Just Breathe

Chapter Five

Lia wasn't sure why she was so nervous walking up to Ayden's house in Brooklyn.  She'd done it dozens, if not hundreds of times.  As she approached the brownstone, she took a moment to savor that she was back home.  She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds around her - traffic, people talking, horns honking.  It was New York.  She'd loved Wales, but there was nothing like home.

She pushed the door open and walked in like she always did.  "I'm heeeeere!" She announced cheerily.  Moments later, she heard her boyfriend's feet on the steps.  He came down the staircase, grinning like a fool.  Her nervousness slipped away as he took her face in his hands and kissed her slowly and thoroughly.

She giggled a little as he pulled away and smirked at her.  "What?" He grinned.

"Nothing," she said.  "I've just missed that."

"I have too," The last time they had endured a long distance relationship had been the summer Fall of Lia's sophomore year when her dad had filmed 'Mary Poppins Returns' in London. It had felt difficult then, having only been back together for a few weeks after a breakup before she jetted over across the pond. In spite of how intack their relationship had been this go around, something felt different. Lia was over the moon to have Ayden in his full 6'2 glory rather than a pixelated crop version of him on her laptop. "178 days is way too long to go without that,"

"I wish it would have only been 177 like we had planned on," Lia's voice trailed off as she settled back on the floor from her tiptoes. She regretted the word instantly as the sigh left Ayden's mouth.

Ayden leaned against his stairwell, his hands now in his pockets, "I thought you said you forgave me for yesterday,"

"I did; I do," Lia replied, biting her lip, "It just slipped out;"

When Lia had texted Ayden the minute the plane landed in New York, she was plagued with confusion and worry when she didn't hear back from him for two hours. That quickly changed to anger when she gotten a text that Ayden had gotten the days mixed up and after a scrimmage game with his soccer team that morning had rode off to Connecticut with his teammates to spend the day at one of their vacation homes. When he finally texted Lia back, he wrote 'sorry' every other word and had written paragraphs upon paragraphs. It was evident to Lia that he had been drunk, which only infuriated her more.

"I'm over it,"

"Obviously it's still on your mind if you're thinking about it,"

"You're in a psychology class and suddenly you're a mindreader?" Lia quipped, running her fingers through her curls, "How are you coming at me, right now, when yesterday was completely your fault?" So, maybe she wasn't totally over it.

To Lia's surprise, having gone through disagreements with her boyfriend, Ayden's face softened, "You're right. I was an ass and should have been paying better attention."

Lia shook her head and made her way over to her boyfriend, and gave him an earnest look, "It was just an off handed comment, and the most important thing is that we are together now." Lia leaned up and kissed him, always a guaranteed distraction.

As her fingers met his hair and the two moved into a slow make out session, she knew it worked. She didn't want to spend their first day back together hashing things out.

He kissed her again one last time, and they linked hands.  "Roberta's?"

It was their favorite pizza joint in Brooklyn.  The British could certainly nail fish and chips, but they were pretty hopeless when it came to pizza.  She'd been craving some New York thin crust and Roberta's was just what the doctor ordered.