She’s right; I don’t. I love my job. Sure, the clients can be shitty and demanding and wrong about everything they think they want, but the work is wonderful. A little over a year in, it’s still new, fresh, and exciting, and I hope that never changes. Maybe I’m still in the honeymoon phase. Like everything else, time will tell.
My schedule will pick up next week while hers will calm down for the New Year celebrations with family. I’m happy I get to spend this holiday with Liem, especially when he is building new traditions now that he has lost his beloved matriarch and gained a tiny human.
“Are you excited for tonight?” Natalie asks me. I must have been zoning out again.This building is distracting as hell.
Liem and I are going to a lantern lighting in our favorite park tonight; a private moment of calm before the celebrations and guests claim all of tomorrow. “Yes. Definitely. I love that park. We have some great memories there,” I say. “Kind of the opposite of this place.” I look back through the slatted fence. The tables haven’t changed either.
“You don’t like Manhattan?”
I can’t help but laugh. “Do you not remember this restaurant?”
She looks, but her expression doesn’t change. “No?”
“This is where it all started, girl.” Her brow furrows with confusion. She has got to be playing. “Where the breakups happened. The place Liem and I met.”
Her eyebrows raise. “Oh my god, it is. Yikes.”
“Right? Why did you decide to trade off here?”
“You’ll have to askhim.”
Liem walks over holding Vaughn, who is wearing Natalie’s favorite coat with the bear ears on the hood. Without the added flair, he would look like Liem on a weekday, black hood up, grumpy look on his little face while he ponders this life or his last one. Smart-ass little baby.
Liem’s face lights up when he sees me. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I say, pulling him close to press my lips to his. Even a quick peck warms me in the icy air.
Natalie takes Vaughn from Liem, but Vaughn reaches for me with both arms and whines.
“Oh, you want your favorite person, I see,” Natalie says.
I lift him from her hands and hold him against my chest. “You only like me because of my hair.”
Sure enough, his little baby fist is wrapped around the curls at the end of my braids. He’s a good baby, quiet, loving, the top twocutest to ever exist, but it also helps that I get to pass him off for the hard parts.
Liem’s arm snakes around my waist when he kisses Vaughn’s cheek one last time before I hand him back to Natalie. “Have the best night,” she says to us.
“Have a safe flight, and call us when you land, please,” I say.
“I will.” With both her arms full, we kiss cheeks rather than hugging, then she leaves.
Liem is now wrapped completely around my waist, pressing kiss after kiss to my face and neck.
“You’re awfully cuddly today,” I tease.
“I missed you.”
“We’ve been apart for six hours.”
“I know, but I . . .” His cheeks are pinker than the cold usually makes them. “I missed you extra today.”
He pulls me into another kiss, and I welcome it. His hand on my cheek quivers enough for me to notice. “You’re shivering.”
He snatches his hand away. “Am I?”
“Do you remember this place?” I glance at the building.
“Oh, shit. Yeah. This is where we met. Damn. Did you want to go in?”
