Still Human (Just Human) (15 page)

“I think we’re past that aren’t we?” I chuckle as I head back into the bedroom. 

I smile when she appears in the doorway, naked, but on crutches. “You look funny.” “Don’t laugh at me.” She
scowls and sits beside me on the edge of the bed. She puts the crutches where she can reach them and gently swings her leg past me and onto the bed, settling against her pillows.

Silence descends for a second then I feel conscious. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but should I go?”

She frowns. “I’m not sure what the right way to take that is? But why on earth would I want you to go?” 

“Because this is the first night you
’ve had no cast and I wasn’t sure you’d want to share your bed with someone. What if I hurt you?”

She takes my hand and pulls me onto her. “I don’t care if you break it again, you’re not going anywhere.” She
kisses me. “Unless…you want to leave?”

I pull back and shake my head. “See, this is our problem. Insecurity. All the damned time.” I climb onto the bed beside her. “I want to be here. I’m only leaving if you tell me to. Stop thinking the worst
,” I say, allowing some frustration to escape in my tone. “Tomorrow we are going to straighten this all out, but for now, we are just going to do this…” I plant my lips on hers and reach out to turn off the lamp at the same time.

 
“Oh!’ she moans as the room falls dark.

Chapter Fifteen

Danny

Easy tiger!

I wake before she does and I watch her for a while. My cell buzzes in my pants pocket somewhere on the floor, so I slide myself away from Liv, trying not to wake her. I retrieve my cell and quietly slip on my boxers. It’s a text from Max.

‘Just bought you in a coffee… take it you are out for an early morning run…or some other kind of work out! ;-)’

I grin, he’s going to be over-the-top happy about this. I text him back.

‘I’ll tell you all about it over breakfast!’

'You'll be at breakfast?…This I can't wait to hear!'

I slip back in beside Liv and she stirs, wrapping herself around me.

“Mmmmm.” She smiles, before she opens her eyes. “I’m really hoping you weren’t a dream.” She says before opening one eye and grinning at me. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I pull her close. “How did you sleep?”

“Best sleep I’ve had for weeks
,” she says, stretching. She winces slightly.

“How
’s the leg?” 

“Ok
ay.”

“I was really worried about hurting you all night.”

“You’ll have to get over it.” She gives me a wicked smile, propping herself up on an elbow. “Do you have any plans today?”

“Work.”
 

“No, not today. I’m the boss, you are taking a day off.”

I push her back and raise myself above her. “No. I’m working, we’re going to do this right. Part of our problem is having no normality. I was visiting you, you were visiting me. It doesn’t work. I’m staying here for good now and until you are back on your feet, I have a job to do. So we’ll have breakfast with the guys and spend some time together. But I’m working a two till two, no arguments.” I kiss her when I’ve finished. “You can sit at the counter and distract me if you like. You’re good at that.” She sticks out her bottom lip. “I’m off tomorrow though,” I say to ease things slightly. “Come on, let’s shower.”

"I can’t
,” she says, but then remembers she has no cast anymore.

“Not on your own, but I’m here.” I
hold out my hand. She smiles and takes it.

Holding her body close to mine in the shower feels great. She obviously can’t do it by herself, so I stand behind her with my arm protectively around her waist, while she washes.
I’ve helped her bathe a few times but nothing like this. I kiss her shoulder as I slide my fingers between her legs.

“Danny! Not in here, I’m having a hard enough time standing up.” She laughs.

“I’ve got you,” I murmur into her wet hair.

She shakes her head and carefully turns within my hold, breaking the contact my wandering fingers had established. I pout. But then she takes her soapy hands and runs them down my chest, further down over my abdomen and grins as she does. I watch her, aching for her to finish the journey, but then she carefully parts her hands and continues down onto my thighs. I sigh with disappointment and even as she starts retracing their path, I know she will overlook where I want her most.

“Tease.” 

She just smiles and carries on washing.
 

“I’m guessing you threw all my stuff out
,” I say as I wrap a towel around my waist. “I’ll text Max and have him bring me some clothes.”

She looks sheepish and pulls open the bottom drawer. Everything I left behind is packed neatly away. “I couldn’t do it
,” she mutters.

I laugh, picking her up and kissing her. “I love you
,” I say as I set her back down on the bed. I rifle through the drawer. “I only have sweats, I guess it’s casual for breakfast.” 

“I thought it was black tie
,” she says sarcastically. “Do the boys know you’re coming?”

“Well, they know I took you out last night and I’m not home, I think they’ll put it together.”

“Oh God, Max is going to be unmanageable!” She groans, flopping back on the bed.

“I’ll handle him, don’t worry
,” I say pulling her back up. “Now get dressed, the longer he waits, the worse he’ll be.”

Liv wears sweats too and we are having fun as we finish getting ready. I go ahead of her on the stairs and turn my back to her. “Hop on.”

“What? No!” she cries.

“Hop on!” I insist and she gives in, laughing. At the bottom of the stairs
, I don’t stop to let her down, I push through the door.

“Danny, put me down!”
she shouts hitting my back as we steam into the diner. Max, Charlie and Connie are waiting, with huge grins and knowing looks when I finally ease Liv down to the floor. “Bastard!” She giggles.

There is an exchange of congratulatory kisses and back
slapping handshakes as if we have just got married. 

“I knew you could do it
,” Connie whispers as she hugs me tight.

“I think you helped
,” I reply kissing her cheek.

“Hey! You two!” Liv shouts. “No whispering. I’ve had enough of all the meddling and scheming around here. From now on everything goes through me!”

We all laugh. 

While coffee and juices arrive I duck out the back to my car. I grab the little red box from the glove compartment and put it in my pocket.

On the way back in, I text Jen. I wish I could call her but it’s 5am.

‘I have news! Call me later x.’

I grin as I take my seat beside Liv.

“So, are we celebrating something here?”
asks Charlie.

“I think so
,” says Liv, looking to me.

I shake my head. “There you go again, with your insecurities!
Yes we are.” I confirm to Charlie and hold out my glass. We all chink glasses and I kiss Liv. Everyone makes approving noises around us, stopping short of bursting into applause. It’s a little much, but I feel like these guys are my family now, our family, so it’s great. Liv and I are so lucky to have them.

After breakfast, Connie leaves to pick something up from the dry-cleaners for Jack and Charlie takes Max shopping. So Liv and I have some time to ourselves.

“Come with me,” I say to Liv once we are alone.

“Where?”
she says getting up to follow me.

“You’ll see.” I smirk.

I help her into the car. It’s not far, but I don’t think she’d make it on foot. She frowns when we pull into the parking lot beside the park and she is even more confused when I lead her down to our tree.

“Do you remember the last time we came here?”
 

Liv hangs her head, then looks up at me and nods. It was that awful day. The day she made sure I would go with my parents. The day I told myself it was soon to be over and I just had to live with it.

“Why are we doing this today? I thought we were putting all of this behind us,” she says with sadness.

“We are, but I have to do this first.” I smile, hoping to put her at ease. “Do you remember that conversation?”

“Yeah, I wish I could forget.”

“Did you know you’d been offered an interview at UCLA then?” I ask her.

She nods.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
 

“We’ve been through this Danny. I didn’t think it was what you wanted.” She
’s getting frustrated. “I was embarrassed that I’d taken it so far, when it seemed like it was the furthest thing from your mind. So I told you you should go, to make it easier for you.”

“But you didn’t want me to?”

“No.” She sighs. “Can we drop this now?” 

“No, because you’re not letting me say what I want to say, just like that day. You went on and on and I thought
I’d got us all wrong if you wanted me to leave so badly.” I look out at the view, remembering how I felt when I walked away from here, it was the beginning of the end. “I came here that day to do something so stupid. I would have made a total mess of things, just so you know, so I think you did us both a huge favor. But I still wish I hadn’t had to be without you so long.” She looks at me, not understanding. “I was going to give you this.” I pull the red box from my pocket and place it on her knee.

Her mouth falls open and she looks from the box to me.

“I’m not asking you now,” I add. “Trust me, I’ll do a much better job. But I was going to back then. I’m showing you because I just need you to know that you weren’t the only one that came away from this in pieces.”

“Are you serious?”
she stutters.

“Painfully.” I sigh. “I thought that you somehow knew what I was planning and you said all that stuff to stop me, so that you didn’t have to turn me down.”

She stares at me in disbelief. “I would have said yes,” she whispers.

“I know. It’s taken Jen
over a decade to convince me of it, but I realise that now.” I laugh. “But we were kids and it was twelve years ago, by now we’d have had kids, you wouldn’t have your business, I’d be doing a nine to five, if we had made it this far, we’d hate each other. It was for the best.” 

She reluctantly nods in agreement. “I honestly had no idea
,” she says. 

“I know
, and I didn’t know you’d thought about coming with me. We both did everything wrong, we could have saved each other a lot of heartache if we’d been braver. But who's to say we would’ve been happy? There’s no sense in beating ourselves up. I just wanted you to know where my insecurities came from. When you left me in LA I thought it was happening again. I thought you saw the road we were on and freaked out.”

“That
’s why you didn’t come after me,” she says almost to herself.

“I was a real mess.”

“I’m sorry.” She takes my hand.

“Don’t be.” I smile. “We’re here now.” I lean in and kiss her.
 

When we come up for air, she looks back at the box on her knee.

“I can’t believe you left here with this still in your pocket. You must have felt like shit.” 

“No worse than you, I bet.”

“God, we were stupid.” She shakes her head again. But there’s no point in dwelling. She snaps herself out of it. “Can I see it?”

“I want you to have it. But remember, I was
eighteen, clueless and broke.” I laugh.

She opens the box and smiles. “It’s beautiful, Danny.” She
takes it out of the box. “Can I wear it? On a different finger, I mean.”

“If it fits
. I had no idea what I was doing.” I take it from her and slide it onto the ring finger of her right hand. Amazingly, it isn’t a terrible fit. She looks at it. It’s a thin band of white gold, twisted like a rope and the threads of the rope are studded with tiny diamonds. It’s no engagement ring, but it’s so pretty and it looks better on her hand than I ever expected. 

“I love it, thank you.” She kisses me.

“I love
you
,” I reply, holding her tight to me.

"Thanks for bringing me here today." She says after a while. "This means so much. We can put it all behind us now." I watch her twiddling her ring and think about the real one I have sitting in a box in my desk drawer. I smile briefly to myself, I can't wait to hit her with that.

I lift her hand and kiss the ring on her finger. "Let's get out of here. I need to go change for work."

I bring a crate of bottles out of the cellar and catch a glimpse of Liv through the doorway. I watch her showing Connie the ring, she seems so happy. I wonder if she has called her mom. Which reminds me, I should call mine! Not to tell her about the ring, I could never explain all that to her now. But she’ll want to know that my big move has turned out to be worth it. With that, my cell vibrates in my pocket. I dump the crate on the bar and look at the screen, it’s Jen.

“I need to take this
,” I tell Max showing him the screen and he nods as I head out the front door.

“Jen!”

“Tell me good news, Danny!” she says enthusiastically.

I laugh. “
I’ve got her back.” I sigh. The feeling of relief washes over me again, just being able to say it out loud.

“I knew you could do it.” She squeals.

“I couldn’t have done it without you.” I can hear Scott speaking in the background.

“Scott says well done too.”
 

“He
’s just happy he won’t be hearing anymore about it you mean!”

“We
’re both really happy for you,” she says. “So your night out was a success?”

“You could say that.” I smile remembering what happened after we got home. Twice! “Oh and I gave her the ring.” I add.

“
The
ring?” She gasps.