Suddenly, my breath wasn’t coming easily.
Danny wasn’t quite finished.
“So, the way I see it, you can drop a bundle on furniture and other shit to set up your pad only for us to keep goin’ how we’re goin’ and we’re gonna end up trying to decide whose furniture to keep and what’s gotta go, or you can invest in you.” He reached for the butter and slid it his way. “Your call.”
I watched him slice off a pat and begin to butter his pancakes agitatedly before I asked, “Were you thinking about all of this when you were looking at Zillow listings?”
His eyes came right to mine, and his tone was as flat as his pancakes. “No, I was thinking about all of this, primarily how much I like being with you, while I was moving inside you this morning.”
“Okeydoke,” I whispered.
He went back to buttering.
“Any word on the bad guy?” I asked.
“Cisco is in the wind,” he grunted, finishing with the butter and sliding it back to me. “Got no clue, but I suppose that happens when you’re an asshole and a dumbfuck, you kill a cop with a gun that’s registered to you and aren’t smart enough to wipe the weapon and dispose of it. But what do I know? I just know, now that half of Denver is asking around about that gun, he’s vapor.”
I didn’t butter my pancakes because I was watching Mag slather his with syrup and do it irritably.
And generously.
He had a heavy hand with syrup, but not that heavy.
I’d hurt his feelings.
It was me…
For him.
And alternately, it was him…
For me.
And he was right now a guy who’d made love to his girlfriend, then made her pancakes, then opened a locked gate beyond which was the path to her dreams and asked her to move in with him, even if she was already doing that and it wasn’t just copacetic.
It was awesome.
It was awesome to go grocery shopping with him and tease him that he bought more Cinnamon Toast Crunch and marshmallows and hinted broadly, “Just to have on hand, you know, in case you wanna spoil your boyfriend.”
It was awesome to come home at night after dancing at Smithie’s and have him waiting up for me on the couch. It was awesome to then get a cuddle and rundown of where we were both at with our days and in our heads. And it was awesome to go to bed beside him.
It was also awesome he drove all the way to Culver’s from work because I had an assignment close to there around lunchtime, and he wanted me to eat the custard when it wasn’t melted.
More awesome was when he texted to tell me Iron Giant was playing at the Mayan in a retrospective, that was his favorite animated movie, and he wanted to make plans to go even if I’d seen it, but definitely if I hadn’t.
But I’d seen it, and it was my favorite animated movie too.
And that in itself was awesome, that we both loved the Iron Giant, because he was bar none the sweetest weapon of mass destruction ever.
It was just awesome.
All of it.
All that came with being with Mag.
“So, I’m still in danger,” I noted.
“Days pass and nothin’ goes down, I got my doubts.” He forked into his pancakes, but before lifting them up to his mouth, he looked at me and finished, “I still want you covered for a while.”
I still want you covered for a while.
That was Mag too.
He had me covered.
“You’re just life,” I blurted as he shoved the big bite into his mouth.
“What?” he asked after a couple of chews.
“I…I just…” I shook my head and looked down at my own fluffy purple-speckled cakes.
Breakfast he’d made me.
God.
God.
I’d missed it.
I’d been sleeping beside it for weeks, waking up next to it, living with it.
And I’d missed it.
“Evie,” he called. “What?”
Okay.
All right.
I’d just shot him down when he’d asked me to start our future together, and although he was not in a happy-go-lucky mood, he wasn’t throwing a fit, shouting, growing sullen or acting like an ass because he’d gotten his pride stung or didn’t get his way.
Oh God.
Yes.
It was him…
For me.
“Evie,” his voice was more demanding, “what?”
I lifted my gaze to him, and he slow-blinked when he caught my eyes.
I couldn’t imagine what my face looked like after taking a second to actually have a thought about how awesome my boyfriend was, that thought being a world-rocking epiphany.
But from his reaction, I wasn’t hiding I’d had a world-rocking epiphany.
“You’re just life,” I repeated. “I just go on. That’s what I do. Day to day. I know as a kid there’s something missing at home. I power through. I start school and nobody likes me, I can’t seem to make friends, I just power through that too. I grow up and know I’m different, I might be able to make something of myself, but my family weighs me down, and I just power through. My brother asks me for a favor that puts me in danger, and I know it’s gonna put me in danger, and yeah. Again. I just power through. I just power through, Danny. That’s me. That’s what I do. So, I missed it. I missed you walking into my apartment. I missed the miracle. You were just life.”