Chapter Sixteen: Facing The Music
Nick paced a little as he awaited Marie's arrival. Livie and Jo were busying themselves up in their playroom as he continued to try making grooves into his hardwood flooring of the foyer. He felt terrible really, for depending on her with such a daunting task. He knew that she probably hadn't decided if she even really wanted to be with him and he comes stomping back into her life yet again, and requests that of her? He knew it wasn't fair, and he really didn't want to have asked her but what choice did he have? None of his siblings were in town, all of the guys would be at rehearsal, all of their women were either out of town or otherwise occupied for the day. So really what other option did he have?
It wasn't an easy thing for him at all, to admit he needed help when for so long he'd been pulling and doing everything on his own with the girls. But he realized that he couldn't always take them with him to meetings or rehearsals really. They were a distraction, albeit a cute distraction, but nonetheless they never got any real work done when they were around. Always too occupied with something they did or said or wanting to just hang out and play with them like they were kids again themselves. Sometimes he almost wished Kevin were still in the band for that very reason. He at least would be there to snap everyone out of it and make them focus on the work as much as possible while they needed to.
As much as he knew he really didn't have any other alternative it still didn't make him feel any more comfortable with the idea of forcing his daughters on her. Even though she had said yes and seemingly was more than willing to get the chance to spend some time with two of the most important girls in his life it still shocked him that she was. He wanted more than anything to just ease into this whole thing with her, and gradually get her around the girls but really he knew now more than ever that wasn't going to be possible.
First and foremost she was only going to be there for another 3 weeks or so. How were things going to work out for them when she was leaving so soon? True he would take three weeks with her over being completely alone and dealing with horrendous blind dates. But what could they expect to achieve? He supposed that they might get close enough to try for a long distance relationship but really how long was that going to last? He'd had many long distance relationships, being on the road all the time sort of forced him into that situation. But really he knew they never worked out. The only one who ever really handled the traveling and the separation was Anna, and that was when they were first in their relationship. As soon as they had gotten married and especially after Jo was born they were inseparable. She went where he went simple as that. Of course she'd given up on so much to be his wife. Her college education was put on hold; her future really had changed from the fast track to success to a stay-at-home mother within just the few years since they had started dating.
He heard the doorbell ring and went over to the door opening it seeing her standing there, bright smile, a pair of well worn jeans and a Ramones tee-shirt her hands full with the leads leading to Romeo and Jada, and a couple of bags that looked like she'd stopped at Blockbuster and the grocery store on the way over. "Hi..." He said with a grin letting her in. "You didn't have to bring the dogs you know..." He added chuckling a little.
She shrugged, "Well I'm assuming since Angel probably watches the girls, that they like the dogs, and I felt bad leaving them all alone at home so I brought them so the girls could have playmates aside from me. I'm kind of a boring adult so dogs are always good entertainment for kids." She replied rambling slightly. "And I'm totally rambling aren't I?" She added matter of factly blushing at her own ramble.
"No problem I'm glad you came prepared, they can be quite a handful sometimes. They're definitely a tag team." He retorted chuckling along with her. "What do you have in the bag?" He asked peering over to her.
She sighed unhooking the dogs leashes letting them run through the house. "Well I rented some movies that I loved as a kid and no child should ever not see them. And I brought over stuff to do, like coloring books, some ingredients to bake cookies and such. I wanted to have everything available so they won't get bored at all. I was thinking also to take them and the dogs to the park or the beach or something, let them play and have some fun outdoors." She responded with a grin.
He watched her eyes light up as she explained everything and smiled at her. Suddenly he was really rather glad he'd had the chance to count on her like this. Her upbeat attitude about watching two young girls for a few hours had definitely impressed him that was for sure. She really honestly and truly was the most interesting girl he'd ever met. Not many women he had slept with 3 times and spent the night with twice would have even been so kind and generous as to acquiesce to his extraordinary request. "What movies did you get?"
"The Never Ending Story, the original might I add, The Last Starfighter, and I didn't know if you had it or not but I got The Goonies too. I grew up on these movies and I figure they would like them too. If anything it'll be something to put on while they color or play with their toys as background noise."
"Wow, yeah we have The Goonies, I grew up on it too. They actually haven't seen it yet I haven't had much time to watch too many movies with them over the years, and Livie is just finally getting into the stage where she'll actually sit through a whole movie without getting restless." He replied thinking it was great she wanted to share some of the movies she loved as a kid with his children. It was definitely showing that she cared about them and wanted to bond with them and that right there made him happy about leaving her in charge of them while he took care of his meeting and rehearsals.
Marie smiled at him and heard two sets of footsteps bound down the stairs at hearing the dogs barking. She saw Jo and Livie run over to their father and smile at her. "Marie! Daddy you didn't tell us she was gonna watch us!" Jo exclaimed smiling at her.
Marie smiled even brighter at them and knelt down to their level. "Well ladies, I have lots of goodies for us, how would you like to bake some cookies to have after we make lunch?" She asked making the girls look at her their eyes wide with excitement.
"Yay! You can teach us?" Livie asked making Marie nod in agreement. She thought the question was very adorable. Of course she knew that Nick didn't exactly have the know how to teach the girls the basics of baking. Thus she was completely delighted to be able to share her knowledge with the girls. It was how she had learned really. Her grandmother and mother had taught her in the kitchen as a small child getting her to do small baking projects to start and eventually while she was in high school she took over the duties of all the cooking in the house.
"Of course! I get to bake cookies and cakes for a living back home in New York so I would love to teach you how." Marie replied happily glancing up at Nick. "You better get going or you'll be late for your meeting." She stated making him nod as she stood. He knelt hugging the girls, telling them to behave and to have fun. The statement alone made Marie inwardly snicker at the slight contradiction. Having fun as a very young child usually meant getting into some kind of trouble. Nick stood and went to the door, stopping to thank her once again. She shrugged and replied, "Just remember our deal..."
"No problem here are the keys to my truck, it has their booster seats already hooked up. If you decide to go anywhere you'll need those." He said handing her a key to his truck. She smiled and watched him walk out and then turned to the girls.
"Okay ladies, what would you like to do first? Bake and then do some coloring or play with your toys and the dogs? Or do you wanna skip it and pack up a picnic and head to the beach?" She asked giving them probably too many options to deal with.
"The beach!" The girls said in unison making her smile.
"I can show you how to make a sand castle like Daddy taught me!" Livie said proudly and Jo grinned at her petting Jada who was standing next to her.
"Can we bring Romeo and Jada?" Jo asked getting a quizzical look on her face.
"Of course!" Marie replied as she walked them into the kitchen. "First let's make a cooler full of food for lunch and then we'll get a beach bag together with everything. How does that sound?" She asked and the two girls grinned at her. She smiled at them and felt instantly relaxed around them. Her earlier nervousness about getting along with them without Nick was definitely gone.
---
Nick sighed as he listened to management drone on and on about tour dates. He knew this was definitely a run of the mill meeting where they negotiated dates, time off for vacations, sight seeing and such. He hoped most definitely for plenty of that. Getting to see the world from a very young age had molded him and shaped him in such a way that he wanted to expose the girls to the wonders of different cultures and history around the world.
It was something he knew Anna would have wanted to do for them if she were still alive. When they'd been on tour together the last time they'd spent all their downtime going sight seeing, even though the girls were much too young to remember anything of note. It still gave them wonderful memories of his daughters, and of Anna.
It was so odd to think of Anna now in such a past tense. He didn't feel the stab in his heart any longer when her face popped into his head. He no longer wished to see her standing in their home, cooking dinner, playing with the girls, or anything of the above. It shocked him how since he'd met Marie that his life had completely changed. He no longer longed for the woman who was his wife.
He longed for her. Marie.
To see her face in the morning when he woke up, though he knew that was an impossibility still he ardently wished. Or the fact that she made him smile just thinking of something she said, or just how her nose would wrinkle at the bridge when she giggled too hard at a joke.
He sighed and glanced at the clock and suddenly all eyes were upon him. "What?" He asked automatically thinking he'd missed a question.
"Are we keeping you from something more important?" One of the suits asked him. He sighed again this time with exasperation. Yeah, they were keeping him from something, from being with his daughters, from the talk he needed to have with Marie. And even more so, from kissing Marie, holding her hand in his, the feel of her skin and inhaling her scent. A scent that underneath the vanilla orchid and cherry blossom lotion smelled of warm cake batter. He'd learned that it wasn't a perfume that made her smell that way. It was just how she smelled naturally and the thought of that intoxicated him.
"No." He replied curtly. "Sorry, please continue." He said as if it was his permission that kept the meeting from going on. He tried to focus on the numbers, venues and dates but nothing would let up. His thoughts kept drifting back to Marie. The soft patches of skin from her arms that her clothing couldn't cover, the way jeans clung to her hips. How those hips felt meeting his time and time again with no barrier between them, and the sounds that fell from her mouth with each thrust. He blinked furiously trying to rid the last image from his mind. It made no sense to get aroused at a meeting for crying out loud.
He knew it though, he was hooked. That was something that scared him a bit. Although that bit was smaller than he thought it should be. It'd been so long since his focus had become so acutely aware of someone of the opposite sex, enough to distract him during an important meeting no less.
Before he knew it the suits were gone and the others grinned at him from their seats around the couch. "So...how's Marie?" AJ asked a cheshire grin on his face.
Nick sighed, "She's amazing. I wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for her."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because first of all, baby sitter cancelled. I called all of your women and they were all busy. Aaron's out of town and all my friends are working or out of town. So..."
"Marie's watching them? Had she met them before now?"
"Yeah. She uh tried to be romantic and surprise me with dinner on Christmas Eve. And the girls were there."
The others raised their eyebrows in shock. How he had not mentioned this little fact before? That was pretty major after all, for all the time they were spending together and for her to find out that he's not only a widower but a father of two like that made them all a little suspicious as to her reaction.
"She was a little freaked at first. But uh she seems okay with it right now. We haven't really discussed it but the girls adore her. She was an instant hit, I've never seen anyone take a liking to them so fast." He said as they all stood. He was still amazed that they had hit it off so well. Maybe she was someone good for the girls if she was able to be so kind to them.
"Are you going to talk about it with her?" Brian asked suddenly his voice filled with incredulous concern.
He sighed and looked at his friends. "Yeah after rehearsal actually, tonight, I promised I'd sit down with her and we'd talk all this out."
"She wants to talk about it then I'm assuming?" Brian continued his hope rising.
"Yeah, she only agreed to it so we could talk. I mean that's gotta be a good sign right? She's willing to spend time with my daughters without me around?"
AJ smiled and nodded, "I think it is. I'm happy for you. I hope this works out because seriously dude. It's about fucking time."
Nick chuckled to the truth in AJ's words. "Yeah don't I know it." He replied with a grin.
---
"Okay Jo, now can you hand me that shovel by your knee please?" Marie asked and Jo handed it to her as the three of them worked on the sand castle together.
Romeo and Jada seemed pleased to sit on their blanket watching the surf and often napping in the bright California sun.
"Thank you sweets" She said as she took the shovel from her using it to smooth out one side of the castle wall. Livie giggled as she helped pack the sand into the pales and Jo helped with the smoothing out of the design. "Okay now girlies come on over I think we're just about done!" She remarked and the girls came over to her. She moved back slightly writing the girls' names in the wet sand in front of the castle alone with hers. "All right now take your right hand and press it next to your name like I'm doing with mine and we'll take a picture!" Marie exclaimed as the three of them did so.
She grinned and wiped off her hand getting her camera from her beach bag and taking a picture of the small but impressive sand castle the three of them had built together. "Amazing job girls you should be proud!" She said marveling at the work they did together.
"Thank you." Jo said quietly blushing at the compliment. Marie wrapped her arm around Jo's shoulders and gave a soft squeeze of reassurance. "Do you think Daddy will like it?" She asked referring to the picture of the sandcastle.
"I think he will love it. After all you made him a castle!" Marie replied flailing her arms triumphantly.
Both girls giggled hard when the surf came up and hit the castle. Marie grinned at them and watched them run around the surf. She let them play for a while chasing after them all three of them getting well soaked in the cold water. She soon carted them off to the house getting them cleaned off and changed into warm clothing. They busied themselves afterwards making a few batches of cookies and were now sprawled out on the floor with a movie playing in the background.
She watched them playing along with their games of pretend and smiled having had one of the best days in her life. It amazed her that these two little girls were products of Nick. He had to be a really good father for them to be so good all around. True they did have some rebellion in them but for the most part they were exceptionally well-behaved little girls. She wondered how he did it, how he was able to be their sole provider and be the fun dad, on top of the disciplinarian.
Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of tires on concrete and then the soft stop of a car in the driveway. The girls looked up seeing the headlights flash through the windows of the front door and shrieked happily running over to stand in the archway that separated the living room from the foyer. Marie stood and waited, watching the two little bundles of nervous excitement wait until their father cracked open the door, both of them lunging to it across the foyer squealing in delight. Their peals of laughter made her grin widely as she could barely make out the sound of Nick's voice over the loud clamor of two little girls talking over each other spilling all the details of their day.
He made the way into the living room having to pick up both girls, one on each arm so they could simultaneously regale them with their eventful day and hug him, welcoming him home. He looked up and saw Marie standing there clothing changed from what she'd worn earlier in the day, a bright fevered light in her face he'd never seen before and a wide smile of amusement on her lips. The sight of her in his living room, looking happy, comfortable even when he came home from the tedium of a long day of meetings and rehearsals made a thrill race through his system.
"Hi." He said as he set the girls down not being able to take his eyes away from her.
"Hi." She replied with her grin still intact.
"Daddy we made cookies!" Livie exclaimed and Nick crouched down to their level.
"You did huh? And how much cookie dough made it into the oven?" He asked giving them both a knowing look.
"Most of it actually." Marie replied as he looked up for a moment.
"Hmm that's a first, usually when we cook together more of the food ends up in their stomachs than the plate before it hits the table." He remarked and Marie chuckled. They sat and listened to the girls chatter a bit until Nick got a good glance at the clock. "Okay you two monsters, I think it's time you two got some beauty sleep."
"Aww but Daddy we're already beautiful!" Livie countered and Marie had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from chuckling at the child's quick wit.
Nick laughed and pulled her to sit on his lap. "That you two are, but if you want to stay beautiful, that means getting sleep." He shot back and Livie let out a huge sigh. "So dramatic, come on I'll even carry you up the stairs if you want."
"YEAH!" Both girls exclaimed and he scooped them both up.
"The littlest things excite these two. Lucky they got me as a parent, it's easy to entertain them." He remarked as he turned to Marie. "Come on up, I'm sure the girls want to show you their fort."
"They have a fort?"
"Sort of, it's made out of cardboard but it amuses them."
Marie grinned and stood as well following the three of them up the stairs. Nick set the girls down on the carpeting and made sure they brushed their teeth before helping them into their rooms. He tucked them in and bid each girl goodnight leaving their respective nightlights on before leaving. Marie followed him down stairs and into the kitchen watching him from her perch at the island countertop.
"Thank you, for today I mean. You swooped in and were superwoman with those two. I've never seen them so happy. At least not in a very long time." He remarked his voice clearly showing the sincerity of his gratitude.
There was a long pause between them, both of them mulling over the topic they both so desperately wanted to discuss but simultaneously feared to go down for similar reasons. "I am sorry." He began his brow furrowing. "I should have told you about them before we were ever..."
"Yeah, you should have." Marie replied interrupting and gathering her thoughts as she went along. "But, I guess I just don't see why you didn't tell me about them. I mean you wanted us to get to know each other, and they're such a huge part of you. I mean how can I know you when I can only see this little piece of you? You're like an iceberg; only showing me minute sections of yourself at a time while there is so much beneath the surface that is even more important." She continued and Nick's face turned stern almost brooding with guilt over his omission.
"I know, and I'm really sorry, I am. I know it doesn't excuse my actions but I wanted to tell you, I struggled over it day and night. I was scared, and stupid about it."
"I wouldn't go so far as to say stupid, don't berate yourself. I understand why you did it, that kind of fear can be disabling."
He sighed and rifled his fingers through his hair. "But it still doesn't excuse what I did. I mean we were-."
"Yeah." Marie replied her cheeks flushing a little and averting her gaze from his eyes.
"I lied about a very important part of my life."
"You didn't lie, you just didn't tell me. It's not like you were like ‘hey I'm a swinging single with nothing to tie me down'." She couldn't believe that she was actually defending him. But in a way she felt like he was being too hard on himself. She had really already forgiven him for keeping the secrets he did.
He sighed again and gave her a longing look, "Omission is lying, Marie. It's inexcusable and no matter how scared I was of you flipping out and never talking to me again I should have just taken the risk, trusted that you were mature enough to handle that I'm a father. But I let my fear take control. I haven't felt this way about someone in a long time. I don't even think I've really ever felt this drawn to a woman before. And I just didn't want it to end. So I withheld and I shouldn't have."
Marie wanted to disagree with him, to stop him from being so hard on himself no matter how sharp of an edge of truth his words held. He should have told her. But at the same time she realized that he needed her to agree with him to some extent, and then extend her words of forgiveness. "I do agree with you. I won't lie, I was kind of hurt that you hadn't trusted me enough to tell me about them. They're sensational. Really. However I don't think beating yourself up continuously over this is going to solve anything or let either of us move past it."
Nick's eyes widened in shock. This was positively the most mature conversation about a relationship mistake he'd ever had. Weren't most women supposed to scream, shout, and make him grovel for forgiveness? Even his fights with Anna had never been this mature. In fact their fights tended to be knock-down, drag-out world war three type affairs. "You're seriously not going to yell at me? You're just going to try to move past it?"
Marie took a breath and smirked. "I'm not saying I'm not still hurt that you didn't tell me. I am. But at least now I understand it. I like you, a lot and it would be wrong of me to make this into a total deal breaker. So I'm not happy about it but I do forgive you. I just wanted to understand what was going through your mind about the entire situation. And I learned that you at least liked me enough to be scared that I may not want to be involved with you if I knew the truth."
He grinned a little and shook his head. He couldn't believe her maturity in the situation. How had he been lucky enough to find someone like her? "Okay. Wow. Uh that was much less painful than I thought it was going to be."
"Yelling has really never been my style. And, what do you not have mature conversations with the opposite sex?"
He chuckled and sighed, "Even with Anna, all my relationships too, when I would make a mistake it was pretty much a lot of groveling and sometimes presents to get me back out of the doghouse."
Marie grinned and stepped toward him placing a hand over his gently. "Well I am just not that type of woman."
"I think that's blatantly obvious." He mused lacing their fingers for a moment. "You're amazing."
She chuckled and shrugged, "I don't know about that but I guess I've just been taught to see both sides of every situation and then act. I mean when I was younger, sure I did a lot of rash stuff and messed up relationships, was clingy and naïve. But I grew up. I learned from my young mistakes and I think you have too. I mean you were mature enough to get married right?"
He gave her a look and shrugged his hands away for a moment wringing them nervously. He leaned down onto the counter on his elbows and looked at her. "I married Anna, because she was pregnant with Jo. It wasn't that I didn't care about her, I did, immensely. But I wasn't a good husband, not until I laid my eyes on that little girl. It took me nine months of being a complete dick of a husband to finally be like holy shit this is for real. I'm a dad, and I better man the fuck up because I have two amazing women depending on me to be everything for them."
"How old were you when she got pregnant?"
"Almost 22. And I was a hard partier. Like alcohol, recreational drugs. I was the epitome of sex, drugs and rock and roll. I drug her down with me. When she got pregnant I thought she was joking. But I realized she wasn't and I did the only responsible thing I could think of. I proposed."
Marie's expression softened, "Do you ever regret it?"
"I regret being a jackass to her in the beginning. I was young and I hurt her and made her give up her dreams. It took until after Livie was walking for her to get back to school. She'd been in college and had to give it up when we got married because of Jo and well she pretty much had two kids at that time. Jo was the mature one out of the two of us." Nick explained chuckling a bit.
"Tell me about her." Marie asked softly. "I mean, what attracted you to her?"
"She was well, Anna. I mean she was good looking and intelligent. But like more book smart than street smart. She was really naïve. I was her first and everything. She was in college, a creative writing major. She had aspirations to become the next big novelist." He replied and Marie cocked her head to the side.
She was intrigued really, to hear that he had become involved and later married (although under tense circumstances) someone who was not only beautiful but also had a brain. She figured that it wasn't the norm for many in the music industry. That you either married someone in the business or someone just to keep your bed warm while you were away touring the world. "Wow. I mean it's just I guess I thought your type would be different."
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "Let me guess, busty bottle blonde with a double digit IQ?"
"Something like that." She replied and instantly chuckled at the very ludicrous nature to her claim. Apparently his type was much more like her, smart, bookish type of woman who had a passion for the creative.
"I mean life with her wasn't perfect. We fought constantly. Avoided it in front of the girls but Jesus could she hold a grudge. She had this absolute refusal to learn how to use a remote. She would just randomly punch buttons until the television would be snarled into a horrendous snowy mess that would take me four hours to figure it all out. She pissed me off so much sometimes but when we were good, it was amazing."
Marie stood there taking it all in. It seemed like the relationship they'd had was much more of an opposites attract. "What made you fall in love with her?"
"How devoted of a mom she was. I mean when I married her I cared about her, wanted to be with her, but did I love her? No. I didn't love her like I should have until after Jo came."
"So you married out of responsibility and not love."
"Love came later. I was really ecstatic when she got pregnant with Liv. I really fell more in love with her when she was pregnant the second time. I had already had love for her but it just made it so much deeper and real for me to see her glowing, carrying my child. My second child. We still fought a lot we did almost all the way up until she died. But things were so good. We were happy and then it all got taken away from us."
"Do you still love her?"
"A small part of me always will love her, and be grateful to her for the girls."
"But,"
"But, as much as I miss the good times, I think I'm finally moving on. I want someone who just captures my attention from the get go, the type of woman who is infectious to be around. And you -," He paused looking her over and smiling at how just how casually she was leaning on his counter top and how touchable her skin looked in the lights of the kitchen. He pushed away from the counter and moved to stand in front of her and brought her in close and very gently and hesitantly kissed her. The kiss was short, gentle and infinitely sweet. He broke away and looked at her searching her brown eyes hoping to see that she'd understand that she was making him feel again. "You make me feel something. I feel alive again. And I didn't think I'd ever be able to feel like this about someone and I don't want to let it go."
After what seemed liked an eternity Marie finally found her voice and spoke very softly, "I don't want to let it go either." It was very true to them both now, everything was solidifying their interests in each other.
"You get that I'm a package deal? Three for the price of one?" He questioned trying to give her a way out just in case she wasn't ready to handle dating a single father.
"I'm thinking I kind of really like that. A lot." She smirked back at him.
---
It was much later when Nick stirred in his sleep. He sighed seeing the red digital numbers reading that it was just half past four o'clock in the morning. He almost groaned knowing that he'd just gotten to bed two hours before hand. Instead, he tightened his arms around Marie's shoulders as he smiled listening to the slow and steady movement of her lungs as she slept rather comfortably nestled in his arms, in his bed.
After the initial conversation about his omission and his past with Anna they got to talking. Conversing so easily over every topic imaginable. He couldn't believe her maturity and such sure acceptance of his life, his past, his daughters. It was astounding to think that he had stumbled upon such a person when he wasn't even really looking. The conversation they had for the previous few hours were shared equally between each other, educating them on a much deeper level than any discussion they'd had before.
When he'd realized how late it was he found it wasn't very difficult to persuade her to spend the night. Of course she'd joked that he just wanted to get her into bed with him again but he assured her it was merely just to sleep. They'd settled in quietly after he'd loaned her a shirt and boxers to wear to bed. He'd eagerly wrapped his arms protectively around her as they both continued to talk until they lost consciousness. He smiled into the darkness of the room finally feeling like the hole that had been punched into his chest two years before had finally disappeared almost all together leaving just a faint scar of reminder.
His eyes looked around the room as he felt sleep evading him still, his eyes locked onto the painting Anna had given him for their first year of marriage. It hit him then that the fact that this was the first time any other woman had ever been in his bedroom, the room he shared with Anna, didn't weird him out. A twinge of guilt swept over him at the realization that he was so okay with having a different woman in the room, in the bed, that he once shared with his wife.
Marie stirred slightly and shifted around in his embrace. Her arms wrapped around him and her face buried itself into his chest letting out a soft sigh of contentment as she found her comfortable position. He grinned and let his hands roam on her back lightly and let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He kissed her forehead taking one last look at the painting and ever so quietly whispered, "Goodbye Anna."
Author's Chapter Notes:
So yeah...it's uh been quite a while eh? I've been so busy with work, with everything going on in my life that I haven't had much time to write. However I have an awesome beta (Darby) who's been bugging me everyday about writing. And finally I finished this chapter woo! Hopefully more to come soon! Thanks to everyone for all your support and encouragement thus far!
Chapter End Notes:
Thank you for reading!
