The Big Moment

Less than twenty-four hours. That was how long Liv and Alex had left until they would be walking down the aisle as man and wife. It had been a year since he had asked for her hand in marriage, and that was all the time the couple needed to plan their wedding. It had gone by faster than everybody had anticipated, but that didn’t mean that the nerves still hadn’t settled in. It was the night before the wedding, and the couple had agreed to spend that time apart. After all, it was tradition. Alex was staying with Jack and Cade at their house and Liv was stopping over at Hannah’s, replacing Jack in his home.

As the hours went by, Liv knew that she was in for a sleepless night. Her mind was racing with thoughts that were the only reason keeping her awake. She closed her eyes trying to force herself to fall into a state of unconsciousness, but it was no use. There were too many things on her brain, keeping her up. The one night where she needed her beauty sleep, it wasn’t going to happen and she wanted to be bright and awake for the next day. It was after all supposed to be the most important day of her life.

Realising that it was useless, she threw the comforter off the spare bed that was warming her, letting the brisk air hit her bare legs. She sat up and put on a pair of jeans over her shorts and slowly crept downstairs, trying not to wake her sleeping bridesmaid. She knew that if Hannah caught her in the act, she would be forced to go straight back to bed until the morning came and that was something that Liv didn’t want. After making the successful escape down the stairs, she quickly put on her shoes and grabbed her keys, making a dash for her car so that she could get to where she wanted to be. Home.

Alex wasn’t asleep. In fact, he couldn’t remove the grin from his face that he had found himself wearing for the past couple of days. He had put Cade to bed a matter of hours ago, and Jack had settled into his spare bed for the evening, staring at the ceiling. His eyes had been open for so long, that bright coloured lines had started moving about, but the crazy thing was that they started to morph into a picture of Liv’s face. Alex knew he was like a pathetic lovesick teenager, but he wouldn’t have had it any other way. To him, it was the best feeling in the world.

His thought pattern was interrupted, when he heard the front door shut. It was a quiet sound, but since the house was silent, Alex definitely heard it. He rose up, about to get out of his bed and check it out, before he heard light footsteps coming up the stairs. The door opened and revealed his brown-eyed fiancée, standing there with a mixture of pyjamas and clothes on her body and her long bed-hair flowing down her back. Even that sight made his heart skip a beat.

“Liv? What are you doing here?” Alex’s eyebrows furrowed, looking at her sheepish expression.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she shrugged, immediately taking off her jeans and shoes and getting into the familiar warm bed.

As she cuddled into his side, he wrapped his arm around her, chuckling, “So you drove all the way over here? The one night when you’re supposed to be away from me?”

“Pfft, screw tradition,” she said, burying her head in his chest. He loved the fact that she couldn’t bear to spend one night without him, just as he couldn’t without her. It showed that they both truly needed each other.

They sat there in a comfortable silence, but Alex could sense that Liv was thinking drastically. She had the look on her face which showed her uncertainty. He smiled, getting a sense of what she was feeling, “So, tell me what’s on your mind then.”

“How did you know?” she looked up at him, astonished. She still found it startling at times at how well he knew her.

“I know you,” he said simply with a shrug.

She sighed, “Well, it’s just, I was thinking-”

“Uh-oh,” he muttered.

“Shut up,” she rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the smile from appearing on her lips.

He laughed, “I’m sorry. Please continue.”

She hesitated, “I was just thinking, I want to get married to you. I really do, but I can’t help having these little doubts in the back of my head. I thought they were nothing, but as I was laying in bed, it just got to the point where they didn’t seem so little anymore.”

“What kind of doubts?”

“Not about you and me, but just about marriage in general. I mean, when I look at couples today, there’s only a few of them who actually make it till the end, still together. And I want us to end up like them, but what if something tries to split us up or something. I don’t want that to happen,” she gave a sad smile.

“It won’t happen,” Alex shook his head.

“How are you so sure?”

“Because if it was going to happen, it would have already,” he stated, “We’ve been through so much, as friends and in a relationship, but we’re still here today, wanting to take it even further. So I think that says something, don’t you?”

Liv lifted her head from his chest and studied his face in confusion, “I don’t get it. How can you be so calm when I’m over here, freaking out.”

“I don’t know,” he looked down at her innocent face. Her doe eyes was what made her look so sweet and vulnerable, “I suppose it’s cause whenever I feel the slightest bit of nerves, I just look at you and everything feels…at peace. It’s what lets me know that it’s all gonna be awesome.”

As she looked at his features, she subtly shook her head in disbelief at how she had ended up with a man so wonderful. He loved everything about her, including her flaws and because of that, he made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, even when she didn’t think so.

Alex looked at the expression on her face. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking but he knew that she was deliberating something. Mistaking her silence for uneasiness, he decided to give her a choice, “Look, you can back out of this wedding if you want, but I’m just going to ask you to marry me again until you actually do, so you might as well get it over and done with now.”

She laughed softly, “God, why are you so perfect?”

“Time and practice, my love.”

“Well it did you good,” she smiled before lightly nudging her nose against his. Taking that as an invitation, he pressed his mouth to hers and gently kissed her, feeling the spark that had been there ever since their first. He was addicted to her soft rose-coloured lips and the way felt against his. They moulded together so perfectly, that he couldn’t help but move his hands to the small of her back to try and pull her closer to him, to feel her warmth mixed with his. She ran her hands through his soft brown locks of hair, loving the way he moved with her. She could describe it as a dance, but that would insinuate that it was choreographed; that it was rehearsed. Yet their kisses were far from that. They were full of passion and love and were very unpredictable. She never knew what would happen whenever she kissed him.

Before their kiss could get any more heated, they were interrupted by a small voice coming from the door that was slightly ajar.

“Mommy. Daddy,” Cade’s soft tone travelled through the air. Liv and Alex broke apart as soon as they heard their son speak. Resting their foreheads against each other’s, they looked into each other’s eyes with the all too familiar smiles playing upon their lips. The situation that they were in had happened plenty of times. Just as the kiss was about to lead onto greater things, they were always stopped by Cade in some way.

Liv looked at her son with a smile, “Yeah, honey?”

“I can’t go sleep,” Cade’s bright eyes contradicted the pout he was holding.

Alex smirked, knowing what his son really wanted, “Do you want to come into bed with us then?”

“Yes pwease,” he smiled, jogging in his spaceship pyjama’s before jumping onto the bed. Alex knew that he was excited that his mother was home since he wasn’t used to not having her around, even if it was only for one night. She always tucked him in along with Alex, but duty called and Liv spent the day with Liv and Hannah, her only two bridesmaids, completing last-minute wedding tasks that needed to be done.

Since Cade was now awake, he began to ramble on about all sorts to his mother. As he did, Alex leaned over to Liv’s ear, “Is it bad that I was kind of hoping for some sexy-time?”

She chuckled and smirked, “Don’t worry, we’ll get some on the honeymoon.”

“MOMMY!” Cade shouted.

“Shhh Cade, not so loud,” she said, not wanting to wake Jack up.

“I’m sorry. You just weren’t hearing me talk about the park,” his expression turned sad. Since his mother was absent, Cade had spent the day with Alex and his Uncle Jack whom he absolutely adored. Even before he was born, Alex and Jack were close, so it was obviously bound to happen with his kid.

“I’m sorry honey,” she pulled him onto her lap, “Come on. Tell me all about it.”

Cade started to tell his story with such expression that you would believe it was a movie he was describing, but the reality of it was that he went to the park to go on the swings and fed the ducks. Also, since he was a toddler, his sentences were never fully formed so sometimes he would pronounce words differently, or miss them out completely. Yet, as Liv and Alex sat there watching their son intently, they understood exactly what he was saying. Every single word.

Cade’s story came to a halt when Jack gently opened the door a bit further, “What’s going on in here?”

He rubbed his tired eyes and noticed someone who wasn’t supposed to be there, “Liv?”

“Wanted to come home,” Liv gave a half-smile, answering his unasked question.

As he nodded understandingly, Alex spoke up, “Jack, could you take Cade back to bed?”

“Sure,” he said through a yawn before coming into the room and picking up Cade, “Come on then Jem. Let’s take you to bed.”

“Oh, and Jack?”

He turned around as Liv asked “Could you not tell Hannah that I came here?”

He gave a tired smile and nodded, “It’ll be our little secret.”