Page 9 of By All Accounts
DANIEL
One of the things I disliked about going from a long-distance relationship to something local was the communication. Sophie had been attached to her phone when she lived in Portland and was always quick to answer messages. Since moving down to LA, it wasn’t that she’d been harder to get a hold of, but she definitely lost track of her phone more than she did before. I tried to convince myself it was a good thing. She felt secure being in the same city, and she was able to walk away from her phone in ways she didn’t feel comfortable doing before. It was a sign of trust in our commitment. Or something. Also, her new job was way more money than she’d made in Portland but also way more stress. The home renovations at the end of the day didn’t help the situation much.
All in all, our adjustment to eight years together while being apart to months of being together had been easy. I think it was more of an adjustment for me than her. Partly because since she’d moved down, neither of us had been with other people. We’d never talked about closing the relationship after she relocated; it had sort of happened naturally, and I’d been avoiding having the conversation with her about if that was how we wanted it to stay or not. The logistics of being open when youlived alone were one thing, open when you shared a space was something else entirely. Or, at least, that’s what I assumed.
Sophie was pretty much the only person I’d ever been serious with, save for a boy I spent two years of college loving in secret. Everyone I’d been with over the last eight years had been casual flings and hookups. The possibility of any of those jaunts turning serious had never been off the table. Even though we’d agreed to be open out of physical necessity, both of us knew the possibility of an emotional attachment had been there. Fortunately or otherwise, it had never really happened. There was a woman in Portland Sophie saw regularly, but for her it was more of a friends who fuck kind of thing. There wasn’t any real heart behind the heat.
My parents hadn’t prepared me for this.
When I got home from work and found Sophie’s car in the driveway, a little knot of tension at the base of my neck loosened just enough for me to breathe. It wasn’t like I was waiting for her to change her mind and leave me, but there was part of me that definitely felt the adjustment in our relationship might be too big to survive.
I unlocked the front door and toed off my shoes, dropping my messenger bag just inside the door and shrugging out of my coat. All the lights in the house were on—a uniquely Sophie quirk I’d had to adjust to since her arrival—and music echoed down the hallway from the bedroom.
I found her there on a stepstool, paint roller in one hand and a prideful expression on her face. She was gorgeous, with her baggy, paint-stained jeans and her too big shirt that fell off her shoulder and the black lace of her bra strap on full display. She had tied her dark blonde hair into a bun and stabbed it with a pencil, but so much had fallen free around her face she might as well have taken it down.
“Daniel.” She smiled at me, radiant. “You’re home.”
“I’m home.”
“I finished,” she said, giving the paint roller a little shake. With the solid wall of green behind her, she looked like a modern faery princess. She could have been on a pedestal instead of a stepstool, and it would have suited her just fine.
“I told you we could finish it next weekend.”
Sophie climbed down and dropped the roller into the paint tray, checked herself for mess, then closed the space between us and tucked herself into my waiting arms. She was a few inches shorter than me, which I loved, because when she was barefoot, it meant I could bury my nose against the top of her head and enjoy the smell of her rose-scented shampoo.
“It was going to drive me mad.”
I kissed her hair. “I know.”
Sophie wasn’t a control freak, but she was particular about the things she liked and how she liked them. It was something I’d learned about her very quickly, and I didn’t hate it. Sophie’s personality made her perfect for her job and I knew being in LA was going to open so many doors for her.
“I didn’t eat lunch, though,” she admitted, pulling out of the hug enough to look up at me with a scrunch in her nose.
“Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
I took her face into my hands, bent down and rubbed our noses together. “Do you want me to cook or do you want me to order takeout?”
“If you order takeout, do I get a foot massage?” She raised onto her toes and brushed her mouth against mine.
“You can have one either way,” I told her. “But you’ll have to wait if you want me to cook.”
“You know I’m big on instant gratification,” she teased, one of her hands skirting down my ribs before settling on my hip.
The tension in my neck unraveled further, and the next breath sent a flare of heat between my legs.
“I know.”
“Takeout, then.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
It was a tease between us sometimes, but I never missed the way Sophie’s eyes got a little wider when I used the endearment. She definitely didn’t hate when I called out the fact she was the most important person in our relationship.
“Chinese?” she asked, even though I would never tell her no.
“Your usual?”
