Ashley couldn’t help but smile as her eyes moved from the necklace to him as he spoke. The more he spoke, the more perfect he got. She hadn’t been so sure she could ever love someone the way in which she loved Ian. But she seemed to fall more and more in love with him everyday and this necklace, it was kind of perfect. “I’m not taking it back, it’s perfect.” Putting the necklace back in the box, her hands found their way to his face. “I don’t need the Lakers or Kobe or money for that matter. I have you, and that really is enough for me.” It was almost terrifying that she could admit that so confidently. She’d never felt this way about anyone else before in her life, and she was certain that was supposed to scare her. Like, she should be frightened to fall this hard for someone because what if he left? But in a weird way, Ashley knew she’d be with Ian forever. She knew because of that weird comforting feeling she felt every time he was around, and the fact that she could never picture falling out of love with Ian. And none of that scared her at all.
Her eyes darted around briefly before landing on his eyes and she nodded her head. “I think we can risk it.” At the very least, she hadn’t spotted in paparazzi at all today, so that was a plus. But in this moment, she really didn’t care if they got caught. She could brave that storm, and she had a feeling Ian probably could too. Regardless of how much they loved their privacy - she loved kissing Ian more. Closing the gap between them, her lips captured his and her thumb brushed across his cheek. God. She’d missed this.
“Really?” He still wasn’t convinced, but he did appreciate her being nice enough to lie to him about it. He probably would have been crushed just a little if she had told him she hated it or something — not that she would, but Ian found himself falling into dramatics when he was particularly flustered by something. “It’s okay, Ashley, I know I’ll never fill that piece in your heart that you have set a side for Kobe, I have accepted that.” He laughed, and sent a wink in her direction, it was fun to mess with her from time to time.
He smiled, letting a quick laugh escape his lips, before he leaned in and pressed them back against her own. Had it really been five days since he had done that? He still wasn’t sure how he had manage to be away from them for that long. He shifted his body towards her; the seat squeaking out as he did, his thumb brushing over her cheek as he tried to get her to open her mouth for him, so he could deepen the kiss between them. Not that it was a particularly good idea right about now to do that, but he was far too distracted to pay much attention to his rational side. Did they really have to go out right now? Couldn’t they just go back to one of their respectable places and continue where they obviously couldn’t allow themselves to actually go in public? He pulled away, his thumb brushing down across her lips, before finally settling underneath her chin. “We can’t reschedule these plans of yours?”
Ian had only been back for a total of five minutes, and all of the events of the past five days seemed to have vanished from her mind rather quickly. It had actually pained her to be away from him for so long, and even though their schedules were starting to get hectic right now, she could still count on having him to herself at night. And that was going to have to be good enough. She shrugged at his question, a grin quickly forming on her lips. “I missed you. So I figured I’d force you to spend the whole day with me.” She shrugged. It was really that simple. She loved Ian, and she’d missed him, so it was only natural for her to want to spend the rest of the day with him by her side. Getting into the car, she felt the relief of not getting caught in public with Ian washing over her. And now, now, she really wanted to kiss her boyfriend.
But of course, as soon as she turned to face him, he’d had other plans. Apparently, it was going to take a few more minutes for them to be on the same page again. Her eyes looked down at the small box he was holding and she sucked in a breath. That was a Tiffany’s box. Looking up at him, it was pretty clear she was shocked, but she finally took the box and held it tightly in her hand. This wasn’t really them, doing the whole fancy thing, but this was Tiffany’s….and it was from Ian. It didn’t get much better than this. Opening it up, she lifted the top of the box slowly and her eyes widened. “Wow.” Taking the necklace out to examine it further, she held it loosely in her hands, the key dangling in front of her face. Her eyes met his and she grinned again. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah, Nancy told me— she was the lady behind the counter, that a lot people got these to represent their girlfriends having the key to their hearts and well — you’ve got mine, so I just thought it was rather fitting. And I know this isn’t really our thing, but I wanted to get you something nice and I haven’t worked out how to get Kobe for you just yet—” He cracked a smile, his hands going to rest on his knees, as he took her in again. He wasn’t going to ever get use to that, the idea or the fact really, that she was his and that she loved him. “Sorry— I got distracted for a moment there, but yeah you can totally take it back if you want to or something, I rather you pick out something you like anyway. At least till I can afford the Lakers for you, which probably won’t be in this lifetime, but if you stick around with me till the one after it you might just have your team then. They might even still have Lamar playing for them.” He let out another laugh, as he ran a hand through his hair. Which he was going to have to cut again soon.
He leaned forward, inching his way over to her, because he hadn’t really got around to kissing her hello just yet and he really needed to get around to it. “I didn’t see anyone following us, do you think we could risk a quick kiss?” He smiled, shifting closer to her as he brought his hand up to cup her cheek for a moment.
Ian: Doesn't mean Pete doesn't want her to drop it. How is your hand?
Kristen: Hello?
Ian: Clean up in aisle 15
Kristen: I'll be sure to get right on that.
Ian: Now, Kristen I want enthusiasm from you, /Pete/ wants enthusiasm from you.
Kristen: Hello?
Ian: Clean up in aisle 15
Ashley moved her hands up towards her face and slid her sunglasses halfway down her nose. Peering at him over the top of her glasses, she couldn’t help but crack a small grin. “And what makes you think a limo is waiting for you, Mr. Harding?” So she sucked at being in character when he was around. But oh well, she’d missed him way too much to be playing games right now anyway. Wrapping her arms around him, she allowed herself to close her eyes briefly as she breathed him in. And suddenly everything was okay again. Skype really had done them no justice. “I missed you too.” She whispered before pulling away from him. Pushing the sunglasses back up her face she glanced around briefly to see a few eyes on them and was silently praying that nobody had recognized them - because the last thing she wanted was for their relationship to be exposed like this.
Grabbing his hand she gave it a gentle squeeze as she led him away from the terminal and out of the airport. “I hope you’re not too tired. Because I’ve kind of planned out a whole day for you.” She turned to face him as she unlocked her car. Since they’d missed Valentines Day, Ashley had bought them a couple tickets to Disneyland which was about a half hour (give or take a few depending on traffic) away. She’d grown up going to Disney all the time as a kid, and knew it was a place Ian had been wanting to go to for awhile. So what better present to give someone on Valentines Day, really? Besides, Ashley wasn’t really big on big romantic gestures and well, this was kind of a them thing to do. Plus, she totally wanted to drag him into The Rainforest Cafe to eat later. Their belated Valentines Day date was going to be truly epic, she just knew it.
If there was one thing that was easy in his life at the moment, well besides backgammon; which he completely owned at, it was being in love with Ashley. Just everything about it was simple, effortless, and completely natural that he couldn’t imagine ever being in love with someone else the same way. Not that he even wanted to imagine having to picture someone in his life other than Ashley, but still in the whole ‘trying-to-make-a-point-here’ hyphenated sense he just couldn’t imagine it. He hadn’t even been in love with Sophie like that and that was saying something. His arms tightened around her and even though he knew better than embracing her in such a public environment he really couldn’t help himself. He was in love with her after all and you did kind of hug the crap out of someone you were in love with, yeah Ian was just doing that.
He squeezed her hand back, and tightened his hold around his duffel bag with his other hand, as he followed her outside of the terminal. “A whole day? What did I do to deserve your attention for a whole day, Ash?” He laughed, leaning into her neck and pressing a quick kiss there before pulling away. He didn’t think he was famous enough to be followed, but she definitely was and he didn’t exactly want her parents seeing him all over their daughter’s neck right now, especially considering her father and himself had an upcoming Lakers game to attend together. He opened up the passenger door, and sat himself inside, throwing his duffle bag back onto her backseat, before he cringed and leaned back over undoing the zip and pulling out a small box he had tucked away to give to her that he had forgotten about till now. He leaned back, settling himself in his seat before handing the box over to Ash. “Happy Valentines Day.” He was a little nervous to see her reaction, because ‘fancy’ things weren’t exactly their thing, but he had wanted to give her something nice like it for awhile now and if she didn’t like it he could always return it and try and get Kobe to sign her bra or something instead. He had mentioned he was nervous right?
