Somewhere Only We Know

Jeremy held Alexa as she pulled him back onto the bed. She gripped his collar, causing him to bend forward over her as they slipped into bed. His kisses, hot and steady on her skin, traveled down from her lips to her neck, tasting every inch of her soft skin, the skin that still had such a spell on him. Or maybe it was all of her that did. His hands slid from her shoulders along her arms, finally holding her hands in his and pulling them up above her head. He traced her body with his eyes, savoring her, remembering her, familiarizing himself with her beautiful body all over again. He sank lower on her, kissing her collarbone, between her breasts, and planting a soft kiss on her tattoo. She pulled him up and kissed his lips again, her hands now gripping at his shirt, pulling it over his shoulders, holding his body that, though it had aged many years, was still as strong as ever.
"Thanks for taking care of yourself," she giggled as her hands felt his tight stomach.
"Well, you never know when it would come in handy," he smiled, kissing her.
For that night, they were as they had been almost two decades before, smiling, laughing, enjoying each other physically and emotionally. Everything had changed since then, but now it seemed that nothing had.
They lay there after their romp, giggling like teenagers, unable to keep their hands off each other. To him, her lips had never been so soft and sweet. To her, his body never so rugged and masculine.
They whispered sweet nothings to each other, private words, words only they would understand, having stemmed from inside jokes of days past. And as the sun rose over the Hollywood hills, Jeremy and Alexa, still awake, still laughing, still intimately close, finally pulled close to each other and slept there in the other's arms, both now more secure in their relationship than they had ever been - even before Olivia was born.
And speaking of Olivia, that poor girl, she woke in the early morning eager to buy supplies for college, but finding no trace of her mother in her room, decided to wake her father.
"Oh my god!" she squeaked as she saw them lying together. They were unclothed, though fully covered with sheets and blankets, but the mere sight of them together gave Olivia an unsure feeling in her gut, and uncertainty about reality as she'd been seeing it. If her parents were in bed together, what did this mean?
She popped back out the door and stood in the hallway as her parents, awoken by Olivia's sounds, scrambled to dress as quickly as possible.
"Hey, baby," Alexa said as she stepped out of the room, securing her shirt over her waist. "What's up?"
"You tell me!" Olivia answered, throwing her hands into the air.
"Now, calm down okay? We're all adults here. Let's discuss this."
Just then, Jeremy joined them. "Sorry you had to see that, Liv."
"How long has this been going on?" Olivia asked him.
"Well," he started to answer, "It only really just happened last night."
"But your dad and I have always loved each other," Alexa said. Jeremy looked over at her tenderly. "Right?" she asked him.
"Right," he smiled back.
"Okay, okay..." Olivia said as she started to smirk. "So there's not gonna be any more leaving or fighting or going back on this? I mean, you guys are together together, yes?"
"Yes," Jeremy told her as he threw his arm around Alexa. She reached her hand up to her shoulder to touch his hand, and leaned against his chest.
"So, Mom and Dad are together?"
They nodded.
"And they're staying together."
"They are," Alexa said, and Olivia and Jeremy received the assurance they needed.
Olivia was very silent and still for a moment as her parents tried to figure out her reaction to the news. As she put her hands to her face and fell against the wall, they became more confused than ever. But when she revealed her face, beaming and full of happy tears, they stepped forward and hugged her, sensing her satisfaction in the situation.
"I'm so glad you're happy now, mom," Olivia whispered in her mother's ear as she held her.

In the two weeks that followed, the family became increasingly busy, registering for classes, buying supplies, shopping for clothes, and all the other stressful joys of starting a college life.
Jeremy sat back in the stores, allowing his girls to do their shopping, only offering the occasional opinion when asked. It seemed to him that he had only just gained a daughter, and now he was losing her again. No, not forever, but from her childhood, from the time she would be spending with him in his home as his own dear daughter, as his child. Yes, she would always be a baby to him, but in reality she was all grown up, barely out of the most vulnerable phase of her life. Perhaps still even in it.
They drove to the sprawling campus together, and Jeremy trekked behind his girls with all of the bags as they made their way to her dorm room. He got a lot of stares, though not nearly as many as he would have gotten some 18 years earlier. But he sat in the room as Olivia unpacked, sharing memories with her mother, memories of days Jeremy had missed out on.
"I remember your first day in first grade," Alexa said with a twinkle in her eye. "It was the first time you had a full school day, and I think I cried that whole time. Took the day off work and everything."
Jeremy simply looked down to the floor, sorry he hadn't been there to comfort her.
"And when you went off to camp for the first time in fifth grade, oh my goodness!" Alexa teared up even more.
"I remember that," Olivia said. "You called every day. And we weren't supposed to use our phones, but you said it was an emergency!"
"It was!" Alexa argued with a smile. "I missed you!"
As they told their memories to each other, Jeremy suddenly felt the urge to speak up.
"When you were three years old, you got a really bad case of the flu," he said. "And I was freaking out. I mean, I was all about taking you to the hospital and getting medicine, but all your mom wanted to do was hold you, as long as she had to, no matter how little sleep she got or how little she could eat or drink like that."
The girls looked lovingly at him.
"And when we went to Disneyland when you were still a baby, there were all these photographers there and we were trying to get some privacy, and you should have seen the way your mom handled them!" He started to tear up now, and he wiped his eyes a bit. "Your mom has always been there for you. And she's always been a champ."
"I remember when you were just starting to walk, your dad would hold your hand and walk you around the entire house," Alexa said. "It must have taken half an hour just to get from the kitchen to the stairs, but he stayed with you so patiently, and he's always been so patient."
Jeremy smiled at Alexa as she reminded them of happier times.
"You were worth being patient for," he told Olivia.
They had just unpacked the last bag, and as Olivia kissed her parents goodbye, they held her close and reminded her to call, to write, to email, to do whatever she could to keep in touch. And once she promised she would, they left, though they sort of hated to, and headed back on the long ride home.
"She's a great girl, isn't she?" Alexa sighed as she reached her arm out the window.
"Of course she is," he answered. "She's a Moran."
She smiled at his remark and then stayed silent for a moment. "So what happens now?" she asked finally.
"How do you mean?"
"Well, I mean, we raised her well, got her into adulthood alive, did our part... what now?"
"Now we hope she graduates," he said.
"Yeah but, what about us?"
He showed signs of contemplation as he continued driving, though now somewhat slower, and he bit the side of mouth before he answered. "I thought we'd settled this?"
"Well, I mean, we said we were together, but are we? I mean, are we making this permanent? For real?"
"I'd say so, yeah," he said quite casually.

As they arrived home, she had him stop by her home. "I want to show you something," she told him.
When they walked in, he saw the immaculate home she kept, and she led him into her bedroom.
"I didn't know this was the surprise you had in mind," he said as he kissed her.
"Oh stop," she laughed. "I actually have something in this closet here." She walked to the closet and removed almost all visible clothing, and then reached in back onto a shelf that you might never have known was even there, and she pulled out a large plastic box. Opening it, she removed several photographs, many framed, and displayed them on the bed before him.
"I put these away after you left," she told him. "It just got too hard to look at them, and I didn't want Olivia to see them and ask questions about her father."
He searched through them one by one, reliving the memories they each held, remembering some of the happiest years of his life.
"But she asked questions anyway, and once she did, I guess I overreacted. I kept her sort of sheltered, I limited her activities, I monitored her actions, and I never let her read fan magazines or watch entertainment shows. Guess I went a little overboard."
"You just did what you had to do," he told her.
"But I couldn't throw these out," she told him. "I - I loved you too much."
"I love you, too," he said. "I always did."
She simply nodded as she returned the pictures to the box.
"Look, I don't like to think about it any more than you do, but I know I left, and I'm sorry. It was a dick move."
"I understand why you did it, though. I couldn't ask you to wait forever."
"But I should have. You were worth waiting as long as it took, but I took the easy way out."
"I was just scared you'd leave anyway, so I drove you to," she said sadly. "I guess that's kind of ironic."
He held her shoulders and kissed her. "I always loved you," he said. No matter where I was or who I was with, it was always you. And it will always be you."
"Really?" she asked, still not quite sure.
"You know, I've got some stuff I held on to, also," he told her.
He drove her to his home and took her into the library, pulling a small wooden box out from behind a shelf of books. "You want to see it?" he asked.
Her eyes widened in curiosity as she pondered what might be inside. "Let me see," she said, almost in a whisper.
He moved his hands over the top of it and opened it slowly, teasing her as her eager eyes searched to know what it could be. As he opened it, he revealed a familiar purple stone surrounded by diamonds as brilliant as they'd been more than 18 years before. Her hands moved over her open mouth in amazement as her eyes alternated between the ring and his eyes. "You - you still have it?" she asked.
"Well, I always planned to use it again, but I never got the chance. It belongs on your finger," he smiled as he grabbed her left hand. "This one right here."
"Jeremy," she breathed, "Do you really want to marry me? Are you sure you feel that way again?"
"I feel this way still," he told her. "I told you, I never stopped loving you."
She stared into his eyes, which had only become more mystical with time. They were as blue and brilliant as she had ever seen them, and they were looking at her once again as they had so long before. "We haven't ben together in so long," she told him. "We're taking a leap of faith here."
"You gave me the faith I needed," he told her as he removed the ring and slid it onto her finger. "If I'm going to make a leap, I'm going to make it with you."

THE END.