Page 56 of Trust Fall
“So, a telescope, huh?” She raised an eyebrow as she looked at Cleo with a smirk.
“I figured it was as big of a romantic gesture as I could think of.” Cleo stood and offered her hand to Ivy for her to follow. “I searched online and got the coordinates of where to look. After you,” Cleo said softly, holding her other hand out for Ivy to look through the eyepiece first.
“Babe,” Ivy exhaled, and reached her hand out to take Cleo’s, “is that...?”
“Yeah, you told me before we even went out that Andromeda was your favorite constellation, so I thought that was the perfect one to line the telescope up to tonight,” Cleo said, holding Ivy’s stretched out hand, and resting her other on the small of Ivy’s back.
Ivy stood up. “Thank you,” she said, moving in to lean against Cleo’s body, “I always loved that one the best. I loved the idea of the story behind it, granted not all of it, but the romantic parts.” Ivy sighed into Cleo as she felt Cleo's arms wrap around her shoulders.
“I meant to look it up but after spending all afternoon meeting Lucas and then setting up the telescope and lights, I ran out of time. Would you tell me?” Cleo asked.
“Well, the super short version?” Cleo nodded and kissed Ivy’s forehead. “Andromeda was a princess who was chained to a rock by her mother as a sacrifice to a sea monster. However, before the sea monster got to her, she was rescued by Perseus, and theywent on to get married.” Ivy chuckled. “It wasn’t the whole guy-saves-the-girl bit that I liked.”
“Obviously,” Cleo chuckled, and Ivy tickled her side in protest at the interruption, “sorry, sorry, please, continue.”
“As I was saying,” Ivy raised her head and pouted slightly, but her smirk wouldn’t let her do it properly, “it was more the idea that I related to her own mother discarding her, and having someone come along who was willing to fight to save her and love her that I wanted.” She raised her hand from Cleo’s waist to place it flat against Cleo’s chest, over her heart. “And that’s exactly how my life turned out,” Ivy added with a distant dreamy tone in her voice.
“Well,” Cleo started, “you’re well on your way to getting there anyway.” Cleo leaned in to kiss Ivy, but stopped just as their lips brushed.
“I suppose that’s true. I mean, they did get married in the end,” she leaned forward to kiss Cleo, but Cleo had pulled back.
“All in good time, my love,” Cleo whispered as she leaned forward and finally pressed her lips against Ivy’s.
Epilogue
Cleo
Eight Months Later
“Please tell me this is the last box of Chucks you have to unpack?!” Cleo pleaded as Ivy opened her third box ofthe sneakers and started to set them along the bottom shelf of her section of their walk-in wardrobe.
After Ivy had essentially moved in piece by piece over the past few months, they decided to make it official and ended Ivy’s lease on her apartment last week. Which meant that the rest of her belongings had been hauled over in the back of Cleo and Evan’s SUVs.
To celebrate the completed move, they were throwing a boardgame and pizza party later that night. The house was going to be loud, busy, and all of the important people in their lives were going to be there. Cleo couldn’t wait.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing, Miss Eight-Power-Suits-Isn't-Enough,” Ivy replied, pointing at the section where Cleo’s workwear hung. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, youknowI highly approve of the way you look in them, and I even acknowledge the fact they’re all different colors, but eight?!”
“Listen, we’ve been through this,youdon’t bring up my suits, andIdon’t bring up your flannel shirt collection.” Cleo said with a smirk and a pointed look over Ivy’s shoulder to the complete rainbow of checked shirts folded on the shelves behind her.
“Yeah, but eight?!” Ivy said under her breath.
“That’s it,” Cleo said, as she lunged forward and started tickling Ivy. “We said we wouldn’t bring them up,” she said between laugh-filled breaths, “but you brought this on yourself.”
Ivy squealed and laughed, trying desperately to catch Cleo’s hands, and eventually shouted for mercy.
They emptied the last box of Chucks, slit the tape at the folds and flattened it, ready to recycle. They made their way downstairs and finished setting up before everyone was due to arrive. Cleo placed the pizza order and scheduled the delivery for an hour’s time. Ivy set-up music to play through the Bluetooth speakers that were dotted around their home.
It wasn’t long before people started arriving. First, Cleo’s parents, then Jade, Lana and Connor, shortly followed by Gabby and Lucas with baby Brody who Ivy immediately took out of Lucas’s arms.
“Are you looking at your future, love?” Cleo’s mom asked softly from beside her as Cleo stood watching Ivy rock Brody to sleep in her arms.
“I hope so, Mom,” Cleo replied dreamily.
A few minutes later, the door opened as Evan, Sophie, Toni and Willow all arrived. Together. Ivy looked over at Cleo, eyes wide and mouth open, then turned to see Evan take Toni’s jacket from her shoulders. “I knew it!” they both shouted and laughed as Evan and Toni blushed furiously.
Oliver was the last to arrive as he had been closing the shop that night. The pizzas arrived right behind him.
As they all tucked into the food, and every available space was taken over by either pizza boxes or board games, the volume of conversation grew louder.
