Everything had been falling into place effortlessly. Felicia was accepted into the group quickly, and after the day they spent together at Jaime’s house, all of the boys immediately felt protective over her. Like they were her big brothers and she was the only girl sibling. Malorie really liked her as well, and although Felicia hated to admit it, Ainsley knew that she looked up to Malorie in some way that made her borderline obsessed with her.

Even the fans were growing to love Felicia, and this was difficult for her to grasp at first. The idea of her being known in the PTV network really didn’t seem to make sense to her, since she was nothing but a fan a few weeks prior. But now, everybody knew who Felicia was, even though nobody really knew her story or where she came from.

And as for work, Ainsley was working the same amount of hours, but with summer coming to an end, she wasn’t as busy in the shop. Having Felicia there to help out when she felt up to it also helped alleviate the stress of running the shop. Felicia was starting to learn how to work the register, and would sometimes ring up simple orders for the regular customers.

Even though work was going smoothly, Ainsley had to admit that having a day off was a blessing. She rolled over in bed when she felt Jaime gently trailing his fingers up her back, trying to get her to wake up.

Ainsley groaned, not wanting to get out of bed. “Go away,” she said with a muffled voice. “Tired.”

“Babe, I brought you breakfast in bed,” Jaime cooed, his fingers still gently tracing over her skin.

She kept her face planted in the pillows as she spoke, her eyes shut tight. “Bringing me breakfast in bed isn’t going to change the fact that I’m on my period, Jaime.”

Jaime let out a chuckle. “I didn’t do it because I want sex,” Jaime laughed. “Would you please look?”

“Did you make French toast?” she asked.

“Yep, and I even bought some cream cheese syrup frosting stuff that you like.”

Ainsley sat up and turned around, finally accepting Jaime’s breakfast. When she turned around she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There was a heart-shaped balloon tied to the corner of the breakfast tray, the red of the balloon mixed with the sun from the window made the bedroom glow pink to match the small bouquet of flowers that was arranged in a glass on the corner of the tray, just beside a mound of French toast.

“What is this for?” Ainsley asked, her smile nearly getting in the way of her words.

Jaime sat down beside Ainsley and turned her head so he could give her a full kiss on the lips. “Happy two month anniversary,” he said against her lips. He pressed a kiss to them again while his other hand wrapped around her waist.

“Are you serious?” Ainsley pouted. “I didn’t know, so I didn’t get to do anything special for you. I really hope you didn’t buy me anything.”

Jaime shrugged with a guilty smile on his face. “You know how I am, of course I bought you something.”

“Why didn’t you warn me about this or anything? I feel like a shitty girlfriend.”

“The girls are the ones who are supposed to know the dates, aren’t they?” Jaime teased. “I’m joking, Ains. I knew you wouldn’t know the date since I never really properly asked you. I just kind of declared you as my girlfriend, but still. I wanted to surprise you. But you better remember from now on.”

Ainsley chuckled a bit and turned back to look at the breakfast. He even poured her a tall glass of milk in her favorite Disney cup. “I’ll remember from now on, I promise.” She reached out and gently touched the petals of the red and pink roses. “Can I eat now?”

“Dig in,” he nodded.

Ainsley immediately picked up her fork and began to cut up the slices of French toast, making sure to get the cream cheese syrup, powdered sugar and regular sugar all together on one bite. Then she would wash it down with a drink of milk, and repeat. “This is delicious, baby, thank you so much.”

“It took me hours to do. I needed to make sure it was perfect so I could impress my little baking babe.”

“Your baking babe?” Ainsley chuckled as she picked up another bite. “I like that.”

“I like you,” he replied.

“I like you, too,” she laughed. She finished the rest of her meal while Jaime just sat and watched her enjoy it. She could see the satisfied grin on his face when she pushed the tray away and announced that she was done. “I’m sorry I can’t give you sex.” Ainsley pouted.

Jaime laughed loudly. “Don’t apologize for that. If anything we should be celebrating your period after all of those times we didn’t use protection.” Jaime shivered a bit when he thought about what could have happened. Ainsley just laughed.

“But still, it’s our anniversary and we can’t even have sex,” Ainsley sighed. “That’s the number one day you’re supposed to do it.”

"It's okay, baby, really," Jaime chuckled a bit, but Ainsley could see that he was not entirely confident in his words. What man wouldn't want sex on his anniversary? Especially when the relationship had a strong sexual aspect to it. "It's not like I'm deprived or anything. I'm just glad that I get to be here with you, and I'm not out on tour."

Ainsley smiled widely, accepting Jaime's point. "That's a great way of looking at it." She sat up and pushed the comforter off of her body, careful not to knock over the breakfast tray that was sitting near the end of the bed. "I'm going to take this into the kitchen."

"Alright, I'm just going to lay here and wait for you," Jaime said as he buried himself into the blankets.

Ainsley walked into the kitchen, looking for the mess of pots and pans that Jaime had left, but he had cleaned everything up already. She smiled to herself as she quickly rinsed her plate and placed it into the dishwasher. She also noticed that the rest of the house was spotless. How long had Jaime been awake? And why was the house so quiet? Usually Felicia would be up rather early, sitting on the couch in the living room while surfing the internet. That girl was always on the damn computer, and Ainsley honestly had no idea what she was doing on it all the time.

"Hey, Himes?" Ainsley called through the house.

"Yeah?"

"Where's Felicia?"

"Anne picked her up early this morning. I asked Felicia to give us the day to ourselves," he called back through the house.

Ainsley pouted, feeling extremely guilty now that she couldn't have crazy, mind-blowing sex with Jaime. They finally had the house to themselves, and Ainsley had to be on her damn period. She thought back to the time that Jaime had gone down on her on the couch, and then she remembered the time that they had gotten adventurous and decided to use a vibrator while in bed. She could feel her neck burning as the desire began to rise in her.

"Fuck," Ainsley muttered, hating the fact that Mother Nature had to torment her like this. "Fuck it." Ainsley stood up, determined to at least give Jaime something in return for the nice things he had already done for her this morning.

Jaime was lying on his back, holding his phone in front of his face as he smiled at whatever was on the screen. He clicked around, and seemed to not notice Ainsley standing at the foot of the bed, hunger in her eyes. She dropped her knees to the bed and Jaime continued to ignore her as he stared at his phone.


She crawled up to him on her knees, slowly moving up his body, making a point to trail her fingers up his legs. Jaime shivered, but continued to pay no attention to her.

She moved all the way up so she was straddling his thighs. She began to grab at the inside of his thighs, moving her hands up until she was palming Jaime through his jeans, trying to make him hard. Jaime grunted a bit in response, but kept his phone in front of his face. Ainsley knew that he was doing this on purpose at this point, and she saw this as a challenge. A smirk played across her lips as she continued to palm Jaime through his jeans, him still not paying attention. Ainsley became more and more aggressive and she could see the smirk on Jaime’s lips as he pretended to ignore her. She could feel him responding to her touch, and she knew that he wouldn’t be able to ignore her for much longer.

Without any warning, Ainsley shoved her hands down the front of Jaime’s jeans, directly under his boxers. She took hold of him, firmly wrapping her fingers around his member.

Jaime let out a slight yelp at the feeling of her cold hands wrapping around him. He dropped his phone quickly and pushed it off of his chest, letting it fall to the blankets that were bunched up beside him. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at Ainsley’s hands as she expertly unzipped his jeans and popped open the button in order to get them down to grant her easier access.

Ainsley was getting impatient with waiting for Jaime’s body to fully react, so to speed up the process she decided to rip her shirt off of her body and continue what she was doing. She kept her hands wrapped around Jaime’s growing erection and firmly began to pump her hands, making sure that Jaime’s eyes were fixated on her bare breasts.

“How did I get so lucky?” Jaime muttered as he threw his head back. He let out a loud moan and Ainsley smiled widely.

She bent down and wrapped her mouth around him, catching Jaime by surprise. He bucked his hips up very gently and let out a groan followed by some mumbled words that Ainsley couldn’t quite make out.

“You’re going to wash the taste of my delicious French toast from your mouth,” Jaime laughed as Ainsley pulled her mouth up, hollowing out her cheeks and allowing her lips to pop as she pulled him out of her mouth. “Not that I’m complaining or anything.”

“I like to taste you,” Ainsley smirked, feeling confident with her progression in bedroom talk. She wrapped her lips around him once again, this time moving much quicker than before.

She rarely ever gave Jaime oral, and when she did Jaime was always a mess – moaning, squirming, cursing – he couldn’t control himself. He always made it a point to tell her how much he loved it, but Ainsley liked to keep this talent as a treat for Jaime, saving the oral sex for moments much similar to this one.

It didn’t take long for Ainsley to get Jaime off - a final flick of her tongue after her combinations of sucking, nibbling and other secret techniques, and Jaime exploded – his knuckles a bright white from grasping onto the blankets so tightly.

“I love seeing you like that,” Ainsley chuckled as she sat up on Jaime.

“Like what?” Jaime breathed out. He slowly released the blankets and tried to even out his breathing.

Ainsley blushed. “You’re so sexy when you orgasm,” Ainsley muttered, feeling suddenly shy again.

Jaime chuckled and reached out to grab onto Ainsley’s hands, pulling her body forward so she was laying against his chest. “Look at you,” Jaime chuckled. “Not that long ago you would hardly even allow yourself to moan in the bedroom and now you’re talking like this. Is it weird that I’m proud?”

Ainsley shook her head with a giggle. “I’m comfortable with you, so I guess that’s making me be more comfortable with sex.”

Jaime kissed the top of her head. “I’m glad you’re comfortable with me. I’m comfortable with you, too.”

“You’re comfortable with everybody,” Ainsley said as she rolled her eyes. “I swear you never get nervous or awkward around other people.”

“Not true! That first night we hooked up I was a nervous wreck. And I’m sure that I was pretty awkward as well.”

Ainsley decided that the conversation was over and slowly began to pull herself from Jaime. “I’m going to go shower and get ready. We need to go out and do something.”

“I already know,” Jaime chuckled. “I have the entire day planned out for us. Wear something comfortable, we’re going to be walking around,” Jaime instructed.

-

Jaime held onto Ainsley’s hand for the entire two hour drive that they took. Ainsley made sure to take an abundance of photos and videos with plans of making a photo collage for instagram later on. She wanted to post the pictures as soon as she took them, but figured it would be best if she didn’t, that way no fans could follow them to wherever Jaime was taking her.

“Are we almost there?” Ainsley asked. She began to bounce in her seat a bit, the anticipation killing her. She was pretty sure she knew where they were going, but she just wanted to make sure.

“Yep,” he said, popping the ‘p’ at the end. “We’ve been here plenty of times before, but only once together.”

“I didn’t bring my Minnie Mouse ears with me!” Ainsley nearly shouted, when she figured out where they were going. “I can’t go to Disneyland without my Minnie Ears!”

Jaime shook his head. “The ones I bought you?”

“Yeah,” Ainsley groaned, pouting as she stared out the window.

“It’s okay,” Jaime chuckled. “We can get new hats. The ones with our names on them! And then we can match and hold hands and be all cute.”

Ainsley turned to give Jaime a confused expression. “Are you the girl, or am I?” she asked.

“Don’t make fun of me,” Jaime whined.

“Next thing you know we’re going to be wearing those stupid matching shirts that say something about being with each other, with the arrow and everything.”

“Guess I have to take back your anniversary gift,” Jaime muttered, taking a moment to look in the rear-view mirror as he switched into the exit lane.

“No way,” Ainsley chuckled. “Are you serious?”

“No,” Jaime laughed. “I would never wear those shirts, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Ainsley laughed. “Trust me, I hate those things.”

“Me, too.”

“Wow, we have so much in common. We should date or something,” Ainsley replied in her best preppy voice.

Jaime laughed in response, and squeezed her hand tighter. Once they got the car parked, they headed straight toward the hat shop to get their custom mickey-mouse and Minnie-mouse hats on them. They walked around the shops for a while, just browsing around and buying random knick-knacks when something caught their eye. Jaime was the one buying things, Ainsley only bought a magnet for the fridge and a few pens. She didn’t want to Jaime to know that money was so tight for her, so she tried her best to hide her disappointment when she couldn’t buy something she really wanted.

“Picture, picture!” Jaime urged as he held his phone out in front of them. Ainsley listened, smiling for the picture.

“Kissing picture?” Jaime questioned, turning to look at Ainsley. She looked over to Jaime, bit her lip, and then nodded. Jaime took his time in moving in for the kiss – he stared over the narrow bridge of her nose, inhaled slowly, taking in her scent, and then eventually met her lips. He pushed just gently enough for contact to be made. Something in the kiss sent chills down Ainsley’s spine and she couldn’t control herself when she moved her lips against his, catching them in a more intimate kiss than originally planned. She kept it kid-friendly, though, seeming as they were in the middle of Disneyland.

Ainsley heard the sound of Jaime’s phone taking the picture and slowly withdrew herself from the intimacy. She pulled away, but pushed her forehead against Jaime’s and stared into his dark, brown eyes.

“Shit,” Jaime muttered. “Wow.”

The sound of giggling and hushed whispering broke the moment entirely. The two of them soon realized that they had company, and when they pulled away from each other they spotted two girls, one of them wearing a Pierce The Veil shirt, standing ten feet away. They were standing extremely close to each other, huge smiles on their faces and their eyes wide with surprise and happiness.

“Should we go up to them?” Ainsley asked as she looped her fingers through Jaime’s.

Jaime shook his head and shoved his phone back into his pocket. “They’ll come to us, don’t worry.”

Sure enough, not even a minute later, the girl wearing the PTV shirt began to walk up to the couple, her hands shaking and her smile consuming her round face. She cleared her throat to make sure her nerves weren’t evident when she spoke, and accidentally drew the attention to her right away. “Um, sorry to bother you, but could we get a picture?”

“Of course!” Jaime chimed happily. He reluctantly withdrew his hand from Ainsley’s and closed the gap between him and the fan. “What’s your name?”

“Kelsey,” the girl answered.

“Want me to take the picture?” Ainsley offered.

“Yes, please,” Kelsey smiled widely and held her cell phone out to her.

She snapped a picture for each of the girls, and once she handed the phone back she was expecting to girls to walk away, but they were still standing there.

Nobody was talking, and Ainsley was starting to feel awkward. As if the girls wanted to talk to Jaime alone. Ainsley spotted a bathroom beside the shop they were just in, and decided that she was head into the restroom for a moment to give the girls some time alone.

“I’m going to head to the bathroom,” Ainsley announced. “I’ll be back.” Ainsley turned to walk away, but Kelsey’s friend spoke up.

“Oh, we need to use the restroom, too. Do you mind if we tag along?”

Ainsley looked from Jaime to the girls, confusion on her face, but she agreed none-the-less. Jaime gave her a confused look as well as the three of them walked toward the women’s restroom.

Before they could enter, Kelsey gently touched Ainsley’s arm to get her attention. Ainsley turned to look at Kelsey, ready to ask her what was up, but Ainsley shut her mouth when she noticed the tears beginning to pool in the girl’s eyes. Her friend was gently rubbing her arm to try and comfort her while whispering small assurances.

Ainsley didn’t know what to do, and she had no idea why the girl was crying. “Hey, hey,” Ainsley said softly. She reached out and placed her hand on her frail shoulder. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry,” Kelsey immediately apologized and began to wipe at her tears. “I must look so stupid, just crying out of nowhere.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Ainsley said. “What’s wrong?” She was hoping that the girl was crying just because she was so excited to meet Jaime, but the sadness in her eyes told her otherwise. But why would she want to talk to Ainsley about it?

“My mom she’s…well, when I found out that Jaime had a girlfriend, I googled your name…my mom committed suicide, too…I read a newspaper article online about your family…my mom she left me two months ago and when I saw you it just reminded me and I don’t know…I just wanted to talk to you about it. I’m so sorry for blubbering. I’ll just go now,” Kelsey rambled on. She seemed to not know where to begin, and Ainsley immediately felt her heart breaking for this young girl.

“Please don’t go,” Ainsley said as she gripped onto her shoulder tighter. Kelsey was still looking away like she wanted to leave, so Ainsley did the first thing she could think of and reached out to Kelsey, pulling her into her arms and squeezing her tightly against her chest. Kelsey froze at first, but when Ainsley squeezed just a bit tighter, she finally gave in and returned the embrace. Ainsley was expecting Kelsey to break down even harder, but instead her tears subsided as she buried her face into Ainsley’s sleeve.

Kelsey was the one to break the hug. She pulled away and let out a small chuckle as she pointed at Ainsley’s white sleeve which was now peppered with faint mascara marks from Kelsey’s tears. Ainsley waved her hand to tell her that it was no big deal.

“Listen to me, Kelsey,” Ainsley began, bringing the seriousness back to the conversation. “It was really hard in the beginning, trust me. But also trust me when I say that things get better.”

“But how? How do they get better? I honestly don’t see that happening for me…”

Ainsley smiled and looked over to her friend who was still gently rubbing Kelsey’s back. “What’s your name?” She asked her.

“Huh? Oh, I’m Kat.”

“Kelsey, keep Kat close to you,” Ainsley said. “It was my friends that helped me the most. It hurts to feel alone, and to feel like you’ve been forgotten and left by the person you loved most, but your friends will help you feel accepted and loved again. That’s what my friends did for me.”

“Jaime?” Cat questioned.

Ainsley chuckled a bit, she had almost forgotten that they were fans of Jaime’s. “Kind of, but I actually knew Malorie, Casey’s girlfriend, before any of them. Mal is like my sister and she’s the one who helped me the most. After her and Casey started dated, we were introduced to Mike and Vic, who also became close friends of ours. I was actually never really friends with Jaime until a few months ago when we started dating…kind of.”

“You’re so lucky,” Kelsey sighed. “That would sure make me happy, again, meeting boys like them.”

“Don’t give yourself an expectation on what can make you happy, because sometimes the things that end up meaning the most are the ones you would have never expected,” Ainsley paused to glance over at Jaime who was smiling down at his cell phone. “Keep an open mind, but just don’t lose who you are. I promise you’ll get through this.”

Kelsey smiled widely and attacked Ainsley in another hug.

“Can we go on a ride with you guys?” Cat asked as Kelsey finally pulled away. “If you’re not busy.”

“That sounds great. Let’s go.”

-

They all went on It’s A Small World together, all singing along happily and taking many pictures together. Even though Ainsley never imagined she could feel so changed from some of Jaime’s fans, she did. She felt horrible for Kelsey, but knowing that Ainsley was able to help this young girl, even if it was just by giving her some advice, she felt changed. Jaime squeezed Ainsley’s hand as they exited the ride, leaning over to give her a soft kiss on her temple as the two girls walked ahead of them, still singing the song from the ride and laughing wildly.

“Thank you so much for spending time with us,” Cat said.

“It was fun,” Jaime replied with a grin. “Tweet us those pictures or tag us on instagram or something! I would love to save them.”

“Yeah, it was really cool hanging out with you guys,” Ainsley agreed.

The girls gave them one final hug before turning around to leave. Before they were completely out of sight, Kelsey whipped back around, calling out to them.

“I almost forgot! Happy Anniversary!”

“Thank you!” Jaime called back as he waved his arm in the air.

“How did they know it was our anniversary?” Ainsley asked quietly as she waved back to the two of them.

Jaime chuckled a bit and then turned to look at Ainsley. “You should really check instagram more often.”

Ainsley didn’t respond, instead Jaime changed the subject and walked her across the park, but without saying much of anything to her. He held her hand tightly, and as they walked across the park, holding hands, Ainsley could see some stares as people recognized who he was and immediately felt somewhat nervous. Although she had been with Jaime, officially, for two months now, she had only been out in public with him a few times because he was always gone on tour.

They walked toward Pirates of the Caribeean, and at first Ainsley thought that they were going to get on the ride, excitement began to take over – it was her favorite ride in the park. But instead, Jaime pulled her in a different direction and lead her toward a restaurant entrance that she hadn’t been to before. He whisked her inside, ignoring all questions she spewed out.

“Reservation for Preciado,” he spoke to the man at the entrance. The entire restaurant was Pirate themed.

Ainsley paid close attention to the details as they walked along the restaurant, and it soon hit her where they were going. They walked onto a deck that was surprisingly dark, even though it was still in the early evening. She heard laughter and the slight sound of “yo-ho, yo-ho” playing in the background.

“Oh my god,” she said as she took a seat at the end of the deck, near the wall that was bordering the deck. Beside them was an elaborate set and a body of water. “Are we eating inside the ride?” Ainsley exclaimed.

“I remember you saying how you always wanted to eat here the last time we came to Disneyland together,” Jaime said with a smile. “Are you excited?”

“I’m freaking ecstatic! How did you get the reservations? They’re almost always booked. Especially this spot!”

Ainsley immediately whipped out her phone and began to take a million pictures. “I’m so glad I dressed somewhat nice today,” she said as she took the pictures. The last she wanted was to be looking underdressed while boats of people drove by on the ride.

“You always dress nice.” Jaime’s words were somewhat shaky and he seemed to have become suddenly nervous.

Ainsley stopped taking her pictures and set her phone down on the table beside her purse. She stared at Jaime who was sitting across from her, studying his nervous fidgeting. After being around Jaime so often, she noticed that he was almost always moving around in some way – certain ticks would give away what he was feeling. For example, when he was excited he would blink and nod his head a lot more than usual. And when he was nervous he would rub his hands over the tops of his thighs while adjusting his posture. Which was what he was doing as Ainsley looked over to him. Ainsley couldn’t help but grow nervous as well. What was bothering Jaime?

“Listen, these last couple of months with you have been so amazing, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. And I just wanted to tell you that…”

Jaime paused, and it seemed as if Ainsley had pressed a pause button in her head. Nothing was moving, time slowed down, and her mind began to scream the endless possibilities of what he was going to say to her.

Was this Jaime confessing that he was in love? Wasn’t it too soon to say that to someone? Sure, Ainsley had strong feelings for Jaime, but love was a bit strong for a relationship still so new. She hadn’t even met Jaime’s family yet, there was no way that they could be in love. Surely, they were on the path to love, though.

But what if Jaime knew that he already loved Ainsley? If those three words came out of his mouth, what would she say in return? She wished that she could say it back, but then wouldn’t that be unfair? Wouldn’t that be lying to him? She wasn’t certain if her feelings were that strong quite yet…but what if she didn’t say them back? Would Jaime feel embarrassed or hurt? Would he break up with her because she didn’t love him back?

Time slowly came back up to speed, and Ainsley’s palms were itching and sweating like crazy. She was the one doing the nervous fidgeting now. She made sure that her white crop top was pulled down to meet the top of her high-waisted jeans before she pulled her cream cardigan up on her shoulders to cover herself from the moisture in the air. She wasn’t prepared for whatever Jaime was going to say, mostly because she had no idea.

“Ainsley, you mean a lot to me. And I care about you a lot, and I think that I’m ready to take the next step in our relationship.”

Ainsley began to shift in her seat once again. “Okay…and what is that?”

Jaime reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a small jewelry box. He placed it on the table and turned it around so it was facing Ainsley. He slowly pulled it open with a grin spread across his face. His nerves seemed to vanish as he waited for Ainsley to look at what he had bought for her.

“Oh my god,” Ainsley said when she looked down. Inside the jewelry box was two key chains, each of them being one half of a heart, each of their names engraved in a Disney font. “I love it!”

Jaime breathed out, letting out the breath he was holding. “Oh, good. I was afraid it was going to be too cheesy.”

Ainsley pulled out the one with Jaime’s name on it while she dug around in her purse for her keys. She looped it around her key ring and held up her keys to stare at the finished product. “It’s perfect. I’ll probably turn it into a necklace later,” Ainsley explained as she held her keys out to Jaime to look at. “I was just afraid that you were going to say something like ‘I love you’ or like propose or something.”

Jaime chuckled, and the conversation fell short when the waiter arrived to take their orders. They sat and ate, singing along to the Pirates ride and enjoying the expressions on the people’s faces as they passed. Before they left, they asked the waiter to take a picture of the two of them standing on the corner of the deck, where the ride was clearly visible in the background.

After they ate their dinner, they decided that it was time to head home so they could take Felicia out for dessert so she could spend some time with Jaime before he had to go back home to San Diego in the morning.

-

“Jaime! What the heck!” Felicia squealed after Jaime had leaned over to take a huge bite of her ice cream cone. “You just contaminated my ice cream.”

“I’ll eat it if you don’t want it,” Ainsley offered, reaching her hand out for the ice cream cone.

“Babe, you just ate a banana split and half of my sundae. How do you have room for anything else? Especially after that dinner we ate.”

“I’m on my period. Don’t judge me,” Ainsley grumbled. “Are you going to eat your ice cream or not?”

Felicia stuck her tongue out at Ainsley before leaning down to take a lick of her ice cream. After a moment of silence, Felicia got her revenge by dipping a finger into Jaime’s sundae. She took a sample of the chocolate syrup, but before she could ram her finger into her mouth to get a taste, Jaime grabbed onto her hand and began to pull it to his own mouth.

Felicia was shouting protests, causing people who were walking by to stare at the three of them. She resisted Jaime’s force, causing her finger to be waving in between the two of them. Ainsley swooped in, quickly licking the chocolate off of Felicia’s finger so neither of them could have it. The two of them froze, staring at Felicia’s finger, and then turning to look at Ainsley as she licked her lips to flaunt her victory.

“You…” Jaime mumbled, unable to form a sentence. “That’s my girl!” he finally exclaimed. He let go of Felicia and reached across the table to steal a quick kiss.

“Ew, guys,” Felicia grumbled as she returned to licking her ice cream.

Ainsley smiled widely as Jaime returned to his seat, and to taunting Felicia. Ainsley loved the relationship that they had formed. Ainsley and Felicia had gotten extremely close, and as a result, Jaime and Felicia also developed their own relationship. Their bond comforted Ainsley and had started to bring her happiness. She never felt lonely. She finally felt that she had a family of her own.

Twenty minutes later, the three of them were strolling down the street, weaving in and out of shops – mostly so Felicia could pick up a couple new outfits with the money that her aunt had given her. While Felicia was in the fitting room for the thousandth time, Jaime and Ainsley roamed around the shop.

“Hey,” Jaime said softly. “About what you said earlier…”

“What did I say earlier?” Ainsley asked as she eyed a shirt.

“How you thought that I was going to say ‘I love you’ or something in that nature,” Jaime chuckled.

“Oh,” Ainsley responded, blushed a bit. The mood of the conversation was already scaring Ainsley, making her nervous just as she was before. “What about it?”

“I just wanted to tell you that I really, deeply care about you. And although I’m not ready to say it yet, I think that…I will be able to say it to you, eventually.” Jaime furrowed his eyebrows as he realized that he wasn’t making much sense. “I mean…I’m serious about our relationship and…I can see me falling in love with you.”

Ainsley froze, subtly wracking her brain for a response. Surely she felt the same about their relationship, but now Ainsley was afraid of when she would be able to say that she loved him. What if she loved him first? Or what if he loved her first? Would it cause problems?

“Oh god,” Jaime groaned, dropping his head. “I didn’t mean to like overwhelm you or scare you off. I’ll just take it back, I’m sorry.”

“No,” Ainsley said as she shook her head. She turned to look at Jaime, but his head was bowed. She gently reached up and under his chin to force his head to lift. Their eyes locked and Ainsley gave him a small smile. “I feel the same, Jaime.”

Jaime let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness. I’m not very good at talking about this stuff.”

“It’s okay, we’ll work on it,” Ainsley chuckled. She gave him a quick peck on the lips. “Looks like we both had our weaknesses in communication. Mine being bedroom talk, yours being talking about our feelings.”

“You’re funny,” Jaime chuckled. “Did you have a good anniversary? Sorry if it wasn’t as special as you’d like.”

Ainsley let out a small laugh as she laced her fingers with Jaime’s. “It was perfect.”

Notes

Ainsley's Outfit

I am so sorry it took a thousand years to update this. I gave you a lengthy update to make up for my absence. And I want to try to update it again tomorrow as well.

What did you think of this chapter? :)

XOXO - Thank you for being patient!