Page 29 of The Boardroom: Cassidy

Chapter Nineteen-Cassidy

“What do you think?” Eliza asks me as I walk into her new apartment, which is now covered in tiny potted plants and instruction manuals after we took a seemingly endless trip to Ikea last week. “I think I did a pretty good job, myself,” she says, and Maggie barks in quick agreement.

“Youdidhear the part where I offered to let you move in with me, right?” I ask. “In my much bigger, much more spacious flat, where we can have sex literally all the time? Hello?” I waved my hand at her. I had tried my best to sell this idea, but Eliza wouldn’t budge.

“I’m in the building down the block,” she said, brushing off the idea again. “In twenty minutes flat I can be over and in your bed anytime you want.” She winked at me, and I beamed.

“I suppose,” I said jokingly, and smiled at Eliza. I really was terrifically happy though. Eliza had gotten her own place here in Seattle and had moved all of her other stuff over from South Dakota after she had officially broken things off with Ben. The moving truck had come with all of her books and flowery dresses and furniture, and we had spent a long day getting everything unpacked and organized. The other fantastic news was that Eliza had been such an efficient worker at the Torver Corporation that Johnathan had been more than happy to hire her for a permanent position when one had opened up the following month. Everything had fallen into place.

Our relationship was going beautifully, even ‘moving in together’ level beautifully, I could say, but Eliza was insistent on getting her own apartment nearby. She had never lived on her own, and it was important to her that she did so for a while before she thought about getting anywhere close to settling down again. She loved the freedom, and I loved the easy confidence and joy it gave her, the look of it practically radiating out of her as she picked out dishes or arranged her books on a shelf. She had come here on a whim, but she had finally found what she was looking for: not me, I was just an added bonus. Eliza had found her freedom, and in that freedom, she had found herself.

I hugged Eliza from behind as she hung a picture frame holding a picture of her and Sabryna at their college graduation up on the wall.

“Hi,” I said, smiling at her. She was wearing light gray sweatpants and a blue V-neck t-shirt, and looked stunning…she was so adorable it was nearly killing me.

“Hello yourself,” Eliza said, putting her arms around my neck and kissing me. Our days were now filled with the joy and the excitement of newfound love, and I couldn’t even remember the last time I was this happy.

“Did you ever readThe Boxcar Children?” Eliza asked suddenly. “The first one, not the other ones where they solve crimes and everything.”

I raised an eyebrow, unsure of where this was going. “No…?”

“Well that’s what this reminds me of,” Eliza said, looking around the apartment. “Not the apartment, but the feeling. You and me.”

I looked at her with more confusion.

“It’s a story about four orphans who live in an abandoned boxcar,” Eliza explained. “If you grew up here you probably would have read it, but it was my favorite as a child, and I read it over and over.” She smiled, drifting off into some past where I was sure she read the book propped up against a tree or something. “Anyways, they build themselves a home in the boxcar. They fend for themselves, picking berries in the woods and making curtains for the boxcar, things like that. They become completely self-sufficient, just a bunch of kids.”

“Sounds a bit dull,” I said, laughing, and Eliza nudged me playfully.

“But that’s what made that story magical to me, all those years ago,” Eliza said, smiling at the apartment. “That people can run away and build something for themselves that is uniquely their own. And that’s what we’ve done, haven’t we?”

Eliza smiled at me, her warm brown eyes glowing with inspiration, and I had never felt more in love with her.

“Precisely,” I said, and kissed her.

And we stood in the apartment, hand in hand, looking at the first step of our new beginning.

THE END.