“Nate.”
“I know I’m being an arse.” He rubbed a hand over his face and groaned.
I smiled. “You’re not an ass. On retrospect, considering how little time we’ve had for each other lately, I would have been mad if you had lunch with some other woman who had some affiliation with your romantic history.”
Nate squeezed my ankle. “Doesn’t matter now. We’re here.”
“Yes we are.”
We lapsed into comfortable silence, the only sound the crackling of the flames in the grate of the fire.
And then I couldn’t help myself.
“Would you rather take part in The Hunger Games or the Tri Wizard Tournament?”
Nate contemplated the question. “Depends. Am I competing in the 74th annual Hunger Games or the 75th?”
“Why?”
“Well the 75th was the one where all the previous winners were pitted against each other.”
“You’ve seen those movies too many times.”
“You’ve seen Harry Potter too many times.”
Well I couldn’t argue with that. “True.” I frowned. “Does it matter if you’re in the 75th annual hunger games?”
“I take it I am then?”
“Yes, for the sake of expedience you are in the 75th annual Hunger Games. So The Hunger Games or the Tri Wizard Tournament?”
“It’s kind of an easy decision. I’ll probably die in The Hunger Games. I’ll live in the Tri Wizard thing.”
“Uh no!” I shook my head. “You will inevitably face Voldemort at the end of the Tri Wizard Tournament.”
“Still not as difficult as The Hunger Games, Babe.”
“Hello, it’s Voldemort. He’s the second most powerful wizard in the world.”
“Third if you count Harry Potter.”
“But not at the Tri Wizard Tournament point in the books and movies.”
“That Voldemort guy has no nose. How scary can a man without a nose be?”
“He has nostrils.”
“But no nose.”
“I feel like you’re underestimating him.”
“I feel like you’re underestimating the games. There are people with weapons and mutated dogs and acidic fog in the games. It’s Battle Royale on steroids.”
I huffed. “Please, Battle Royale was way bloodier than the Hunger Games.”
“Because of a rating issue. In reality the games are extremely violent and futuristically sadistic.”
“I feel like you care about these movies way too much. Is it the Jennifer Lawrence thing?”
Nate laughed. “No. You asked me a ‘would you rather’ and I gave my answer.”
“Well…” I sighed heavily. “I hope you’re happy because you’ve separated us. You’re in the Tri Wizard Tournament facing he who shall not be named and I’m in The Hunger Games trying to avoid killing freaking Katniss because she’s awesome.”
We stared each other a moment as we processed our conversation.
“We never really grew up did we?” Nate mused.
“No, we really didn’t.”
“Our kids are going to out mature us.”
“Probably. Definitely January. She’s already more mature than you.”
Nate tickled my feet in payback and I laughed as I tried to pull away. He grabbed onto me and tugged on my leg so I slid down the couch.
“Hey!” I giggled, holding my beer out so it wouldn’t spoil.
Nate’s answer was to take the beer off me and put it on our coffee table next to his. He then braced himself over me, nudging my legs apart and I wrapped them around his hips as he stared down into my eyes. His dimple flashed as he smiled at me.
“You’re beautiful, you know that.”
I grinned. “You’re drunk.”
“I’ve had half a beer.” He shook his head. “I just… sometimes I forget how beautiful you are and then I look over at you and you’re smiling at the kids and your beauty punches me in the chest. How did I get so lucky, Liv?”
I slid my arms under his shirt and around his back, stroking his warm, smooth skin. “I asked you to teach me to be good at sex and you very kindly obliged. The rest is history.”
“Oh. Right.” he grinned, still smiling as he pressed a kiss to my lips. Very suddenly he frowned, however, and pulled back.
“What?”
“We are never telling our kids the story of house we fell in love.”
Horrified at the realization, I agreed. “Never.”
“We need a story to tell the kids in case they ask.”
“Well…” My grip on him tightened. “You kind of started getting me all hot and bothered here. Can you finish doing that and then we’ll think of something?”
His answer was start kissing me hungrily.
“Mmm.” I pushed at his chest and he pulled back, frowning down at me. “You know where we should do it?”
“I thought we were doing it right here?”
“No, let’s do it in the shower. Oh we haven’t had shower sex in so long.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “This wouldn’t be a way to kill two birds with one stone would it?”
“No, because I will need a shower again after we do what we’re going to do when we get out of the shower which is more sex because we can have sex loudly tonight.” I slid out from under him. “And I hate that saying. Why the hell would you kill a bird with a stone, let alone two?”
***
It was safe to say I was in a good mood the next day. Nate and I had a long and very wonderful shower together, and afterwards he got me so dirty I needed a shower all over again.
It was awesome.
By morning I woke up sated and satisfied but missing the girls, so we talked to Lily and January during our breakfast before their grandparents drove into the city to drop them off at school. I couldn’t wait to hug my little angels that night.
Ronan commented on my obviously improved mood but not even his teasing could penetrate my anti-negativity force field. The world was good and no one was going to tell me any different.
Okay so the student who wouldn’t quit screaming at me over her reserve section fine maybe put a dent in my force field.
I was in the staffroom buried in paperwork, rubbing the tension the ranting student had put in my forehead out when a strong hand coasted down my side and I heard a deep familiar voice say in my ear, “Free for lunch?”
I jerked back in my seat, my head just missing Nate’s nose. I stared up at him in shock. “What are you doing here?”
He held out a hand. “Taking you to lunch.”
“I thought you had a shoot?”
“Finished early.”
A slow smile prodded my lips. “So you came here? To take me to lunch?”
He grinned. “I was thinking you could take a long lunch.”
“She can take a long lunch,” Ronan butted in and I dipped my head so I could see past Nate. Ronan stood behind him grinning mischievously at me.
“Are you sure you can handle things while I’m gone?”
“If you come back in an even better mood than you were in this morning then I can definitely cover a long lunch for you.”
“I’m not that bad,” I huffed.
He rolled his eyes and walked away.
Nate raised an eyebrow at me. “Olivia Sawyer, have you been a moody boss?”
“Never.” I stood up and mimicked his eyebrow raise. “I’m a lady, and ladies are never moody. We’re mercurial.”
My husband laughed. “Slap a fancy name on it but it doesn’t change facts. You’ve been moody.”
I shot him a grin before I gathered my things and accepted his proffered hand. “It’s your fault I’ve been moody. I don’t do well without my Nate time.”
He squeezed my hand. “Back at you, babe.”
We talked about everything and nothing, and it surprised and elated me at how giddy I felt to be walking down the street hand in hand at lunchtime with him. It was just so outside of our regularly scheduled programming, and I loved that he’d sprung this on me.
When we stopped outside a hotel I stared up at it, confused. “Do they have a nice restaurant here?”