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Post by Riley Tyler on Aug 21, 2015 15:13:55 GMT
Riley had been more than eager to leave Brandon Finn's Penthouse. She'd done her absolute best not to let Eliot get to her, because it all came down to a matter of pride for her. Adam's willingness to come to her defense had made her smile though and after she'd made sure that Maddy was going to be taken home by Cooper, she'd wrapped herself around Adam and asked him to take her home and had barely let him close to door to his apartment before she was leading him by the hand to his bed to show her gratitude.
Later that night, tangled in his sheets and struggling to catch her breath as she stared up at the ceiling in his loft style apartment. "I'm not taking the job in D.C.," she remarked, turning to look at him. It occurred to her that she'd said something to Eliot about the job offer, but it had only been to get under Eliot's skin. She'd never mentioned it to Adam because she had no intention of going. It came to her in the moment as something she should address, a lot like a shower thought.
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Post by Adam Tyler on Aug 21, 2015 16:48:17 GMT
Adam was glad that she had brought it up because he didn't even know where to begin. Though officially he knew that their relationship was still new, having had her part of his life for so long now made it difficult to think about what would happen next if she moved to D.C. Throughout the course of the evening, he had used whatever spare moment he had to think about his plan. Plenty of people made it work despite distance and so he had determined that they could make it work too. Any free weekends they had could be spent with them traveling back and forth, or he could always use some of his currently never-been-touched vacation time to come see her. Or maybe he could eventually find a law firm in D.C. that he wanted to work for. With his qualifications it wouldn't have been that hard, he hoped.
Hearing that she wasn't going to take it he turned on his side, head propped up on his arm. "Are you sure? You shouldn't stay here just for me."
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Post by Riley Tyler on Aug 21, 2015 17:07:53 GMT
Riley smiled at Adam for a moment before she let out a soft laugh. "Adam, I'm sure. I wasn't even going to mention it because that's how sure I am. I was just trying to get under Eliot's skin a bit."
"Not to be mean, but it's not just for you. I mean, they tried to ruin me and I won't run from that just because it might be easier. And my dad is getting older and I think he should retire and I'd like to spend more time with him," she nodded and traced her finger along his arm gently. "But part of it does have to do with you, Adam. I waited an awfully long time for you to make some kind of a move, and I've found it was well worth the wait. So maybe saving the world can be done from New York, at least for a while," she grinned. "I can be a bit selfish like that."
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Post by Adam Tyler on Aug 21, 2015 17:18:04 GMT
He grinned back at her, "I just didn't want you to feel like you had to stay if you needed a fresh start. The narcissism was maybe more wishful thinking on my part." Leaning over to press a kiss to her lip, he continued, "And selfishly I'm glad that you're staying. But I will have you know - I had a back-up plan already forming if you didn't."
A wide grin broke out on his face as he nodded, "You see, I wasn't going to let you disentangle yourself from me so easily, Miss Nicholls. In fact, I was going to make sure that you were stuck with me for quite a while." Especially, he added, if he was going to pack up and follow her to D.C. Part of him actually thought he might have enjoyed it. An Eliot-free office was vaguely appealing.
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Post by Riley Tyler on Aug 21, 2015 19:09:38 GMT
Riley giggled, tilting her chin up to kiss him softly. "You had a plan?" she questioned. "What was your plan?" She had to admit that she was intrigued, even though she didn't want to go to Washington D.C. just yet for this particular job, it surprised her a bit that Adam was so set on making sure things worked between them even if she had been leaving. She found it sweet and a whole bunch of other words she didn't allow herself to think about because she knew that things were already progressing faster than she'd anticipated with him. In fact, she had a sneaking feeling that her feelings had progressed in law school, now they were just allowed to come out.
"I like being stuck with you," she added, teasingly.
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Post by Adam Tyler on Aug 21, 2015 20:24:07 GMT
Grinning at her, Adam thought about how quickly he had been so willing to make it work with her. Whether it meant relocating his career, his home - his life - just for the sake of being with her, being closer to her. And though he knew now that she wasn't leaving, his mind hadn't changed on any of it. If she decided tomorrow that he wanted to move to Europe and find a new life there, he would have found a way to make it work.
"I figured that I could come visit you on weekends, or you could come back here ... That I could take some vacation days at work, which I have a lot of, and come and spend some time with you." He wsa listing off everything that had crossed his mind in such a short span, knowing that while he thought all of these were great, grand ideas, the last one was the most likely to have come true. "Or, if you really liked things out there and weekends weren't cutting it - then maybe I'd start looking around D.C. for a firm to work for."
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Post by Riley Tyler on Aug 21, 2015 20:41:03 GMT
Riley blinked up at Adam for a moment. During their last year of law school, she'd jokingly tried to tell him a few times that he shouldn't go work in the private sector for a law firm, he should come with her to the DA's office and make a difference. But she'd understood why he'd chosen his job, especially with his uncle owning a firm where he would undoubtedly become partner. But he'd just said he would have been willing to move - to uproot his entire life.
"You'd do that?" she whispered softly. "I love you."
And it slipped past her lips so quickly she couldn't stop it. Her eyes widening once the words were out there, her hand reaching up to cover her mouth as she flushed bright red.
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Post by Adam Tyler on Aug 21, 2015 20:49:57 GMT
“What?” He asked, having frozen in place. All things considered, it had only been a few weeks since she had ended her engagement to Garrett and they had officially began dating. Somewhere between getting to know her better in law school, their night catching up at the bar, and everything that she had gone through recently, it had started to feel like a lot longer. He was surprised to hear her say it – to say that she loved him – but hearing it had made all of the feelings he had been experiencing just click.
He pulled her hand away from her mouth to kiss her, unable to keep the wide smile off of his face. “I love you, too.”
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Post by Riley Tyler on Aug 22, 2015 0:29:55 GMT
When he kissed her and said it back, her breath hitched for a moment. She chewed on her lip for a moment before letting a bright smile bloom across her features. "Oh," she said gently. "That's good, if not I would have felt really awkward and I don't know where we threw my shirt," she teased. Scooting a bit closer, she leaned up for another kiss. Part of her had loved Adam during law school, in that way you love someone you think will never love you back and continue loving them in spite of it. She'd gotten to know him during that time and it had quickly caused her to shed whatever misconceptions she had of him during high school, or maybe he had changed since high school. It didn't really matter much, because her Adam was the one that had made her laugh when the stress of studying had her ready to crack. The one who's shoulder she'd fallen asleep on during study sessions. The one she'd come to think of as one of her closest friends, second only to Maddy. And even the time she'd spent with Eliot Quinn and Garrett DeLuca, they had just been secondary - they had been friends of convenience and association. She'd gotten closer with Garrett to do something she thought was noble, and because she thought that keeping busy was better than wondering what could have been if Adam had been interested.
"You know, I wanted you to kiss me all through law school. I remember there was one night where we all went out, and I thought that maybe you were going to," she nodded, reaching for his free hand and lacing their fingers together. "So I just kind of gave up."
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Post by Adam Tyler on Aug 22, 2015 1:56:46 GMT
He wrapped his arms tightly around her. "I told you that I wasn't willing to let go of you that easily." He remembered the night she was talking about. He just wasn't sure how much it would have pained her to know that he had thought about it to - he had never wanted to kiss someone so much in his life as he had that night. It had only taken a few years and a few unfortunate occurrances for him to get enough courage to do it. "You should stay here," he told her, "You should move in - if you want to. At least until you find the perfect place for yourself."
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Post by Riley Tyler on Aug 22, 2015 2:19:51 GMT
Riley had been looking at apartments. There had been a few in Queens near her father that had been decent enough. She had enough put away in savings and knew that she could get a promising job in her salary range soon enough. She'd also looked in Manhattan, where the pickings were slimmer, but she would have been closer to Adam and Maddy - one hadn't even had a stove and she could walk across it in twelve steps, but she thought it might do. After all, she ate at work a lot anyway when she did have a job. But when Adam asked her to stay with him, she gaped for a moment. "Okay," she nodded. "Just until I find a place. And if you get sick of having me around all the time, I can stay with my dad for a bit or Maddy's." She chewed on her lip for a moment. When it came to real estate and the people she'd gone to high school with, she was still a little shocked. She'd grown up in a small two bedroom apartment in Woodside, Queens - she could talk at a normal volume on one end of it and her father would hear her on the other.
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Post by Adam Tyler on Aug 22, 2015 19:01:05 GMT
He shook his head at her, "I doubt that I would ever get sick of you - you might get sick of me, though," he teased, prodding her sides lightly. "There's probably more than enough space for you to set up your own space away from me if you wanted to. We can set up an office for you here or whatever else you need." He was coming to find that he really liked the idea of having her here, having her build her own little space in the apartment. It could feel a little empty at times with all of this space and just one person using it. Considering that he spent most of his time at home either working in his small office space or sleeping, the idea that he could come home to someone made it automatically feel a little more comforting.
Adam just wasn't sure what it looked like to live with a woman, at least not full-time. He hadn't shared a home with a woman since he moved out of his parents' house after high school and he was sure that there were things he was going to have to change in order to make it a little more comfortable for her as well. Like picking up after himself and stocking the fridge with more than just condiments and beer.
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Post by Riley Tyler on Aug 22, 2015 20:41:34 GMT
Riley smiled at Adam talked to her about setting up her own space in the loft. She pressed a kiss to his mouth and then shook her head, "You don't have to go through all of that trouble, Adam. It's just until I try to find something else that I can afford," she nodded. "I don't take up that much space," she assured him. "And I can even get groceries and make dinner when you get home from work, I'm surprisingly versatile like that. I can run a campaign and make some really excellent food," she teased.
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Post by Adam Tyler on Aug 22, 2015 20:46:21 GMT
"If you cook half as well as you manage campaigns then I might not let you leave," he teased. Though there was probably more truth to it than he'd admit. He supposed that part of him was hoping that maybe her moving in here temporarily would eventually lead into her moving in here permanently. Now that they had gotten the big "I love you" out of the way, as suddenly as it had been, it seemed to make the most sense to keep moving their relationship forward. At least that's how he kept trying to justify it.
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