Infinite

Ronnie and I spent the night watching movies with Arch on the couch. It wasn't a lavish or glorious night, but after continuously seeing new cities and experiencing life on the road yet again, Ronnie wasn't against kicking back at my side with Arch smooshed between us, his head on my shoulder.

Near the end of our fourth movie, bowls of snacks were spread out on the coffee table where our feet rested. Arch was clunked out between us with his legs across Ronnie's lap and his head on mine. Ronnie leaned in and dropped his head against mine as we dazed and watched tv.

Ronnie leaned his head in and pressed his lips into my hair. "What do you say that we put the kiddo to bed?" he questioned softly, his eyes dropped to glance at the boy's disheveled hair and blushing cheeks.

I nodded and smiled lazily at him. Ronnie slid his arms under Arch and began to lift him. When the five year old felt himself moving, he groaned and lightly grabbed onto my shirt to hold himself down. "I'm awake," he said groggily, "I want to stay."

"Arch, you're sleeping," Ronnie replied, standing up and pulling Arch away from me, "It's time to go to your bed."

"I'm not sleeping," Arch rebutted although he didn't open his eyes, "I'm not."

Ronnie chuckled and maneuvered around the couch to the stairs. He carefully climbed up to the second floor balcony and I followed, grasping the balcony as I watched my boys creep into the room Arch had adopted.

"I'll grab his pajamas," I whispered now that he'd already dozed back off. As Ronnie laid him down on the bed, I moved to the closet and yanked down a pair of comfortable PJs for the boy.

"He's out, Att, changing him will just wake him up," Ron said as I came back over. He was sitting down on the edge of the bed and moved over so I could sit closer to Arch to pull his shirt over his head and change him.

"Atticus," Arch complained through the sleep, "I'm sleeping."

I chuckled and glared back at Ronnie. "You're just saying that because Ronnie said that," I muttered, yanking his jeans off, "You'll be more comfortable if you change your clothes."

He groaned softly but practically slept through it. I pushed his legs under the blankets and pulled them up around his shoulders. "Goodnight, sweetheart."

Ronnie ran his fingers through Arch's hair and said his goodnights and then the two of us shut off the lights and headed downstairs to clean up the living room. Ronnie complained as I dragged him down there to pick up his mess.

"Att, we can do this tomorrow," he grumbled, stopping in the middle of the stairs with his arms crossed as I continued down and started gathering up our trash to throw it away.

"Or we could do it now," I replied without turning around to look at him. I shut off the TV and tossed one of our blankets onto the couch. "You're leaving tomorrow and we don't want to waste our time cleaning up the living room. So get down here and lets just get it done."

Ronnie huffed loudly and stomped down the stairs. Arch was a sound sleeper, so neither of us were worried about him. "Atticus Gurewitz, why do you have to be so difficult?" he questioned, teetering around the couch. He stumbled into me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pushing the items out of my arms and back down to the coffee table. "I want to spend one night with my beautiful fiancee, so stop wasting our night together and lets go."

I peered over my shoulder at him as he plucked my off my feet in his attempt to pull me all the way back upstairs. "Ronnie, knock it off," I groaned, allowing him to yank me around the couch back towards the stairs.

"No, stop being so difficult," he demanded, grinning that cheeky grin of us as he threw me over his shoulder to trudge up the stairs.

I screamed in laughter and fear as I floated above the railing. Just one slip and I would've gone over the edge, falling back into the living room. "Ronnie, don't drop me," I demanded, grabbing his shirt in my fists.

He laughed and then was practically leaning over the railing.

"Ronnie!" I shouted, grabbing onto him harder. When he started laughing, I smacked his back, "It's not funny!" I whispered harshly, seeing as we were near the top now, too close to Arch's room to be yelling.

Ronnie chuckled and nodded. "It's a little funny."

I scrambled out of his grasp and got to my feet on the second floor balcony. I raised my eyebrows at him and then darted into the bedroom and slammed it behind me as he barreled into it, having caught onto my plan.

"Atti, let me in!" he called through the wooden door, "Come on, this isn't funny."

I flicked the lock on the handle and stood back with my arms crossed over my chest. "It's a little funny," I mimicked, moving back to the bed. My room was entirely different from the one at the apartment. It was larger and girlier but sophisticated all the same. Instead of reds and blacks and grays, it was peach, and white, and black with a french doors leading to a small balcony and large sliding doors opening up to a skinny but long closet.

"Att, come on," Ronnie called again through the door, sounding mischievous rather than as if he was begging.

I kept my arms folded and narrowed my eyes. "What are you up to, Ronald?" I questioned, wishing there was a peephole so I could see through to the other side, "You better not be thinking about waking Arch up. I'll kill you."

He scoffed. "I'm not going to wake him up," he said, although his voice sounded muffled and insincere, "And I'm not up to anything. Honest."

I took a step closer to the door and listened. Ronnie went silent and I couldn't even hear so much as a breath coming from him. I frowned, considering opening the door just to foil whatever he was planning. "Ronnie?" I asked again.

He stayed silent.

I stepped closer and put my hand on the door handle. The instant that he heard the lock undone, the door was opening and Ronnie's arms were around my waist. He growled as he lifted me off my feet and carried me back to the bed. He laid over me and grinned down at me, his knees on either side of my thighs.

"Atticus Gurewitz," he murmured, his eyes pure and happy, "I love you so much. Don't you dare lock me out of your bedroom again." He leaned down and pressed his mouth against mine. It seemed like an eternity since I'd kissed him and I immediately wanted him closer and there was this nagging to never let him leave again.

I'd never had a bond with anyone like I did with Ronnie. Just the feel of him next to me excited me and at the same time, made me feel more comfortable than anything else. "Ronnie," I whispered, pushing his hair back out of our faces.

"Mm?" he replied, moving his mouth to my jaw when I pulled my mouth away. He wrapped his arms under me and around my back, holding me to him.

"Close the door," I said, opening my eyes to look at him, "Arch is next door. We need to be quiet. Close and lock it."

Ronnie lifted his head and smiled at me. It wasn't cheeky but instead happy and genuine. It seemed that having sex wasn't about just having sex, but instead about finally being together again.

Ronnie climbed up and quietly closed the door. He turned the lock and then stepped forward. I moved back on the bed and watched as he pulled his shirt over his head to expose the artwork on his skin underneath. His lips pulled up in a smile. "What?" he asked softly, huskily.

I shook my head and fanned my hair out on the blanket beneath me. "Nothing," I said, "I just can't get used to the sight of you."

He playfully rolled his eyes and lurched forward to sit next to me on the bed. "That's exactly how I feel about you, Atticus," he said, reaching up to brush his thumb along my jaw, "Every time I see you, I'm reminded of how beautiful and fucking brilliant you are and it literally hurts."

I smiled softly and leaned in to touch my mouth to his. "I love you Ron," I murmured, meeting his dark eyes with mine, "I don't want you to leave again."

He nodded and his eyelashes hit his cheeks as he blinked. "I'll be back soon," he promised, leaning toward me so much that his lashes hit mine and his lips hovered just above my skin, "I promise that time will fly by and soon enough we'll be right back here."

I titled my chin up and brushed my lips over his, barely moving. My fingers moved across his stomach and around his barren back. I pulled him sideways to me and moved both my hands up his skin to gently clasp around his neck, my fingers pressing into his spine.

I felt his hand slip under my shirt and his fingers rest on my sides, pushing into my skin as if he was afraid I'd move away from him if he didn't hold me in place. I leaned back and since my arms were still tangled around his neck, he moved with me, his body falling next to mine. He leaned into me, his arm strewn over my stomach and around my waist. His leg slipped between mine and his knee bent, pressing into me.

Between kisses, I whispered, "We have to be quiet. We can't forget about Arch." And Ronnie nodded without moving his mouth from my skin. I reached over his body and grabbed the remote to the TV and flipped it on, turning the volume up a notch higher than usual.

Part of me didn't want to do this. Didn't want it to be over and the sun to rise and the birds to sing and Ronnie to leave. It was a succession of events that I was against and despite my objections, they happened anyways.

Ronnie curled me into his side and we dozed lightly as the first light of the sun made its' way back around the Earth and shone through our window. The TV was off now and everything was silent. It was foreign to us. It was quiet, but it was obvious that Ronnie missed the sirens and the makeshift lullaby of the concrete jungle and whooshing of thick tires on worn roads.

He hummed as we began to sleep, even though his tired haze he hummed sounds I'd rarely heard before - random snippets of melodies in his head and pieces of sounds on the brink of becoming ideas. And as he fell asleep, he whispered my name and then was quiet and I listened to the lack of his voice and the obvious awakening of the small place around us.

I didn't want him to leave. But the sun ran around the sky and the birds realized that their time had come to be awake and they followed the shards of light through the clouds. Cars pulled out of humming garages and the city woke up and started its trudge back into the reality of daytime. When I woke up, I accepted that Ronnie had to leave because it was the mature and sane thing to do. I couldn't lock him in the house and keep him here because he had a world outside of us and so did I.

I woke up in his arms and stilled instantly, somehow believing that he could sense me being awake and wake up too. But my stiffness must've triggered something there and he groaned and blinked awake, his eyes trained on me like I'd been trained on him for the last five minutes.

He grinned tiredly and his fingers made a nest in my hair. "Good morning," he whispered through the sound of our breathing.

"Good morning," I said back, hating the idea of getting up.

Ronnie wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in. Obviously, he'd been thinking the same way. I closed my eyes and we pretended that the world was oblivious to what it was supposed to do come morning. We laid there without speaking and let ourselves believe that we could postpone the day. But we were pulled out of our reveries by a little boy knocking on the bedroom door and the jingling of the door handle as he tried to force it open.

Quickly, I rolled away from Ronnie and threw his shorts at him while pulling on my own clothes. Arch complained on the other side of the door, asking why we locked him out. I pulled on Ronnie's t'shirt and a pair of shorts from my dresser and looked back at Ronnie before opening the room to Arch.

"What's up, sweetheart?" I questioned, standing nonchalantly in the doorway as Ronnie stretched in bed and quickly hid my bra under his pillow.

Arch eyed us suspiciously. "Why did you lock me out?" he asked, looking between us.

Ronnie pretended to yawn as Arch made eye contact. I glared back at him. "I was changing clothes last night and must've forgot to open it back up," I replied, hoping he'd be too distracted by Ronnie's presence to question it much more.

He thought about the answer and then nodded. "Well I don't like it," he said, eyeing us, "I thought you guys didn't want to hang out with me today."

Ronnie swooped in, clambering out of bed by climbing across it and hitting the floor with a thud as he got to his feet. "Of course not, Arch," he denied, "Today's my last day to hang with you so we better pick something to do before I have to catch my flight out of here."

Arch grabbed Ronnie's hand and they headed downstairs, thick as thieves. "Can I come with you?" the five year old asked, "I'm sure Atticus could look after the house by herself."

Ronnie chortled with laughter and looked back at me smugly. I ignored him and turned back into the bedroom to tidy up a bit and change into better clothes before meeting them downstairs for food.