Annie responded by hooking her arms around his neck and leaning into his kiss. “It’s good to be home,” Nick said quietly after he pulled away from her, breathless.

“Um--” Annie gulped and licked her swollen lips, a little unsure if there was some sort of hidden message behind his statement. “I made lunch.” She pointed towards the kitchen. “You haven’t eaten lunch yet, have you? I know it’s almost two, but I figured since it’s only noon in California you probably hadn’t...”

“Lunch sounds great.” Nick casually took her hand and followed her into the kitchen. He stood back and leaned against the island while he watched her pull a bowl of chicken salad out of the refrigerator and retrieve plates and glasses from the cabinets. He couldn’t help but notice how at ease she looked bustling around in his kitchen-- almost like she belonged there. He lunged forward to help her when she reached for a loaf of whole grain bread, grabbing a butter knife from a drawer on the way.

“Can I help you with that?” He gently took the Tupperware bowl of chicken salad from her and removed the lid. “This looks awesome.” He started slathering it on the bread she’d placed on their plates alongside some pieces of fresh fruit.

“Well, it’s not much, but it’s what I could throw together after I got back from the studio this afternoon. What do you want to drink?” She opened the refrigerator and peered in.

“Water’s good. And the lunch is great!” He carried both of their plates to the kitchen table and set them down at side by-side spaces, then pulled a chair out to find a booster seat strapped into it. He quickly slid their plates over one place setting and hurried to pull an empty chair out for Annie as she approached him carrying two bottles of water. “So, where’s Drew?” As if on cue, a loud wail blared through the baby monitor that he hasn't noticed sitting on the window sill until that point.

“Mama!”

“Well, he was napping,” Annie laughed. She placed the water bottles on the table and turned towards the stairs. “I’ll be right back,” she said over her shoulder as she jogged towards Drew’s room. She paused when she heard footsteps echoing hers on the stairs. “You can go ahead and start eating,” she insisted. “We’ll be down in just a little bit.”

Nick cocked his head to the side and smiled. “I’ve missed the little guy. Besides, I don’t want to eat without you.”

“Suit yourself.” She shrugged and opened the door to what had previously been Nick’s workout room. A crib was up against the wall where his weight bench used to be and a toy box covered the floor space where his treadmill had been. Sesame Street decals adorned the wall above it.

“The room suits you, Big Bird,” Nick said aloud.

Drew giggled from his crib. “Mama!” He thrust his open arms towards Annie. “Nick!”

Nick’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “He remembers me?”

“Well, I did tell him you were coming to visit, so maybe he remembers your name because of that. He did say ‘uh-huh’ when I asked him if he remembered Nick, so who knows?”

“Wow. He’s grown!” Nick exclaimed when she hoisted him out of the crib.

“It’s been three months since you’ve seen him. They do that.” Annie chuckled as she set Drew on the floor and he headed for the door.

“Bye Nick!” he exclaimed with a wave in Nick’s direction.

“Wait a minute mister! Do you need a new diaper?” Annie chased after him and grabbed him by the belt loop.

“No, I dwy!” Drew insisted.

“Right.” Annie gathered him up into her arms and mashed on the front of his pants. “You are wet, Drew.” Then she lifted him up so that his behind was in her face. “And dirty,” she choked out.

Nick was a little disturbed by her actions, but couldn't help laughing. "That's how you check his diaper? By sticking his butt in your face?"

"How would you suggest I do it?" she quipped.

“Well, I remember my mom used to stick her finger in the backs of Aaron and Angel’s diapers and look inside.”

Annie raised an eyebrow. That was the first time he’d mentioned his family around her at all. “And how many diapers did you change?” she asked as she laid Drew down on the floor and reached for a diaper and wipes in a basket on the bookshelf.

Nick knelt down in the floor beside her and gently placed his hands on Drew’s shoulders as he struggled to get away from his mother. “A lot. I changed a ton of diapers when I was a kid. I was kind of like the live-in baby-sitter.” Annie gave him a little closed-lipped smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She envisioned a nine or ten year old Nick struggling to change the diaper of a wiggly toddler, much like the one on the floor in front of her, without an adult nearby to help, and her heart broke.

“Did you ever change one that exploded all the way up their back?”

Nick curled his lips in disgust. “Yeah.”

“That’s why I don’t use my finger to peek in the back. The sniff test is much more sanitary.”

He chuckled. “I’ll remember that in the future.”

After Drew was changed, they went downstairs for lunch-- very slowly, as Drew insisted on walking down the stairs “by himself,” which meant grasping the index finger of an adult on either side of him while he toddled down. After they bumped elbows for the umpteenth time as a result of trying to fit three people on the width of one stair, Annie glanced across at Nick and gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I thought he’d stay asleep at least until we finished eating. I’m sure this isn’t exactly the reunion lunch you were expecting.”

The smile Nick returned was one of pure joy. “This is perfect, actually.”

Hours later, while she dried her hands on a dish towel after cleaning up the kitchen post-dinner, Annie stood in the doorway looking into the den as Nick and Drew rolled around in the floor. Drew squealed in delight as Nick wiggled his “Tickle Me Elmo” fingers, as he was calling them, tauntingly and attacked Drew’s rib cage for about the hundredth time. Drew seemed to giggle harder and harder each time Nick tickled him, to the point that he was literally gasping for air. Her eyes panned across the room and she smiled, kind of wishing she’d skipped over this room in her mad dash to straighten up the house before Nick got there that afternoon, considering the mess it was in now. Blocks were strewn from one end of the room to the other, toy cars were stuck in between the couch cushions, and every throw pillow in the room had somehow ended up in the floor. She hated to interrupt the fun, but it was getting late, and she knew that if Drew didn’t start settling down for bedtime soon, it was going to be a long night. “I hate to break up the fun, but it’s bath time.” She walked towards them and stooped down on the rug beside them.

Both of them looked up at her with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, their matching blonde heads mussed up and wild. “I’m not dirty!” Nick whined with a glint in his eye.

“I not dirwy!” Drew echoed.

“Well, I beg to differ,” Annie insisted. “For both of you!” She pointed to a spot of dried pizza sauce on Nick’s cheek for emphasis.

Nick cocked an eyebrow. “That’s kinky.”

“Kinky!” Drew squealed.

“Great,” Annie muttered under her breath.

Nick’s eyes widened in horror. Leave it to him to do something like teach his girlfriend’s kid a word like “kinky.” At least it wasn’t “fuck.” “Sorry,” he mouthed.

She shrugged and smiled. “Could’ve been worse.” Fifty “kinkys” later though, she was pretty exasperated.

An hour later, Annie tip-toed out of Drew’s room and pulled the door together carefully. “Can I give you a peace offering?” Nick whispered from the top of the stairs. He extended a blue mug of hot chocolate towards her.

“You taught my twenty-month old son how to say kinky,” she snapped, but she couldn’t hide her smile as she accepted the cocoa and took a sip. “This is really good.”

“I found some packets of some fancy mix I bought last year in the back of the pantry.”

“Well, yay for fancy hot chocolate mix.” Annie said as Nick leaned down and kissed her on the tip of the nose.

“He went down pretty easily,” he commented. “I was afraid maybe I’d gotten him too riled up to sleep.”

“More like wore him out.”

“Do you have to go to the studio tomorrow?” Nick asked her as he followed her back downstairs.

“Actually, I’m supposed to be at a radio station downtown at noon. Brian’s calling in and we’re talking to KLOVE about our single. It comes out next week.”

“Awesome. It’s a great single,” Nick said as he reminisced about the first few days he ever spent with Annie.

“Well, we had a great guy at the soundboard.” She gave him a little wink as she turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs and headed for the den, intending to straighten up the mess Nick and Drew had made earlier. She stopped short of the doorway when she found that Nick had already done so, and flashed him a smile. “Thank you,” she said softly.

“No problem.” He tilted his head in the direction of the living room across the foyer. “There’s a piano in there.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not mine,” he observed.

Annie smiled. “I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it in Kentucky. I’ve been playing that thing since I was ten.”

“Play something for me?” He gave her a hopeful grin.

She took a sip of her hot chocolate and shrugged. “Why not?” He followed her into the living room and took her cup as she pulled out the piano bench and sat down. He placed both half-empty mugs on an end table and leaned gingerly on the top of the mahogany upright piano as she lifted the cover and poised her fingers over the keys. Then, she started to play an upbeat jazz rhythm he didn’t recognize. Then, to his surprise, she started to sing.

“My heart beats, standing on the edge.
My feet have finally left the ledge.
Like an acrobat, there’s no turning back....”

Nick hoped this was her song, because it fit her voice like a glove.

“I’m letting go of the life I planned for me, and my dreams.
I’m losing control of my destiny.
It feels like I’m falling and that’s what it’s like to believe...
So I’m letting go...”

The chords got softer and she looked up at him expectantly. “What do you think?”

“Well, don’t stop!” he chastised jokingly. She laughed and kept playing.

“This is a giant leap of faith.
Trusting and trying to embrace.
The fear of the unknown.
Beyond my comfort zone.”

As she launched back into the chorus, he couldn’t help drumming his fingers on the piano’s frame in time with her. As she started the bridge, she clenched her eyes shut and let her voice soar.

“So I’m letting go...
Giving in to Your gravity.
Knowing You are holding me.
I’m not afraid....

Nick literally felt chills run over his entire body.

“So I’m letting go of the life I planned for me, and my dreams.
I’m losing control of my destiny.
It feels like I’m falling and that’s what it’s like to believe, yeah.
It feels like I’m falling and this is the life for me....”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him inquisitively with her fingers still hovering over the ivory keys. “So, how was it?”

“Fantastic!” Nick answered brightly. “Yours?”

She smiled and nodded. “Well, half mine, anyway. It was the first time I really tried my hand at writing, so I had some help from Francesca.”

Nick raised an eyebrow. “Battistelli?”

“You’ve heard of her?” Annie asked in surprise as she stood up and picked up her now lukewarm hot chocolate.

“I know she’s a Christian artist, but that girl’s good. I met her at an event in Nashville a couple years back, actually. I think you may give her a run for her money, though. You’re gonna be huge, Annie Morgan.”

“Especially if you keep making me cocoa that tastes this good,” she quipped.

“Dork.”

________________________________________________________________________

“Nick, where are we going?”

“My room.” He was balancing a bowl of popcorn on top of two fresh, piping hot mugs of cocoa while he teetered carefully up the stairs.

“Nick-” She looked down at the Finding Nemo DVD in her hand and sighed. “I don’t think taking me up to your room is exactly what I’d call ‘taking it slow.’ Let’s just watch it in the den, okay?”

“Annie, I’ve got a bowl of popcorn and hot chocolate in my hands, and we’re getting ready to watch your little boy’s copy of Finding Nemo. There’s no hidden agenda here. I just want to watch it on the 60 inch big screen on my wall instead of the little 42-inch down there. It’ll be kind of like we’re in the ocean with them!” His eyes glimmered with excitement, and she laughed as she started climbing the stairs after him.

“Okay. Fine. But no funny business, mister.”

“I’d give you a scout’s honor, but I don’t have any free hands.” He gestured down to the popcorn bowl that set precariously on top of the two ceramic mugs in his hands.

“You better not spill that hot chocolate! Those were the last two packets.”

“I have a feeling I’ll be going out in search of more while you’re at the radio station tomorrow.”

“If you find it, buy all they have.”

_________________________________________________________________________

Nick awoke the next morning feeling a strange sense of deja-vu. Annie had fallen asleep about halfway through the movie with her head lying on his chest and her arms wrapped around his waist. After the movie was over, he’d sat there with his back against the headboard and his arm around her shoulders staring down at her and smelling her hair for over an hour before he eventually drifted off as well. In his sleep, he could feel the warmth leave his body as she unwrapped her arms from his waist and slipped out of bed. He stretched in an attempt to get the crick out of his neck from sleeping sitting up and suddenly felt an overwhelming need to find her and tell her good morning, just to make sure that she hadn’t woken up in his bed and freaked out again like she did on the cruise several weeks earlier. Sure, the circumstances were different, but he still couldn’t help being a little apprehensive about the situation.

Halfway down the hall to her room, he felt something warm and wet soak into the bottom of his sock and looked down. His heart started pounding in his chest and he felt like he was going to be sick as he sprinted the rest of the way to her closed bedroom door. “Annie!” he screamed. He didn’t bother knocking and instead burst through the door in a panic. His eyes darted around the room frantically and all the color drained from his face when they settled on her limp form lying on the floor near the foot of the bed in a growing puddle of blood.