The Beach

“I can’t believe all this has happened in the last like, two weeks, and you barely are now getting to tell me most of it.” Macy’s voice rang through the phone’s speaker. Sawyer had spent the last thirty minutes on the phone with her best friend, catching her up on the last few weeks of her life and what she had been dealing with. They had scarcely gotten the opportunity to talk since she’d gotten to Virginia Beach, and without the constant chatter between her and Macy, Sawyer felt as though her life was lacking.

“It’s been a chaotic time here. Normally time with Alex isn’t this, well, crazy. At least, not this kind of crazy.” Sawyer responded, causing Macy to chuckle a bit before letting a little sigh out.

“Are you gonna leave me in California to rot by myself?” Macy asked, catching Sawyer off guard a bit. She bit her lip, even knowing that Macy couldn’t see her, and started fiddling with her hair a bit.

“I don’t think so. Me and Alex, we haven’t really had a chance to talk about any of the logistics of this yet. I doubt that he’s ready for us to move in together, and even if he is, I wouldn’t ever leave you Mace. You know that. It’s always been me and you. It always will be.” Sawyer said and she could almost feel the small smile on Macy’s face.

“Oh please. You two can’t live 3000 miles apart and date. That’s completely unrealistic.” Macy said with a laugh. Sawyer scrunched her nose a bit, because she didn’t like what Macy was saying.

“Let me just, I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.” Sawyer said, not feeling entirely confident in her new found relationship at Macy’s words.

“Don’t start doubting things now. I know you. Just don’t.” Macy scolded and Sawyer sighed, but mumbled back and ‘ok’ to let Macy know that she had heard her.

“I should get going. Alex is fixing up lunch, and he said it would be ready in twenty minutes, almost 45 minutes ago.” Sawyer said, causing Macy to laugh before they said their goodbyes.

Sawyer hung up with a heavy heart. She really did miss Macy. They had spent the past two hours on the phone, and it wasn’t nearly as much as they normally talked. It was so unusual to go so long without talking to her and it had been so needed. She missed her dearly but all the conversation really did was make her believe that she was going to have to choose between Alex and Macy. She knew Macy was right though. She and Alex wouldn’t be able to have a relationship for long living 3000 miles apart. It was already going to be hard enough to have a relationship while Alex was on the road more than ¾ of the year. She knew it wouldn’t be easy to maintain a relationship if she was across country from him during the rare times that he wasn’t touring.

Sawyer shook her head. She didn’t want to think about this right now. She wanted to go downstairs and spend some time with Alex, and more importantly, eat lunch. She hadn’t eaten breakfast and now that her attention was once again directed to her stomach, she found it impossible to ignore the sharp hunger pains that were becoming more and more obvious.

With a final sigh, Sawyer made her way out of Alex’s bedroom where she had been holed up on the phone, heading downstairs to the kitchen where she knew Alex was probably waiting. When she arrived, she found Alex sitting with Rian and Austin with sandwiches and fruit salad in front of each of them, partially eaten, and even more evidence that she was late for lunch.

“I thought that you were sucked into the phone up there. Did Macy try to pull you through?” Alex joked as Sawyer gave him a small smile before taking her place next to him where a plate was waiting for her.

“She tried. She couldn’t get her arm out past her elbow so she couldn’t grab me very well.” Sawyer commented back causing a scoff to come from Alex and a few chuckles from the couple sitting across the table from her and Alex.

“Well I’m glad that she failed. I’m pretty partial to you.” Alex said, leaning over to kiss Sawyer’s temple as she took a bit of her sandwich. Sawyer rolled her eyes at Alex, but smiled nonetheless.

“So what are you two doing today?” Austin asked, and Sawyer and Alex shrugged in unison, not having any real plans for the day.

“Naffa” Sawyer stated, mouth full of sandwich. Rian and Alex laughed while Austin grimanced.

“You really are perfect for Alex. It’s disgusting.” Rian said with a laugh as Sawyer gave a cheeky smile in return, focusing more on her food.

“What about you two?” Alex asked, stabbing at the fruit on his plate.

“We’re going to my sister’s in a bit to babysit my niece and nephews so they can have a real date night for once.” Austin remarked.

“Sounds….exciting?” Sawyer asked, grimancing a bit at the thought of watching 3 kids.

“I think the e word you were looking for was exhausting.” Rian said with a laugh. “But her brother in law is giving us a pair of tickets to a Ravens game in return. So I figured a few hours with three munchkins was totally worth Raven’s tickets.”

Sawyer and Alex laughed at that, knowing that Rian would have done it without the bribery of football tickets. If Austin asked, he would say yes. It was just how it was.

“We should probably get going too.” Austin said as she looked at her cell phone, checking the time.

“Fine. But I’m taking the rest of my lunch into the car.” Rian said, getting up and taking the plate of food unfinished with him as he departed the room, Austin waving goodbye as she did the same.

“The two of them are so weird and so perfect together that it’s almost unfathomable.” Sawyer said with a laugh before shoveling some of the fruit salad on the plate into her mouth.

“They work. They love each other. I don’t try to understand it.” Alex said with a laugh, taking the last bite of his sandwich, smiling dopily at Sawyer.

Sawyer smiled back, looking at Alex before her smile fell a bit.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asked.

“What’s gonna happen to us? I mean, pretty soon you’re gonna have to head back to tour and I’m eventually going to have to work full time again. I mean, what’s gonna happen?” Sawyer asked.

Alex nodded, understanding exactly what Sawyer was getting at. He had already been thinking about that but he didn’t want to bring it up quite yet. However, it seemed that Sawyer had already been thinking about it.

Thankfully, so had Alex. He had put a lot of thought into what could happen between him and Sawyer, as well as what he wanted to happen between him and Sawyer. It was something he had thought about since before they were even pretending to date. It had ran through his mind time after time.

“Well, what do you want to happen?” Alex asked, because he didn’t want to just assume that she would want the same thing that he wanted.

“I don’t know.” She admitted honestly. “I’m worried.”

“About?” Alex pushed when Sawyer didn’t continue.

She sighed, because her head was jumbled. She was trying to find a way to say everything that she wanted to. Part of her was nervous. She didn’t want to say anything that would make him upset, because that in turn would make her upset and that was not how she wanted this whole thing to go.

“What’s gonna happen. I mean, I’m going to be going back to California and you’re going to be touring. Then, when you aren’t touring, you live 3000 miles away. I just, it makes me nervous. And I don’t know how this is going to work and I’m not sure what we’re going to do and that just makes me more nervous.” Sawyer went on and Alex looked at her intently, listening to everything she said. He pretty much knew where she was going with all of this, and wasn’t surprised when she voiced all these concerns. However, he was pretty sure he managed to surprise her with his response.

“Move in with me.”

Sawyer looked at Alex for a second, trying to make sure that she had just heard what she thought that she had just heard.

“Did you just ask me to move in with you?” She asked, a little startled.

“I did.” He said with a small smile.

“Here, in Baltimore?”

“Here. In Baltimore.”

“I live in Los Angeles.”

“But you could live in Baltimore.”

“I can’t leave Macy.” Sawyer stated. “that would be unfair to her. And I live with her. I can’t just leave her alone.”

“But if you didn’t have to leave her, you’d move in with me?” Alex asked, his hopes up a little bit.

“Of course. But it’s not like Macy can just up and move here just because I want to.” Sawyer said, and Alex’s grin widened.

“You want to move in with me?” He asked, and Sawyer let out a little chuckle.

“Well. I’ve only been in love with you for years. No big deal.” She said and Alex reached over and pulled her from her seat and onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her quickly and tightly.

“So then you wouldn’t be super upset if I had already talked to Macy late last night after you passed out and got the ok from her if you wanted to move here?” He questioned, and suddenly, the entire conversation with Macy made complete sense.

“That explains a lot about the conversation we had today.” She said and Alex just grinned sheepishly, nuzzling his face into her neck.

“I talked to Rian about it while you were gone. He’s ok with it, and I may be convinced Macy it would be a good idea to move here too into the spare bedroom.” He said, and Sawyer grinned widely.

“You didn’t?” She asked excitedly.

“I did indeed.” He said with a laugh.

“I could kiss you right now.” She said before leaning down and pressing their lips together.

“So does this mean that you’re moving in?” He asked as she pulled away, resting her forehead against his, nodding a little.

“I think it does.” She said and he leaned up a bit to kiss her again.

They pulled away, both smiling.

“I guess this means that we need to book some tickets to LA so that we can pack up all my stuff huh?” She said and he just laughed.

Sawyer couldn’t help but to think that things were finally starting to feel right.