“Ugh, I really don’t want to go,” Amelia complains, crossing her arms as we continue driving towards her apartment building.

  “Well, you said we had to go there so that we could have this conversation?” I point out.

  Amelia seems to deflate at that. Which is really odd since she’s the one that wanted to have this conversation.

  I move one hand off the steering wheel and put a hand on her thigh, squeezing gently to try and give her some assurance.

  Amelia moves my hand and holds it in her lap as we drive.

  “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”

  “Yup, all we have to do is pack stuff up.”

  I try not to let myself grin when she lets slip that bit of information for what it means for our future living situations.

  If we’re going to her apartment and packing, I think she’ll be canceling the lease and hopefully be a permanent stay with me and Bianca.

  Though I suppose I could be helping her move to a new apartment, though I want that to be unlikely.

  “So is that all I’m here for? To carry your stuff?” I ask jokingly.

  “Yes, that’s what I wanted you here for, not your amazing moral support,” Amelia laughs.

  It doesn’t take much longer for us to arrive at the parking lot, and the two of us sit in the car holding hands as Amelia tries to steady her breathing.

  “Ugh, I’m such a chicken,” Amelia grumbles, her head slumped against the glove box.

  “You’re an actual superhero. I don’t think you would be afraid of anything?”

  “I’m still afraid of being alone,” Amelia grumbles, having taken what I said far more literally than I thought she was going to do.

  I lean over, resting my head against Amelia’s. “It’s going to be okay, I promise. I’m right here. Forever and always.”

  “No matter how this conversation goes today?” Amelia asks quietly, her voice quivering.

  “That’s a little bit difficult for me to say, isn’t it? A tad greedy to ask, isn’t it?” I say, hoping my tone is joking.

  “Please, Jason?” Amelia asks, squeezing my hand tightly. “Let me be greedy just this once?”

  I laugh, already knowing the answer I’m going to give her. “You can be as greedy as you want, I promise.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” Amelia says in a whisper.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” Amelia says quickly, opening the door and trying to get out of the car before realizing the seatbelt was still restraining her.

  I laugh as she curses as she tries to escape the car while I manage to make it out of the car without injuring myself.

  Amelia glares at me as I shut the car door.

  “What did I do wrong this time?”

  “When I hurt myself on accident, being a bit dumb, you’re supposed to do something stupid to make me feel better. That’s boyfriend one oh one or something, I’m pretty sure,” She complains, skipping over and looping an arm with me as we begin heading to her apartment.

  “So how exactly are we supposed to fit everything into my car?”

  “Jason, don’t be ridiculous. It’s going to be mostly in my car. And you’re going to drive it home while I drive your clean car home,” Amelia cackles as she spins her keys in her palm.

  “So even though you’re the car with space for moving. I’m going to drive it? Just to make sure we’re on the same page?”

  “Yeah, that sounds about right?”

  When we finally open the door, my first thought is that it’s the cleanest I’ve ever seen Amelia’s apartment. I actually think it’s cleaner than it was the day she moved in.

  Amelia also looks around confused.

  We separate as we enter to explore the space.

  “This looks like someone tried to replicate my room for some kinda documentary and needed the set clean for all of the actors and actresses,” Amelia complains.

  “Could it be we cleaned everything last time we were here and we haven’t come back here since then?” I point out.

  “That doesn’t make sense. I wouldn’t clean my apartment; that’s ridiculous,” Amelia waves off while I mentally count to three. “Oh, you were here though, so that makes sense.”

  Thankfully, there’s not too much that we would need to take care of, though it’ll probably take us a while to get everything loaded into the car.

  I move back to the front room and lean against the wall. “So do you want to start packing first, or do you want to do the mysterious conversation you said we had to have?” I ask, keeping my voice gentle.

  “You know, would it kill you to be forgetful sometimes?” Amelia grumbles. “Why not ask me about the weather or complain how you thought after we beat the big bad guy we wouldn’t be fighting more super crime it feels like.”

  “Or we could talk about the biggest contender for what I think my superhero alias is going to be?” I offer.

  Amelia rockets towards me, eyes bright as she practically bounces. “Come on, you gotta spill! tell me, tell me, tell me!” She squeals.

  “I was thinking of going with Crypt.”

  Amelia mouths the word a few times as she wanders away, seeming to consider my selection before ultimately shrugging. “I don’t get it, but I’m not going to throw stones in my glass house.”

  “It’s just the one that resonates the most with me.”

  “Smoulder, Crypt, Fractal, Miracle,” Amelia muses. “We need some more vowels on the team if we want to spell anything.”

  “We have more vowels in our regular names?”

  “Would that mean our team name is; jaac, caaj, caja, or jaca?” Amelia giggles.

  “Sort of defeats the purpose of somewhat secret identities if our team name spells out our actual names.”

  “I think it’s a bit egotistical for you to name the team; Team Jason.”

  “That’s not what I said?”

  “It is you said spell out our names meaning it would need all the letters for your name now wouldn’t it?”

  “Then wouldn’t Team Amelia also be perfectly acceptable?”

  “No, why would you think that?”

  I sigh dramatically as Amelia gloats about her victory.

  “So are you planning on moving to a new place or staying with me and Bianca?” I ask, changing the subject. As much as I am enjoying this moment, it’s probably about time that we start getting to what we came here for.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “I want to stay with you and B. It’s home, you know?” Amelia says in a quiet whisper as she twists her fingers.

  “Like I said before. As long as you need. I am more than happy to stay with you.”

  “Not me staying with you?”

  “Nope, I’m pretty confident that I said what I meant to say.”

  “Hey Jason?” Amelia asks quietly as she takes my hands in hers.

  “Yeah?” I whisper quietly, a thumb gently brushing across her knuckles.

  “About that offer that I could stay with you forever as long as I wanted. What exactly would your thoughts be on me staying forever with you?” She asks, her voice just barely above a whisper.

  I can’t help but smile at that.

  I chew on my bottom lip for a moment, trying to think about what I want to say. There’s so many words I want to be able to say, and I don’t know if any of them would actually be the right words.

  “More than anything, I would want you to stay with me. Because I love you, Amelia.” I say, making sure to look her right in the eye. “I love you.” I whisper again.

  Amelia just looks at me with a stupid grin on her face. “So when you say you love me, which kind do you mean?”

  I lean back, laughing at her response. Amelia, in response, pulls herself closer and wraps her arms around my waist as she continues looking into my eyes stupid grin plastered on her face. “Come on, Jason; if you answer me, I’ll be able to give you a good answer.”

  “Oh yeah? What exactly is the answer?” I tease as I wrap my arms around her.

  “Nope, you gotta answer me first. You promised to answer.”

  “I don’t remember promising anything.” I laugh.

  Amelia’s enchanting grin drops for a moment, and my heart practically freezes. “So you’re not going to?”

  “When I thought you were gone, I didn’t know if I could handle it.” I start slowly. “I didn’t know what I would do. I couldn’t think straight, honestly. You’re the person I want in my life always. I don’t know when I fell in love with you, and I don’t know when that became something that wasn’t just platonic.”

  “You know there’s something missing from this dramatic kiss kiss fall in love confession…” Amelia says in a husky whisper.

  “And what is that?”

  “Will you be my girlfriend?”

  I laugh as I lean my forehead against hers. “I think I’m lacking in the qualifications for that position.”

  “I’ll settle for you being my boyfriend, I guess,” Amelia says before kissing me.

  I kiss back.

  Amelia pulls away, though I’m sure that my grin is a twin to hers. “So all it took was me to get kidnapped to realize you were always in love with me?”

  “So all it took for you to fall in love with me was me rescuing you?”

  Amelia pats my chest gently as she sighs. “Jason, that’s nowhere near as funny as my joke.”

  “I’m not the funny one, am I?”

  “No, you can’t be the funny one because if I wasn’t the funny one, who could I be?”

  “The enchanting one?”

  “That’s true. I am a lot of things; you just need to focus on being the eye candy in the relationship, okay?” She snorts, kissing me on the cheek.

  I begin leading us to the couch of her apartment as I formulate my response. “If that’s you asking me to wear a specific outfit, the answer is not quite no.”

  “You know that’s a really dangerous statement to make.”

  “Call me a loving partner.” I tease as I brush my nose against hers as we sit down.

  “You’ve always spoiled me, so does that mean you’re going to start spoiling me even more?” Amelia asks in a silly giggle.

  “Do you want me to spoil you more?”

  “Nope, just continue to be doting and loving. Though I do expect a change in flavor.”

  “What do you mean, change in flavor?”

  “Well, normally you’re like vanilla, so I think you should try to be something else?”

  “Like chocolate?” I ask, laughing.

  “I don’t know what I mean; that’s your job to try and figure it out. Come on, I’ve been doing all the confessing and work over here, so you gotta step up already.”

  I manage to suppress my laughter as I pull Amelia in for another kiss.

  “You know I can feel it when you’re smiling in the kiss.”

  I don’t even bother to stop the smile on my face as I hug her. “Of course I’m smiling.”

  “Yeah, just don’t smile too much because if you’re smiling and I’m smiling, then we’re just going to be bonking teeth and just because you want to eat me doesn’t mean I want to taste your teeth,” Amelia explains.

  “Did you just say I want to eat you?”

  “I will be incredibly mock-upset if you don’t want to eat me.”

  I kiss Amelia one more time before forcing the both of us to get back on task and clean the apartment so she can officially move out.

  I’m in the process of folding the extra quilts when I hear loud cursing coming from the bathroom.

  “Did you stab yourself or something accidentally?” I ask, poking my head in.

  “No, I’m just a failure of a tease,” Amelia grumbles, crossing her arms as she stares at me. “Imagine I hadn’t been all dramatic earlier and we get home and I’m like. Jason, I’m not willing to live long term with someone unless we are dating. And you would get all crestfallen and then that adorable confused look on your face. And hopeful! Bam! Then I ask you out! It would have been hilarious.”

  “Well, you can say that’s how you confessed when you yell at Reyna when we get home?” I offer before going to go back to fold laundry.

  “Yeah, but I need to think of an even greater story to B. And do you know how upset she’s going to be that she wasn’t here for the grand reveal?” Amelia complains.

  “I’m sure we can do a reenactment.”

  “Settle down, tiger.”

  “I don’t want to hear that from you.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you would love to hear other things from me.”

  “You’re the worst.”

  Amelia rockets out of the bathroom, hugging me tightly as she laughs. “I love you!”

  “I love you,” I whisper before exchanging a brief kiss.

  “And don’t let me forget it.”

  Like a whirlwind, Amelia is off to another part of the apartment, continuing her battle to get everything ready to go.

  The next hour goes by quickly by nature of me mostly needing to do something so that I don’t constantly over analyze what’s going on because as much as I am on cloud nine this is all a little bit much for me.

  The biggest factor is that I’m with Amelia, though.

  Even if she’s currently dramatically sighing about how ridiculous it is that we’re going to drive back in two separate cars, which was her plan in the first place.

  “How about we drive back in your car, then drive back here, and then finally drive back in my car?” Amelia offers.

  “I’m pretty sure that means we would still be down a car if we went that way,” I say after I’ve made sure to fully decipher that statement.

  “Well, just because you’re right doesn’t mean it’s not a good plan,” she pouts.

  “Once we get home, we can celebrate properly, I promise.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that. I want to order food and watch movies with my family.” Amelia says.

  Once I’ve assured the promise, the two of us split up and begin making our way home.

  I’m sure that we’re not going to be unpacking, but progress is good.

  Now home, I manage to fully extricate myself out of the car before I am in Amelia’s arms. “You took so long!”

  “I followed the speed limit.”

  “So did I, but I took the faster way home!” Amelia complains.

  “Sorry that I don’t know the city well enough,” I sigh.

  “Make it up to me.”

  I kiss Amelia gently before leading us back up to our home.

  “My lady,” I say, opening the door and gesturing for Amelia to head on inside.

  “Guys!” Amelia yells. “Guess who has the world's greatest news!”

  Amelia charges into the apartment and scoops Bianca up into her arms. “B I got my fairy tale kiss now we’re finally ready for the next act of the story now that my relationship drama is spent!” She cheers.

  Bianca giggles as I trail into the room.

  Reyna takes a glance from the chair. “You two are finally done?”

  “Just because you were correct doesn’t mean you have to rub it in.” I say with a sigh as I embrace the pouting Amelia and Bianca.

  “But it does mean I’m going to be saying I told you so for all of eternity.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m about to have romantic family time, and you can go home and start writing your victory speech for about how awesome you are. Sound like a deal?” Amelia asks, glaring at Reyna from over my shoulder.

  “I’m happy for you two, seriously.” Reyna says, giving all of us a large hug before making herself scarce.

  Bianca and Amelia look at me expectantly as I break free from the hug and head to the kitchen to begin working on dinner. Seems appropriate that today I make something a little special.

  I didn’t expect Bianca and Amelia to instantly trail behind me, following.

  “Something you two would like?” I ask, laughing.

  “Well, you said we would do a dramatic reenactment of the moment, and our daughter wants a fairy-tale princess kiss.” Amelia says as she holds Bianca in her arms.

  Bianca nods at the sound of her name.

  “Just how dramatic are you looking for?”

  “Something to hold me over until I want another kiss?”

  “That’s not a metric I can begin to understand.” I sigh, walking over and encircling my arms around her waist.

  “You’ll figure it out; you always do.” Amelia assures me.

  “Amelia. I’m in love with you. Can we date?” I ask in a quiet whisper.

  “Part of me thinks that I’ve been waiting for you to say something like that for a long time. Yet I don’t think until this moment it ever would have been right for you to say.” She says before pressing her lips against mine.

  “So how’d I do?”

  “Bianca and I have some notes but B plus.”

  Amelia and I laugh as we go back to cooking.

  For at least tonight, neither of us need to worry about the masks and the weight they bear in keeping our home safe.

  Discord

  Patreon