’s a yes? You’re moving in with me?”
“No, I did not say that.”
“But you want to.”
“I’m still not opposed to burying you in the backyard.”
That catches me off guard, causing a laugh to escape my throat. “I’ll help you dig the grave. Just say yes,” I plead, seconds away from getting down on my knees.
“Yes to you helping me dig your grave?” And, by the way she’s trying to hide the smile on her face, I know she already agreed to moving in with me. Now, she’s just giving me a hard time.
I huff out a breath because that threat doesn’t go away just because she’s my girlfriend, and I think she really is going to kill me. “Do you actively try to be a brat, or does it come naturally?”
She rolls her eyes as her lips curve into a smirk. “It’s as natural as breathing, bartender.” She stands, and I know she’s about to head to the guest room. Little does she know, I have no intention of letting her sleep anywhere but in bed—with me—ever again.
I stand from my chair, blocking her way. “So, it’s a yes?”
“Are you done with that?” She takes a little step closer to me, tilting her head a few inches to keep her eyes on mine. She crosses her arms, sitting into her hip.
“Still haven’t heard the word.” I look down at her.
We stay in our stand-off, waiting to see who will be the first one to back down. We both know that her answer is yes, and we both know she won’t give me the satisfaction of just saying the damn word.
We also both know that I will be the one to back down.
“Come here,” I say, swallowing her gasp when my lips press against hers.
I grab her by the hips, picking her up, and her legs immediately wrap around my waist. The material of her pajama shorts is soft and thin against my palms as I hold her against me.
Annie’s arms wrap around my neck, pulling me in. Her lips taste like chocolate and cherries, and I’ve never tasted anything more perfect.
I don’t break the kiss as I walk us to my bedroom— our bedroom.