Page 50 of Happily Never After

“Sorry.” He cracked a smile and shifted the messenger bag and backpack he carried to his other hand.

She pressed a hand to her chest and waited for her heart to stop galloping. Rosie jumped up and put her paws on her thighs. Winston whined from his bed at her feet.

“She’s threatening to hire a PI again.”

“Because that worked out so well last time,” Luke observed.

She shrugged. “I think I at least talked her out of coming here. I told her we’re leaving tomorrow.”

“And we are still leaving tomorrow?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Claire said firmly. She had waffled back and forth all day, but there was no sense in staying in West Haven just because her building had burned down. “There’s nothing I can do from here. I already submitted the insurance claim with itemized inventory photos. It’ll take weeks for them to sift through everything, let alone send me a check.”

Luke set his bags on the floor and came to stand behind her. Pressing a kiss to her neck, he put his hands on her shouldersand rubbed his thumbs up and down her neck, bobbling her head back and forth.

Their middle-of-the-night argument had been all but forgotten. Her shoulders lowered. Some of the tension that she had been holding onto since she heard the voicemail dissolved. She closed her eyes and turned her attention inward. There was no proposal, no cross-country move. There was only this moment, with her favorite person in the world in the safety of her office. But soon, the crushing weight of reality and a random niggling question that had bothered her all weekend resurfaced.

“Have you thought about kids?” she asked abruptly.

“What?” The warmth disappeared from her neck, and something crashed to the floor. Rosie ran over to inspect.

Claire swiveled her chair to look at Luke. He must have jumped back and knocked her diamond-shaped paperweight over. At least it hadn’t broken. Small victories.

“Kids. Do you ever want to have children?”

“I bought a house with five bedrooms. What did you think I was going to put in the other four?”

“Dogs? More screening rooms?” Rosie jumped into her lap, and Claire buried her cheek in the corgi’s voluminous fur. The knot in her stomach eased.

“I mean, do you? Want kids?” He took a step away from her and crossed his arms.

“I do. Not for a while. Obviously the business is not in a stable place at the moment, but when things settle down someday—if they ever settle down, anyway—I’d love to be a mother. I just wanted to make sure you were on board in case anything unexpected happened.”

“I see,” he said, perching on the edge of her filing cabinets. “Have you been poking holes in the condoms?”

She scoffed. “Relax, my biological clock isn’t that loud. Sorry, I’m in a weird headspace with everything going on. Do you have everything packed?”

Luke nodded and buried a hand in his already tousled hair. He looked exhausted.

She caught his hand. “Are you okay? I feel like you spend so much time checking in on me and seeing how I’m doing, and we don’t always talk about how your day was.” A burned-down building was not an excuse to be a bad girlfriend.

“I’m fine. There’s just a lot running through my mind too. It’ll get better once we get to LA. I’m going to have to work a lot, but I want to make sure we make time for us while we’re out there. I want to show you California.”

“We’re not moving there permanently,” Claire said, grabbing her stack of papers and shuffling them into the binder.

“No.” He chuckled. “I mean it, though. I know you’re going crazy with work. But it’s important to me that we spend time together out there too.”

She smiled. “I hear you. I’ll even let you plan our first date night.” She bent forward and kissed him. “Want to help me pack Rosie’s suitcase?”

Luke sighed. “Rosie is a dog. She doesn’t need a suitcase.”

“What if she needs her winter jacket?”

“She has a double coat, and it’s Southern California. Trust me, she doesn’t need it.Orher galoshes,” he said firmly.

Claire threw up her hands. “Fine. They’ll need food and toys though, I assume? Or does living in Southern California rid you of that need?”

Luke pulled her from her chair. “Come on, kid. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

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