Page 61 of Only for Tonight
She smirks at me and her eyes still seem a little tired. “Are you saying you didn’t like sharing it with me?” Her hand comes out to take one of the cups from me as she takes a sip of it. “So good, who knew?” I roll my eyes. “Just got off the phone with your father,” she tells me. “He called to check up on me for the third time today.”
“He wants to make sure you’re okay,” I defend him. I know since she got out of the hospital three days ago, he’s been on my ass about making sure she’s okay, and I have no doubt he’s been on her ass making sure I’m doing what I need to do.
“I know.” She walks back over to the couch and sits down with one leg curled under her, while she puts the protein drink on the table beside the couch and picks up her laptop. “It’s just?—”
“If you want, I’ll tell him to stop.” I sit down next to her and she gasps out.
“I will seriously hurt you if you do that,” she warns as I lean over and kiss her lips. “I’m not kidding, Jaxon, don’t tell him anything.”
“I won’t,” I assure her, grabbing her and putting her to sit in my lap. She squeaks out trying to hold her laptop while I wrap my arms around her waist. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for a house,” she states and my eyes go to the screen while my body goes tight. “I found a couple and I’m going to send them to Zoey to see what she thinks about the neighborhood and stuff.”
“You’re looking for a house,” I repeat her words, not sure I actually heard right. She nods her head. “You’re looking for a house.”
“Um, yeah.” She looks up at me confused. “There are a bunch of things to take into consideration that I never thought about before. Like crime rate in the area. Definitely don’t want to go to a place where people are getting killed often.” I listen to her and slowly start to count to ten to calm myself down.
“Then you have to take into account the school district, even though we have some time before the baby starts school, you want to be zoned for the right one. But then I was thinking, will our baby go to private school?” she rattles off nervously. “Then I was like, do I want to live close to parks since it would be nice for the baby and I to take walks together.” She looks at the screen. “It’s a lot more intense buying a house when you have a kid than when you don’t.” She snorts. “Old Ariella would be like, two bedrooms—cool—I can use one for my office and second closet. New Ariella is thinking, is there going to be a playroom?”
“Why the fuck are you looking for a house?” I try to remain calm to not upset her and keep her blood pressure down. The last thing I want is for her to be upset and then she ends up in the hospital again. I don’t think I can handle what happened the last time again. Even though I know it was probably something she ate, I still don’t want to trigger anything.
“Well, if I move here,” she starts to say softly, and she puts her laptop down on the coffee table in the middle of the room, before she gets off my lap. She sits beside me now, placing the protein shake next to her laptop before she turns to face me.
“You mean when you move here,” I correct her. “I thought that part was a given.”
“Okay, well, when I move here,” she starts again, and I immediately cut her off.
“You move in here and live with me,” I say as if that wasn’t established before.
“Wait, what?” She tilts her head to the side, looking very confused by this. “You want me to move in here?” She points to the couch and her legs.
“Well, yeah, of course I want you to move in here.” I lean forward to put my protein shake beside hers before I turn to face her. I put my hand on the back of the couch, mimicking her position. I didn’t know that this would be when we would be having this conversation, but it’s about time. Ever since we had the first conversation, when she called us friends, I’ve been waiting and biding my time to bring it up. I feel like if now isn’t a good time, I don’t know what is.
“But—” she starts to say.
“But what?” I snap and her eyes go big and her eyebrows rise. “What do you need?”
“Jaxon,” she says my name and I don’t know if she is warning me or just saying my name. But I’m so scared of losing her that I’m going to do what I need to do and say.
“No, I’m dead fucking serious right now, Ariella. What do you need?”
“I need you to?—”
Again, I don’t let her say anything. “Tell me what you need, and I’ll get it. I’ll do it.”
“We don’t even know each other,” she rebuts and I roll my eyes.
“We fucking know each other, Ari, we grew up together.”
“That doesn’t even count,” she groans. “You were, like, banging chicks and I was eight.”
“I wasn’t banging chicks when you were eight.” I snort. “Also never say that again.”
“Whatever, we barely know each other,” she goes on, “and?—”
“And what? I know you,” I say softly, “and you know me in ways that no one knows me.” I swallow. “I’ve shared things with you I never planned on sharing with anyone, and with you it just comes so easily. Natural, like it was always supposed to be like this.”
“Well.” She hesitates and she looks down at her hands like she’s embarrassed about what she has to say.
