The Longest Ride

°•°Chapter 20°•°

"For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home."― Stephanie Perkins.

Irene's POV.

"Wow," I look amazed at all the pictures Reese hung up on the walls of his condo. He did series which would get amazing recognition but he never got a chance to showcase his talent.

"So..." I feel Reese's arms snake around my waist, "What do you think?" he places a soft kiss on my cheek with my back still against his chest.

A smile makes its way to my face, "It's amazing! You should showcase this work," I say tracing my fingers over the photo of a lady carrying her kid who's probably blind and making him feel the incarnations of the stone with both of them smiling. The mother with the happiness she feels looking at her kid and the kid amazed by the incarnations.

"Well I'm working on getting my work recognized but until then, let's spend some quality time with each other," he says kissing my hand as he takes it into his. Lucky for us, Ty wanted to stay at his girlfriend's place for the day so we could spend some uninterrupted time, in Reese's words exactly.

Turning around in his arms, I face Reese and kiss him gently which he immediately responds to before pulling me into a hug. Today was exhausting for both of us, both emotionally and physically. He had to talk to Ray who finally understood the situation but was still skeptical about me which I understand, he's just looking out for Reese.

Then Reese had to calm me down from my break down, which was bad and Ty had to cheer us up from there on to get through the whole journey. Once in L.A., we had to meet Rob to collect the restraining order to officially send the warning to Alex. To be honest, neither Reese or I are convinced that the restraining order will stop Alex but we can just hope it works.

After a long hug enough to comfort both our thoughts Reese speaks up, "I love you,"

"I love you too," he gives me a quick kiss before stepping back, "Well, I've got some boxed mac and cheese quickly cooking in the oven,"

Grabbing me by my hand, he drags me into the small yet perfect kitchen. We managed to clean the condo up in half an hour which was pretty damn quick, "Well here you go," he hands me a tray with two ramekins of mac and cheese with a grin. Damn does he look good shirtless with messy hair and his heartwarming smile.

I walk up to the couch and place the tray on the coffee table before grabbing the water bottle to quench my thirst. It's a small condo with one room, kitchen, and washroom of course but just perfect and cozy. A place one could call home.

Reese takes a seat next to me before handing me a glass of wine, "Wine?"

"Thought we could both use some," he says kissing my cheek and then taking a sip of the wine. He's right we both needed this and it's luckily Saturday night so Reese doesn't have much work tomorrow nor can I step out to look for work anytime soon cause well we still aren't sure if Alex got the news about the restraining order which would probably make him come back hunting me down with twice more determination.

Handing me one of the mac and cheese ramekins, Reese breaks me from my chain of thoughts before giving me a smirk looking at the glass in my hand which is now empty, "You do realize it's only been like two minutes since I handed you that glass right?"

He winks at me before going bottoms up with his glass of wine, "Wouldn't want to leave you alone on that," he says making me giggle before pecking my lips. Guess we're both going to get drunk tonight.

"Let's just eat first before the mac and cheese starts tasting bland than it already is," he says making me shake my head smiling before diving into the food. Just these moments with him are more than enough to make me happy and I'm probably the happiest I've been in all my life. When I was with Alex, I thought I was happy though I didn't ever smile genuinely around him because I didn't have a true definition of happiness.