Chapter 24
Cole
“I want to move in with you,” she says to me.
“You do?” I ask, surprised. I wasn’t expecting her to make a decision so soon.
“Yeah. Well, if you still want me to,” she says, sounding nervous.
“I definitely want you to,” I say, then I lean over and kiss her.
“What made you decide all of a sudden?” I ask.
“I’ve just been thinking. We are having the baby, we mesh so well, and now Mom and Dad are moving here.
They really like my apartment, so that solves two issues—what to do with my lease and the furniture.
I love you and even though we are still learning about each other, I feel at ease with you. Like this is where I am meant to be.”
I kiss her again. “I love you too. I’m so ready for you to live with me.”
She smiles at me. “Well, let’s make it official, then. I’m going to text Mom that we are going to come over, and then I can pack some of my stuff. We can start slowly moving it all here.”
“All right. I’m going to go take a shower.”
“Want some company?” she asks.
I smile at her. “Fuck yes. You can shower with me anytime,” I say and grab her and bring her with me.
After a long, hot shower we are on our way to her apartment. I had a feeling last night that this was going to happen this way, but I didn’t expect her to decide so soon. We get to the apartment after stopping for some boxes. We walk in, and Greg and Dianne look at all the boxes.
“What are those for?” Dianne asks.
“I’ve decided to move in with Cole. I’m going to pack up some of my stuff and take it with me. I was thinking you two might like to take over the lease on this place?”
Dianne and Greg look at each other and smile mischievously. Yep, I knew they played her. I laugh to myself. Noah is sitting on the couch, looking confused by everything that is happening.
“Of course, that would be great, Ellie!” Dianne says.
“Whatever furniture you don’t want, we were thinking we could donate.”
“That sounds great.” Dianne hugs Ellie.
We spend a few hours packing, and once all the boxes we brought are full, we load them up and take them to our home. Our home. We get inside, and Ellie is staring at the boxes.
“I don’t know where to put all this stuff.” She laughs.
“Wherever you’d like to. This is your home too,” I say and kiss her on the cheek. “I’m going to cook us something to eat while you get started. Let me know if you need help with anything.”
She unloads boxes and comes into the kitchen occasionally to put things away in there as she comes across them.
She gives me a kiss each time she comes through.
I’ve been listening to music while I cook, and when I tell her the food is ready, she comes in and we dance to the rest of the song that is on.
The song ends, and we eat our dinner. Once we are done, she says she needs help with the rest of the boxes because they are heavy.
I carry the boxes where she needs them, and we spend some time emptying them and putting everything where she wants it.
Once all the boxes are empty, I glance around the apartment. “Let’s go buy some stuff,” I say.
“Like what?”
“This place doesn’t show that you live here. I want you to buy more stuff and make it yours. We can even buy some new furniture. Whatever you want.”
“We don’t need to buy anything. There is plenty of stuff here, and this furniture looks brand new.”
“We can donate it too, let’s go.” I grab her hand and pull her along with me to the car.
We spend the rest of the day shopping. We have a ton of stuff that will be delivered tomorrow.
Ellie is going to stay home and wait for it to come.
I thought about staying with her, but I want her to get a chance to relax on her own in our home and get more comfortable with the fact that it’s her home too.
The next day at work, I am distracted. All I can think about is what Ellie is doing.
Usually throughout the day I can take a glance at her as I walk by her office.
Since I can’t do that today, I’ve gone back to my old ways and turned into a hermit in my office.
I haven’t left my office since I got here.
I’m staring at my phone, debating calling Ellie, when it starts ringing and her name pops up. I smile and answer.
“Hey, Ellie Girl. I was just thinking about you,” I say to her.
“I miss work,” she says.
“I miss you too,” I say sarcastically.
“Well, what I really mean is I miss seeing you try to be sneaky when you walk past my office.” She laughs.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” I chuckle. I didn’t realize she had ever noticed all the times I walk by for no reason.
“Mm-hmm. Whatever you say, Mr. Simmons,” she says seductively.
“Ellie,” I scold.
“Is there a problem?” she taunts.
“You know what it does to me when you call me that.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Simmons.”
“Ellie.”
“It’s too bad you are at work, Mr. Simmons.”
“I could leave now. I’m considering it with how naughty you are being.”
“I thought you had meetings this afternoon?”
“I do, but it seems that someone needs to be taught a lesson.”
“And what lesson is that?”
“To not be naughty and tease me while I am at work.”
“But you like me naughty.”
“Ellie,” I scold again.
“Yes, Mr. Simmons?”
“Fuck. Will you please stop? You have me so hard right now, and I can’t do anything about it.” I hear her lightly laughing on the other end of the phone.
“OK, OK. I’ll stop.” She giggles.
“What are you doing?” I ask her. Trying to think of anything to make myself not so hard.
“Oh, I’m just lying here in our bed nak—”
“Ellie!” I cut her off.
She laughs out loud. “I’m kidding. I’ve been trying to find spots for all this stuff you bought me, but I’m bored of it, so I am taking a break and watching TV.”
“Good. I wanted you to take some time to yourself today. Are you enjoying your day off?”
“Yeah, I just miss you.”
“I know, I miss you too. I have a few more hours of work, and then I’ll be home.”
“OK. I think I’m going to cook for you tonight.”
“What takeout should I stop and grab on the way home?” I say and then start laughing.
“Jerk.” She laughs. “I can cook some stuff. It might not be as good as your cooking, but it’s edible.”
“I’m sure whatever you make will be great. I’ve got to get going, I have a meeting in a few minutes.”
“All right. I’ll see you later. Love you.”
“Love you too, Ellie Girl.” I hang up and get ready for my meetings. Praying the rest of the day goes quickly so I can go home to my girl.
Ellie
I’ve spent the day at home. It’s so weird to call this place home, but I do feel like this is where I belong.
I put away most of the stuff that was delivered today, and then I got bored of it, so I watched some TV.
That was even more boring, so I called Cole to mess with him, but it backfired, and I got turned on too.
Once we hung up, I decided to start making a list of things we will need for the peanut.
I am still pretty early along, so I’m not going to purchase anything yet, but I need a general idea of what we will need.
Once I finish my list, I go to the kitchen to decide what to make for dinner. One thing I am good at making is pizza, so I check to see if we have all the ingredients, and luckily we do. So I get started on making the dough. Once that’s done, I work on topping them and getting them into the oven.
The pizzas are about done when I hear the elevator. Cole comes into the kitchen. “It smells incredible in here.” He kisses me on the cheek.
“I’m making pizzas,” I tell him.
“Like from scratch?” He sounds surprised.
“Yes. I made the crust and then added all the toppings.”
“You know how to do that?”
“Yes. It’s not that hard,” I say, laughing.
“Yeah, it is. I’ve never been able to make a good crust. They always come out too mushy or too hard.”
“Well, homemade pizzas happen to be my specialty.”
“Can’t wait to try them.” He kisses me on the cheek. “I’m going to go change.”
“All right, these are almost ready.”
He goes into the bedroom, and a few minutes later, the timer buzzes.
I check the pizzas, and they are ready, so I pull them out and shut the oven off.
I go to the bedroom to find Cole. He is standing in the closet in just his boxers with his back to me.
I take a moment to appreciate the view, then I walk up to him.
I wrap my arms around him and hug him. He turns in my arms and hugs me back.
“What’s wrong, Ellie Girl?” he asks.
“Nothing. I just missed you today.”
“I missed you too. Work wasn’t as fun without you.”
“You mean without you being able to stalk me?” I giggle.
He smacks my ass.
“Come on, the pizzas are ready,” I say.
He slips on sweatpants and follows me to the kitchen.
“This looks delicious,” he says, grabbing a slice of each. He takes a bite on the way to his seat. “Ellie, this is so good. This is probably the best pizza I’ve ever had.”
“It’s good, but it’s not that good, Cole.”
“No, really, Ellie. It’s so good.”
“If you say so.” I laugh.
When we are done eating, Cole asks if I want help with the rest of the stuff that was delivered today. We open more of the packages and start finding spots for all of it.
“Which room do you want for the baby?” he asks.
“I’m not sure, I haven’t really thought about it,” I say.
“I was thinking the bigger room, since the peanut is going to be getting more and more stuff as they get older, they will have enough room for anything, then.”
“That’s fine with me,” I say, and he grabs my hand and pulls me toward the room. “What are you doing?” I laugh.
“We are going to start planning our baby’s room.”
“What do you mean?”
We’re in the room now. “Where do you want their crib, where do you want to sit when you rock them? Tell me what you see for this room,” he says.
“I haven’t thought about it much,” I say.
He pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolds it.
“What is that?” I ask.
“I saw this earlier. I took it to look at myself later, but I’ve decided we are going to look at it together.”
I glance over his shoulder, and it is the list of baby items I made earlier. I feel my cheeks heat.
“Why are you embarrassed?” he asks.
“I didn’t mean for you to see that.”
“Why not? It’s no secret we are having a baby.” He laughs.
“It’s just a little early to be fully planning like that. I just had nothing else to do earlier, so I decided to make that list.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s too early. I am so excited for this baby, and this shows that you are excited too. Now, let’s figure out what we want to do with this room.”
“We don’t even know if it is a girl or boy yet.”
“That’s OK, we can at least plan the basics.”
We spend more time thinking about the room and the layout that we want, and then we go to bed, since we have work in the morning.