Page 18 of Meant To Be

“It went good. I turned in all of my final paperwork to the school and start my training at the salon next week. After two to three weeks, they’ll let me go out on my own and build up my clientele,” I tell him with excitement in my voice, and I really am excited.

“How was your day?” I ask him.

“It was okay, spent most of it with Pete finishing a couple of things around his place then we hit the gym.” He’s silent afterwards and I don’t press him. I just let him hold me while I work on our dinner. I’m sure there’s more weighing heavily on his mind, but I don’t want to push and pull it out of him. I’d rather him come to me when he’s ready. Something I’ve learned he’ll usually do when we’re in bed for the night. He’ll share his burdens, and I’ll listen as he gets it out of his system. We’ll volley ideas back and forth, if I have any input, and then we move on.

After a few more minutes Liam states, “Going to go grab a shower and then I’ll be right back.”

It’s as if he’s trying to reassure me he’ll always come back to me. It’s a reassurance I know he thinks I need with things being hostile overseas still, but I also know he’d come back to me no matter what, and I’d do anything to make him see that.

Once I get dinner ready and in the oven, I go down the hall and wait for him in the room. Now is as good as time as any to tell him how I really feel.

When he comes out of the bathroom the steam billows out and he’s wet, the water glistening on his skin, and my eyes don’t know where to focus first. I want to lick every last drop of water off of him.

“Baby, you okay?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to tell you something, and I didn’t want you to leave without you knowing how I felt,” I tell him looking into his eyes. The shyness I once had around him is virtually gone.

“I know how you feel about me, Ev. It’s the same way I feel about you. I feel you deep in my bones and down to my soul. We were meant for each other. I love you, Baby,” he murmurs as he comes closer to me.

“I love you, Liam. More than I could ever tell you. You’re my everything,” both of us telling each other what we mean to one another. It was needed. No. It was necessary. I don’t ever want to hide my feelings from him.

I go up on my toes and meet him as his lips crush mine. We remain locked around each other until the timer goes off on the oven.

“I need to go check on dinner,” except I don’t want to leave him, even though it’s just down the hall.

“I’ll get dressed and be out there in a minute.”

I leave the room and just like any other day with Liam, it keeps getting better and better.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Liam

I get dressed in a pair of comfortable sweat pants sans shirt, going into my nightstand I retrieve the ring I bought last week. It’s simple and elegant. I knew it was hers the minute the sales lady showed me around the store. It’s rose gold and has a single princess cut diamond. I didn’t get a huge diamond, as much as I wanted to. Everly isn’t one to flaunt material things. She still shops at the local thrift stores, cuts coupons, and saves money where she can. So if I spent an exuberant amount of money on a diamond, I have a feeling she would still wear it, but she wouldn’t love it, and I want her to wear it with pride.

I walk to the kitchen and see she has everything plated for dinner at the island. It’s a rarity if we eat in the dining room, partly because it was, until recently, a place to store extra wood I would need throughout the house and the other part because Everly hasn’t found the dining room table she wants in there. So for now, the plastic table and chairs from the previous owners is in there and we eat in the kitchen.

“Smells good. Thank you for dinner,” I tell Everly as I take a seat on my barstool. She comes around and takes her seat next to me. I bring her barstool as close as possible and my hand lands on her inner thigh.

“You’re welcome,” she says and then we both dig into our meal. I’m unusually silent and I know Everly is picking up on it, but, until dinner is over and we’re outside on the back patio and under the stars, a place she enjoys the most in the evenings, I’ll continue being quiet. I have one thing on my mind and that’s getting my ring on her finger, my baby in her belly, and for her to be mine forever.

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