Doing It for Love (All About Love #1) (15 page)

I jam my feet under Landon’s butt on the couch, and I see goose bumps prickle up and down his legs. I have to warm my toes before I stick them in my boots and head to work for twelve hours. After spilling the macaroni last week and the following Thanksgiving meal was a dainty Top Ramen spread, I’ve picked up extra shifts left and right.

“Damn, woman,” Landon says, adjusting his baseball cap before running his hand under the bottom of my pants and up my leg.

“I’m cold.”

“You’re always cold.” He pinches the skin by my ankle. “And you’re furry.”

“It’s No-shave-ember. And it’s not like I have any hot dates to impress.” I wink, and he wrinkles his nose at me.

“You sound like my sister.”

“Oh, reminds me,” I say, sitting up and wrapping my arms around my knees. “Your mom called.”

“Okay.”

“Did you ask her about the flowers and tuxes?”

He purses his lips and shakes his head. “Uh…not yet.”

“Kind of need you to.”

“I know.”

I tilt my head to the side and watch as he toys with the hem of my pants. “Is that okay…?” I ask, worried that I’ve struck a nerve without meaning to.

He blows out a breath. “Yeah, it’s just…can we swing it?”

“Swing what?”

“The cost of the tuxes and flowers.”

I want to snort, but I hold it back. But seriously, I just had a major money breakdown in the kitchen last week.

“Not really. Do you think she’ll say no?”

“It’s not that. I just…I haven’t asked for anything from them since I left home. And I really don’t want to.”

His gray eyes move to mine, and I give him a small grin.

“It’s okay to ask for help.”

“I haven’t needed to. I shouldn’t need to. We should be able to handle all this shit ourselves. That’s why you moved up here to New York, right? To be on your own.”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Same here. We’re old enough, and we should take care of the things we need without running to our parents.”

“Landon,” I say, tucking my arm through his. “It’s our wedding, not our rent.”

He takes a deep breath and holds it, and I wonder if I need to be the one calling Mr. and Mrs. Wangford about all the expenses. Mr. Wangford will probably be my best bet.

“You’re right. Sorry,” Landon says, surprising me out of my in-law calling plans. “I’ll talk to them.”

“Thank you.”

He nods, then shuffles off the couch and grabs his empty mug off the coffee table. And even though he agreed with me, it still feels like he’s ready to argue.

DECEMBER

“Get up!”

“Ugnnn…”

“Up, up, up.”

I kick at the hands on my feet, then turn over in the bed. “Sleep. I need sleep.”

The sheets get ripped off my body.

“We’re going out.”

“Out?” I open one sleepy eye and look at crazy-ass Landon, who is way too awake for this late. Okay, it’s only nine, but after my long shift it feels like midnight.

“It occurred to me the other day that I haven’t taken my girl out since she became my fiancée. It must be rectified immediately.”

I snort into my pillow.

“You’re laughing because I said the word ‘rectify,’ aren’t you?”

“After a double shift I’m allowed to be as immature as I want.”

He grabs my arm and pulls till I’m forced to a sitting position. “Get dressed.”

“In what?”

“Something warm.”

“Coffee…” The word isn’t even all the way out before he puts a to-go cup in my hand. Then he throws me a victorious grin along with my bright red coat. “You have twenty minutes.”

I go to lie back down, but he takes the comforter, the pillows, and the sheet and walks out of the room, tripping over the lagging material. If it wasn’t freezing, I probably would go right back to bed.

Landon gets so frustrated with my slow pace from the front door to the car that he picks me up and carries me across the salted asphalt. Sleepy and uncoordinated are not good combos in the winter. Cautious or carried is the only way I’m getting to the car without breaking something.

I finish my coffee just as Landon pulls up to the train station. He’s had a brightly lit smile on his face the entire drive, and now the fizzy caffeine bubbles are starting to take effect, making me feel just as excited for who knows what the hell he has planned for us.

He pays for our tickets, and I don’t say anything about the money, but I know he knows I’m thinking about it, because he squeezes my hand twice and says, “I’m keeping it cheap, I promise.” And it sucks that we have to think about that just to go out for a night, but I squeeze his hand back once to let him know that cheap or expensive, I just want to be with him.

“What are we going to do?” I ask, trying to stifle a yawn. He adjusts his arm so I can rest on his chest.

“Look at lights. Wander around. Talk.”

“Mmm…”

“I’m not sorry I woke you up for it.”

I poke his ribs. “My hum was not a bad hum. It sounds fun. What should we talk about?”

“Anything. Everything.”

“How’s
The Walking Stiff
coming along?”

His lip quirks up at the side, and he kisses me long and sweet against my forehead. A forehead kiss. I love those things.

“It’s about twenty percent edited. I have to do a couple reshoots…but I should get a second opinion on some scenes. An
unbiased
one,” he adds when he sees me open my mouth to volunteer. “There are days when I hate it, that I feel like I wasted the grant money and everyone’s time, and there are days I feel like a frickin’ genius, and I can’t believe I directed something so funny.”

“What I saw was funny.”

“I know. I can hear your laughter on some of the takes.” He reaches up and tucks my hair into my beanie, lingering a little near the fabric, and my breath catches a tiny bit. Sweet damn, these butterflies. They feel like the new-relationship ones, but…somehow, better.

“I really thought when you said ‘zombie movie’ that it was a hard-core horror. And Jace’s wardrobe and the stuff you had in props…” I shiver, and he laughs.

“Maybe down the road…but if I’m going to make a name for myself, I want to start out with comedy.”

“Why?”

“I want…” he starts, then his eyebrows pull in as a set look of determination takes over. “I want to make people smile. I want to tell an epic story…with
laughter
. I want to change the way people view the world. I want life to stop being so damn dramatic all the time. I want…what are you doing?”

I grin from behind my phone. “Recording this for your Oscar speech. Creating funny stuff looks like serious work.”

He pushes my hand away and attacks my neck with playful nibbles. I’m giggling so loud and laughing so hard I have to shove him away as soon as the train stops to race to the bathroom.

The light snow trickling down across New York City looks like a postcard. It’s freezing, though, so I tuck into Landon’s warmth and we cuddle-walk up the street toward Times Square.

“Oy, my feet,” I joke only about ten steps into our walk.

“I’m not carrying you.”

“But I worked
sooo
hard today.”

“Not doing it. Every time you piggyback you pinch my nipples.”

“I won’t this time.”

“We’re going to invest in some fireproof pants for you.”

“You’re wearing this big-ass coat! There’s no way I’d even get a good hold.”

“Fine, hop on.”

I squeal in victory and lunge on Landon’s back, swinging my legs and tasting the snow dropping from the skies. I feel young and light, with not a care in the world.

And I pinch his nipples.

“Damn you, woman!”

He bounces me up and down, doing the running bull so my boobs knock into his back. We have to stop, though, when he hits a particularly icy patch of sidewalk and we fall to our asses. Then we rub out the bruises, walking like an elderly couple to a street stand of cheap hot chocolates, then to the tourist attraction that is Times Square.

Landon’s fingers are cold around mine, but he never lets go to put them in his pocket. Like new-relationship hand-holding.

“Do you want to direct on Broadway someday?” I ask, nodding to the ticket booths and the giant billboards of the shows.

“Nah…I’m set on getting my ass to LA.”

“Ah…where the sun still shines in the winter.” I sigh. “I can’t wait to go with you.”

“After school, right?”

I take a deep sip of the hot chocolate, keeping my eyes on the bright lights of the city. “Actually…I don’t think I’ll go back.”

He hesitates a moment. “Liz, we can take out another loan. You don’t have to keep putting it off because of the money.”

“It’s not that.”
Or just that.
I lean back, letting my head rest on his chest while his arms wrap from behind me. The heat from his hot-chocolate cup warms my hip. “I just…I think you’re right.”

“About what?”

“I’m a flake.”

He pauses again, then turns me around, eyebrows bunched together. “I’ve
never
called you a flake.”

I tilt my head to the side. “You said I get excited about things, then change my mind the next day.”

His eyes widen and his mouth drops open the slightest bit. “Liz, you are passionate about so many things. Just because some don’t stick doesn’t mean you’re a flake.”

“What the hell am I passionate about?”

“Me.”

I snort, because I knew that was coming. He grins and wipes a snowflake from my cheek. “You’re passionate about that vampire show.”

“I hardly think that counts. I’m just saying I have
no clue
what I want to do with my life. I’m not like you and didn’t know when I was twelve. Still trying to figure it out, because I flake out on everything I start.”

“Bullshit.”

I jerk back. “You callin’ me a liar?”

“I’m calling you
out.
You keep every promise you make. You have a detailed list for every major task. You work double shifts
and
keep the apartment clean. You know I wouldn’t last a day without you. There’d be socks everywhere.”

“I bet there’s a pair of socks on the living room floor as we speak,” I say, and he gives me an “oops” look, and I shake my head. “Landon!”

“You see! You keep me in line.”

“Obviously not well enough.”

“Okay, then. You don’t know what you want to do. But say you had to choose right now. No takebacks, can’t question the decision tomorrow, first thing that jumps into your head.”

It happens so quick it’s like it was already there, waiting for someone to force me to make the decision. What I want to do maybe looks like an easy way out, but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels so satisfyingly
right.
And surprises the heck out of me, considering how relieved I was when…

“You know…when I was fifteen in my career class, they asked me probably about a million times where I saw myself in five years. And I always had these big dreams of being an actress or becoming famous or just
being
someone. I had a list of Hurdles for those dreams. Get into NYU, take advanced theater classes, study Broadway. And then…well, you came along.”

“Wow. Here I am, being encouraging, and you say I destroyed your dreams.”

“You shush and let me finish.” I tap a finger to his lips. “It’s good that you came along, because I realized I don’t actually want all those things. If I was to answer the same five-year question now, I’d say all I see in my future, all I
want
in my future, is a family.”

He smiles, pulls my hips into his, and locks his hands behind my back. “So…that’s what you want to do. You want to do me.”

“Over and over till there are tons of little Landons and Lizzies running around.”

He’s still smiling, but he tries to clear his throat as if he’s choking. I laugh and help ease his mind.

“Not right
now.
But that is what I want to do in life. I want to be a mom. I want to stay home with my kids and watch them learn to walk and to talk and to dance. I want to make them SpaghettiOs and clean up SpaghettiOs and celebrate the day they discover they can fit certain objects up their noses. I can’t wait to watch all their soccer games or school plays—”

“You want to be a soccer mom, huh?” Landon says with a grin.

“Yes. And I want to drive a minivan and give my kids juice pouches. I want a house with a backyard and a swing set or tree house like the one at your parents’, and I want to teach them how to ride bikes and swim and to look both ways and I know it pays nothing and I should really have a backup plan in the meantime or for when it does happen and I get bored or something when the kids are older and in school or with friends or what-have-you. But if I could only choose one thing and one thing only…being a mom? Well, that’s what I’d pick with no second thought.”

He’s quiet. He’s quiet for so long I wonder if I even said anything out loud, but then he picks me up, spins me around, and smiles at me like I’ve dropped from Heaven itself.

“I’m gonna help you get to your dream, Tumbles. Even if it takes a lot of practice.”

“I see lots and lots of practice in our five-year plan.”

He laughs and gives me a sloppy kiss on the mouth before lifting my arm straight in the air with his. “This woman wants to have my babies!” he shouts for all of New York City to hear. People clap and whistle and holler, and I tug my beanie over my blushing face. Of course, Landon pulls it off and kisses me deep and long and with so much heat and happiness I feel like I’m lifted out of my shoes and soaring up to the snowy skies.

He pulls back, keeping my face locked in his hands, and whispers to me like it’s a secret, “Now we run out of here like we’re off to make sweet passionate love and make all these people jealous!” And I’m tugged to the nearest cab, laughing and not giving a single care about the fare as Landon tells the driver to take us to Rockefeller Center. While we sit in horrendous traffic we talk about our future as if it doesn’t scare us, as if everything we want together is completely within reach, and I believe it. I believe it all…that this man will be an amazing husband and father and I even see myself doing all the things I told him. It’s exciting, and we can’t stop hugging and kissing and holding hands and doing all the things we seemed to skip over when we got together. The little things I thought we never would experience again after we transformed from dessert into vegetables seem suddenly so big now that sex is off the table.