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Post by Riley Tyler on Sept 14, 2015 19:02:30 GMT
Riley was exhausted by the time she was pushing her way through the door of the loft, she unceremoniously dropped her bag once she was inside and toed out of her shoes while her phone was still tucked between her ear and her shoulder. “Can you just figure out how to change my direct line, or reroute my direct line to go through one of you?” she asked her newest employee over the phone. “Yeah, I just don’t want to talk to her and I’d prefer a line of defense between me and her phone calls. Thanks.” A few piece of red hair fell in her face and she huffed in an attempt to get them out of the way. “Okay, I’ve got to go,” her phone beeped and she quickly pulled it from her ear to check the screen. “I have to go I have a message from my father. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Hanging up her call she quickly opened the message from her dad, eyes skimming it quickly. She groaned slightly, she placed her phone down and went to investigate the rest of their home to see if Adam had already returned from work before her.
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Post by Adam Tyler on Sept 14, 2015 19:59:27 GMT
Adam had begun to realize how useless he felt when it came to the most recent update in Riley's life. Since their engagement party, he had been in a constant state of worry about how she was really feeling now that her mother had unceremoniously made a reappearance. No thanks to Eliot, he had to remember. The truth was that he was beginning to feel as though the walls of their offices were never going to be thick enough to make him feel any better about working with him. He was relieved that they hadn't really shared any cases and so any interaction they had been simply in passing, but it had been more than enough to cause Adam to hole up inside of his office for hours on end. The great thing about being a corporate lawyer, he had realized, was that he was able to spend more time with clients or buried under paperwork. But still, he had gotten to the point where at the end of the day he was more than happy to pack up his things and rush home to the loft to spend time with Riley.
He had beaten her home and had just changed out of his work clothes when he heard the door open. By the time he had started making his way out of their bedroom, he had found himself face to face with her. "Hi," he smiled at her. "How was your day?"
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Post by Riley Tyler on Sept 14, 2015 20:09:40 GMT
Riley smiled warmly when she found herself standing in front of Adam. Her arms easily wound around him and she shook her head. “Oh, you know,” she sighed. “It was a day. She keeps trying to call. I don’t know how she got my number, but if I show up to your office and beat Eliot Quinn with a baseball bat, get all the potential witnesses out and then get ready to represent me.”
She sighed, pulling back slightly and pressing a kiss to his lips. “How was your day?” she asked him curiously, disentangling herself from him to walk into their bedroom and change out of her work clothes. As she untucked and unbuttoned her blouse, she turned over her shoulder to look at him. “My dad didn’t call you yet, did he?” she asked curiously. “He just sent me a message and I think he wanted to talk to you about some wedding stuff,” she nodded.
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Post by Adam Tyler on Sept 14, 2015 20:32:38 GMT
He grinned at her and wrapped his arms around her in response. At the mention of her mother calling, he felt his grin fade. It was hard to know what he was supposed to say to her at times like these, especially when he was having a difficult time relating to her. Adam didn't have the sort of relationship with his parents that she had with hers, either in a positive or a negative way, he just had always co-existed with them in the way that he did now. "I can do that," he agreed, knowing that if it took her five minutes with Eliot and a bat to make all of this better, he would have started preparing his case to defend her that second.
"My day was good," he added, watching her change out of her work clothes with a soft smile. He contemplated just getting momentarily derailed from their conversation and just pulling her into bed with him, but then she brought up her dad and the wedding. "No," he shook his head. "What kind of wedding stuff, do you know?"
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Post by Riley Tyler on Sept 14, 2015 21:01:24 GMT
Riley smiled at Adam, she unzipped her pencil skirt and let it fall to the floor, stepping out of it before she picked it up and folded it neatly on the bed. “I think he wants to talk about paying for it,” she nodded as she walked over to the dresser and pulled open one of his drawers. She pulled out one of his t-shirts and then paused, looking at him. “We’re not going anywhere, right? I can be sloppy?” she asked with a light laugh.
“I think he’s worried – I told him that obviously, he couldn’t expect to pay for the whole thing. He thinks that the father of the bride should still be paying for the wedding. I told him that things are different now and we both had good jobs,” she nodded. “Anyway, he’s probably going to call you and try to figure something out,” she explained. “I feel kind of bad, so do you think you can just go along with whatever plan he’s got cooking in his head. He probably wants to arrange to pay your family back for part of the arrangements. I know he’s worried because my cousin already doesn’t think she can afford to come.”
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Post by Adam Tyler on Sept 14, 2015 21:09:58 GMT
She retrieved one of his t-shirts and he smiled at her before hearing the rest of what she had to say. No matter how useless he felt, he was so glad to be marrying her and spending the rest of his life with her. Adam hadn't realized how much he could possibly love one person and he couldn't even imagine what his life would be like without her at this point. He would have done anything in the world for her, which was the reason why he shook his head at her after she explained. "Riley, it's fine. We can just take care of it, I don't want you dad or anyone in your family worrying about any of this. We can buy them the tickets or send them the money if we need to."
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Post by Riley Tyler on Sept 14, 2015 21:30:33 GMT
"Where do you think I learned to be stubborn Adam?" she asked him as she pulled his t-shirt over her head. Once she poked her head through and adjusted it, she shook her head at him. "He'll never go for that, he doesn't want a hand out and he doesn't want to feel like he can't contribute." She ran her fingers through her hair. "I mean, don't get me wrong - in this case I agree with you, if I have to I'll pay for my entire side of the family to come. But we Nicholls folk are quite proud," she nodded. "I feel badly enough knowing that he can't really help as much as he says he wants to, I don't think we should just tell him we'll take care of it. I know if I were in his place, I'd hate it. Which is why, honestly, I think I should just pay for them and he and I will deal with it among ourselves. But I just wanted to warn you that he's probably going to call."
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Post by Adam Tyler on Sept 14, 2015 22:30:59 GMT
Adam looked at her for a moment, knowing that she hadn't meant for it to come across as she had. "We're getting married, Riley. It's our money now, not just mine and not just yours. We can pay for your family to fly down to Mexico if you want to. I'm happy to do it, and I'm happy to keep you happy about this whole thing. I understand being stubborn and being proud, but we're all going to be a family together. I'm more than happy to give your father tickets or whatever else he needs as a gift." He didn't want to keep feeling like they needed to argue over their own stubbornness, but he was having a hard time expressing to her how different his opinion of money was from hers. If money was what it took for them to have the things that they wanted, the things that they needed, then he would have given her all of the money in the world to do it.
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Post by Riley Tyler on Sept 15, 2015 0:15:47 GMT
Riley looked at Adam sheepishly. "I know that, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to sound like...it's just a bit more complicated with my family," she nodded. "I can't just shove money at him as a gift, he'll hate it. Just like you know I would hate it if someone did that to me. Money is a touchy subject for us - I can't explain what it's like to you." She didn't want to explain it to him, really. It wasn't shame. It was that money had always been the big issue in her life, at times it was heart breaking and at others it had been her biggest motivator - to do better than everyone around her despite her circumstances. She never wanted Adam to understand those feelings though.
She sighed and sat down at the end of the bed, she shook her head. "We can't just give it to him as a gift."
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Post by Adam Tyler on Sept 15, 2015 0:38:02 GMT
He matched her sigh and looked down at his feet for a second. Adam wasn't sure what he could say to make her understand his side of this whole conversation, the side where money shouldn't have been such an argument. Having never lived in a situation where money was a touchy subject, he had just assumed that it would make everything easier for them. From the wedding to their life together, and everything in between, he thought that he'd be able to help her with this, help her family with making this the perfect wedding for her. The realization that he was coming to was that he was wrong. "Then what do you want me to do? Riley, we can afford to send for them and it's stupid to force them to do something that causes financial strain on them. Is there any way that we can convince him to let us do it?"
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Post by Riley Tyler on Sept 15, 2015 0:56:16 GMT
Riley bit her lip. "Adam, it hurt him when I wanted to go to a better school and he couldn't afford it. Every Christmas that he couldn't give me exactly what every other kid had. I just don't want to hurt him by saying 'Sorry, Dad. You can't with your only daughter getting married, but here's an all-inclusive vacation.'" she took a breath. "And it feels wrong, you know - I spent my entire life working my way up from basically nothing. It feels like I'm saying that what he could do for me wasn't good enough." She looked down at her lap sadly and shook her head. "It's complicated. I'm proud of where I came from, I am. I don't know how to do any of this without turning my back on all of that," she admitted. "Maybe we just let him think he can pay us back after the wedding, and then I can talk to him about it after the fact. Or I can find a way to just deposit it all back into his accounts without him realizing it," she let out a dry chuckle. "You know, in my entire life I never thought my problem would be that I had the option of spending money."
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Post by Adam Tyler on Sept 15, 2015 1:20:57 GMT
He frowned, realizing that he was never going to understand what she and her father had gone through while she was growing up. "We can do whatever we need to do to make him okay with it, but the thing that both of you have to realize is that I want to help." When it boiled down to it, he understood their pride and he understood their hesitation, but he in no way meant that any of this should have made them feel as though he was trying to offend them. Part of him had hoped that Riley would have accepted it all with a little less hesitation, but the other part knew that her stubbornness was a large part of the reason why he loved her.
"Does it bother you then?" he questioned, wondering if she was still upset about the dress that he had purchased for her, or if her engagement ring was suddenly too much. "All of this - all of this money?"
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Post by Riley Tyler on Sept 15, 2015 1:40:01 GMT
Riley looked up at him when he asked her if it bothered her. Glancing down briefly at her ring, she stood up to move in front of him, reaching for his hand. "I wouldn't say that it bothers me," she started slowly. "I'm not used to it, I don't know if I ever really will be. I love that we live together, but it sort of blows my mind that we have this much space. And I want to marry you more than anything and I think the ring is beautiful, but I do think that you didn't have to spend as much as you probably did on it because you could have given me a ring from a quarter machine and I still would have said yes." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I know that's probably not what you want to hear. I'm trying to learn to get used to it," she tried to assure him.
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Post by Adam Tyler on Sept 15, 2015 2:00:02 GMT
He wanted there to be a way for her to get used to it, or at the very least a way for her to be okay with it a lot faster than he had seemed to be taking. She had made mention of both their apartment and her engagement ring as examples of things that she found to be too much and too expensive and he immediately started feeling defensive. For the first time, Adam wanted her be one of those people who were happy, who were excited to find themselves with more wealth than they might have originally anticipated. "What do you want then? Do you want me to sell the loft? Take your engagement ring back and get something else?"
But he didn't want to do either of those things. "I never thought that money would be a problem. This is just the way that things are for me, and this is going to be your life when we get married. If you're not okay with that, then I don't know what to do."
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Post by Riley Tyler on Sept 15, 2015 2:20:24 GMT
She immediately regretted saying anything. She shook her head adamantly. "No, I don't want you to do anything differently. I didn't mean it like that, Adam. I know - I understand that this is your life and it always has been. And I wouldn't ever ask you to change anything about yourself. I would never ask you to change one moment of your life because it made you this wonderful man who I love. You asked me to stay with you when I had no where else to go, and you asked me to share a life with you and that's what matters to me. I can get used to the rest." she insisted. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."
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