* * * * *

10:52 – Saturday Morning

The curtains closed, the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, front to front on their sides, Nick lay naked and entangled in the king-size bed with his Livvie.

“The mountains,” she whispered into his throat, her body warm and peaceful, her arms holding him lightly, her breasts brushing his chest, her legs entwined with his. “A house in the middle of nowhere but with a town close by so I don’t have to drive too far in bad weather to get groceries.”

He’d started their day making love.

Now Olivia was in the mood to whisper to him.

Whisper about everything.

Not everything in the sense there were a lot of words.

Everything in the sense the words she was saying said a lot.

But Nick said nothing. He gave back only his silence as indication he wanted more of Liv’s everything while he wove his fingers in her soft hair.

“House big, but not ostentatious. Rustic. Homey. Lived-in,” she went on quietly.

Nick remained silent as she told him her dream future.

“Good people in town,” she continued. “They know me but don’t know me. Friendly. I’ll be friendly back. But my life will be at home.”

At that, Nick spoke.

“Kids?”

This time, Liv stayed quiet.

He dipped his chin to see the shadowed top of her head.

“Livvie?”

“I can’t,” she told his throat.

She couldn’t?

Reflexively, he stopped playing with her hair and wrapped both arms tighter around her.

“You can’t?”

She tipped her head back. “Not safe.”

She could.

Because of those jackals in her life, she just wouldn’t.

“I’ll make you safe, Liv.”

She shook her head.

“Not safe,” she repeated.

He gathered her even closer, pulling her up so they were eye to eye. “We get there, we get to that place, we want kids, I’ll make it safe.”

“They can’t have anything to use to get to me,” she told him and finished, “or you.”

“They won’t factor in the equation.”

“Nick—”

“Livvie, honest to God, don’t want to sound like a conceited asshole, but I know I’m not hard to look at and you’re fuckin’ beautiful. It might have taken me a while to demonstrate I had a brain in my head, but I eventually did. I’m not dumb and you’re far from stupid. We get to that place, we gotta have kids. It’s our duty to this earth to give it that beauty.”

In the light eking around the curtains, he saw her lips part, she pressed closer for a moment, only to move slightly away.

He pulled her close again.

“I don’t want a child of mine to become me,” she said.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he stated, steel in each word.

“You know what I mean, Nick,” she replied, each word soft and edged in pain.

“I know what you mean and that’s just not gonna happen.”

“And maybe my mom thought that before she had Georgia and me, gave up and took off,” she noted.

“And maybe your mom is a stupid, weak, useless bitch,” he returned. “What’s not a maybe is you’re not.”

“Nick.”

His name was all she said.

So he kept at her.

“We get there…and just so you know, baby, that’s where I’m heading us and I like where we’re going…I can’t say I’ll take you to the mountains so you can disappear. I got a business. I gotta see to that business. And that business is in the city. What I can say is, I’ll get you a place up there we can visit. And when we’re at home, wherever we’re makin’ that home, I’ll make you safe. And if we get to that place, we’re making a family. When we do that, I’ll make them safe. You’ll live free and easy. They’ll live free and easy. That’s what I can say. And we keep on, we get to where we’re headed, you gotta do what you promised along the way and believe.”

“Believe,” she said like she was rolling that word around her mouth, and even if he’d asked that of her before, and she’d promised she’d give it to him, she looked like she still wasn’t sure how it tasted.

Fuck, but that family of hers did a number on her.

“Believe,” he said firmly.

He watched her press the side of her head in the pillow and her tone was one of surprise like she’d just noticed something.

“You like where we’re going?”

He beat back a laugh and instead gave her a squeeze, sliding his leg deeper between her thighs.

“Uh, yeah,” he pointed out the obvious.

“Our duty to give the earth that beauty?”

That wasn’t said with surprise.

It was wonder.

“Yeah, baby,” he replied.

She shifted her hands flat across his skin from his back to his chest.

“I…well, I like you, Nick.”

Instantly, his body started shaking with humor he couldn’t control.

“Well, that’s good,” he replied.

She pressed hard into his chest and whispered, “Please don’t laugh.”

He stopped laughing.

“I like you, Nick,” she repeated.

Fuck.

She didn’t mean that.

She meant more.

“I like you too, Livvie,” he whispered back, rolling into her.

“And I like where we’re going,” she told him, almost shyly.

Fuck.

He settled on her. “I’m glad, honey.”