The One Where The Lines Get Kinda Blurry

The One With Noisy Neighbours

"There's no way you could bring Chesterfield out here. He'd be permanently trying to jump over those walls and you'd spend your whole time running after him feeling terrified." Jen and David looked at Cleo with a mixture of pride, amusement and incredulity. "Plus there's barely any space for them to do their business or exercise. And not only that, it's really overlooked by these other towers and you'd have very nosy and noisy neighbours" she added, referring to the hundreds of windows that seemed to look directly onto the not so private space, and the loud rap music that was coming from the roof of a nearby building.

"Since when did you become so grown up and sensible?" David asked with a giggle, shaking his head at Jen as the three of them stood on the terrace of the penthouse residence they'd all wanted to view.

"She's not wrong though" Jen said with a slight sigh, "as beautiful as this place is, and as perfect as it might be for us, this would never work for the dogs." She cast her eyes around the outside space once again. "I was hoping I might be able to fill the edge with plants and trees for extra privacy and to keep the dogs safe, but that's never going to work, not here anyway. It's really not that much bigger than the terrace at yours, just laid out differently" she added, glancing over at the hot tub and the outdoor shower, then back at David, who met her gaze and blushed slightly as she gave a flash of her eyes and bit down at one side of her lower lip. She knew he was thinking exactly what she was thinking, or more like remembering what she was remembering.

David had barely been able to keep the smile from his cheeks, as he sat waiting impatiently in the back of his black SUV, pulling at the little bobbles on his polo shirt and nibbling at his thumb nail. Paul was in the front scrolling through various music channels. As he swiped, the familiar sounds of Aerosmith's 'Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" came through the speakers. "Oh, keep this one on" David said as a vivid memory of Jen sitting in his kitchen singing along to this song had suddenly sprang into mind. Jen. His beloved Jen who would be landing any minute and he could hardly contain his excitement. It was over two months since he'd last seen her in Paris, and they'd felt like the longest two months of his life. But now she was a matter of moments away and he neither could nor wanted to stop the grin that was plastered across his face... and his heart. Less than fifteen minutes later her increasingly familiar plane landed on the tarmac, and he saw her petite form climb down the steps to where Paul was waiting to take her bags. Seconds later the door opened, and their eyes locked in a look that was pure, unadulterated love. "Hey you" he said softly, as she slipped in beside him, ditching her purse on the seat as her arms very quickly found their way around his neck, his forming a hoop around her waist.

"Hey you" she replied, almost shyly, at long last face to face again with the man who had become her everything. She felt his warm breath on her cheek as they gazed happily at each other, instinctively taking a moment to just be. "God, I'm so happy to be back in your arms" she sighed as she leaned in for a slow and incredibly tender kiss.

Their journey back to David's was elongated by the need to collect Cleo from her after school art club and so it was gone 8pm when the three of them were sat happily in the living area, eating take out, drinking wine, well coke for Cleo, chatting and laughing excitedly about the possibility of Jen spending significantly more time on the east coast in the not too distant future. Of all the properties they'd seen the details of, the one they were set to view tomorrow was the favourite by some distance. It already screamed Jen's style and the space and light looked ideal, but the definite question was whether or not there would be enough outdoor space for the dogs. Most of the others they'd looked at online had been ruled out for that reason, and Jen was already considering she may need to look slightly further away from David's than she'd hoped, in order to satisfy the need to accommodate the dogs comfortably and easily.

It was a little after 10pm when David told Cleo it was time to go to bed, knowing they needed to be up and out reasonably early next morning. He kissed her head goodnight as she exited the room, having already given Jen a giant bear hug before she stood. David made his way back from the kitchen, where he'd been refilling his and Jen's wine. "Cheers" he said, clinking their full glasses together as he sunk himself down onto the sofa beside her. "Alone at last."