“So your flight gets in at four thirty tomorrow,” I say, balancing the phone between my ear and shoulder as I arrange cutlery around the plates on the dining room table.

“Four thirty,” Hannah confirms. “Am I expecting you to be there to pick me up?”

I take a step back from the table and examine it critically. “Yeah,” I reply, moving the vase of roses a bit to the left. “Then I thought we’d swing by the store, get Cassie and go for dinner.”

“She’s going to love you for this. She was going on and on the other day about how I’m too busy and she’s going to have to come all the way back to Seattle to see me.”

I smile and look around the room, trying to figure out where exactly Cassie keeps matches. “She’s been saying that to me too.” I open the top drawer of the desk in the corner of the room and smile when I see a box of matches. “I think she’s been getting homesick.”

“She’s just Hannah sick. It happens to everyone.”

I laugh. I’ve been talking to Hannah more lately since we’ve been planning this surprise trip for her to LA to visit Cassie and she’s really growing on me. She’s funny and snappy and never without a comeback and I like that. And she’s easy to talk to. I’ve only really been talking to her on the phone for the past couple weeks but I feel like I can trust her with anything. And that’s what makes me ask my next question.

“When you talked to her last did she seem a bit weird?”

There’s a slight pause. “Weird how?”

“She’s seemed stressed out lately.”

“She’s starting to get ready for Fashion Week. You should have seen how stressed out she got last year.”

“I don’t think it’s work stress.”

There’s another pause, this time longer. “Well…I think she might be really feeling out of her element.”

That’s not what I was expecting to hear. “Out of her element how?”

“She’s…she’s new at this whole long term relationship thing and she feels like she’s having to practice on you and she doesn’t want to mess up.”

My eyebrows rise. “Are you serious?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell her I said that.”

“But…really?” I can’t even find anything to say.

“She’s never been in a relationship that’s lasted longer than five months and I think sometimes she gets overwhelmed by some of the things that come with being in a long term relationship.”

“Like what?”

“She mentioned that you asked her how many kids she wanted.”

That had been an awkward conversation. I hadn’t thought anything about it when I had asked her that question last week but her face had gone white and she had seemed entirely uncomfortable discussing something like that. “It’s the commitment thing, isn’t it?”

“It’s always that, Justin. She’s really trying to not let it be an issue but it’s always there. It underlines everything.”

“I know that.”

“Maybe just try to be careful with some of the stuff you ask her. When you ask her how many kids she wants, she gets to a place where she feels overwhelmed like you’re proposing marriage or something.”

“I’m not proposing but…I mean, come on. It’s been eight months and I’d like to think we’re pretty serious. I don’t think it’s that bad that I ask her stuff like that.”

“I’m just saying you need to be careful with how you ask those things because she overreacts to stuff like that.”

I take look around the dining room and pray that what I’ve planned for tonight isn’t going to make her overreact. “I guess.”

“Look, don’t tell her we talked about this. She wouldn’t appreciate that.”

“I know. I won’t say anything.” I turn my head towards the front window when I hear a car door slam. “She’s here. I have to go.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow. Don’t forget about me.”

I smile. “I’d never hear the end of it if I did,” I say before hanging up the phone and quickly moving to the front door. I run my hands over my dress pants before opening the door. Cassie’s surprised eyes meet mine and her hand that was holding her keys drops.

“I thought you were coming by later to pick me up,” she says, her bag sliding from her shoulder.

I give her a long kiss. “That was just to throw you off my actual plans,” I say. I pull her into the house, careful to not let her look in the direction of the dining room. “Go to the spare bedroom down there and change into the dress on the bed.”

She gives me a suspicious look but moves in the direction of the room. “I’m not a huge fan of surprises, Justin,” she calls over her shoulder.

I smile at her. “I know,” I reply, watching her retreat down the hallway. Once the door closes behind her, I go to the kitchen just to make sure all the food is okay. I can’t cook to save my life but I at least made the effort to put the ordered Thai food into actual dishes.

I take the food out of the oven where I was keeping it warm and set it on the dining room table. Everything looks completely perfect but after my conversation with Hannah I’m not so sure about the situation anymore. Since I was in Hawaii for our six month anniversary, we decided to celebrate it tonight, two months late. I had put a lot of effort into having a fancy dinner and buying a present and I just hope it’s not going to overwhelm her.

I hear a door open and go back to see Cassie coming out of the spare room. A smile comes over my face when I see her. It’s a little intimidating buying clothes for a fashion designer but I think I did a pretty good job with the blue strapless dress. She looked absolutely gorgeous in it.

“You look amazing,” I say, running my hands down her sides. “It fits okay?”

“It does. It’s a really nice dress.” She narrows her eyes at me slightly. “Did Rachel buy this?”

I grab her hand and spin her around once. “I’m proud to say that I picked this out all by myself.”

“Wow, impressive,” she says, going up on her toes to kiss my cheek. “So where are you taking me in this fancy dress?”

“No where too far.” I weave my fingers through hers and pull her along with me to the dining room. When we reach the doorway, I move behind her and put my hand over her eyes. “Are you ready for your socks to be knocked off?”

“I’m always ready for that when I’m with you,” she quips back and I laugh. I move us into the dining room and then pull my hand away from her eyes. Standing behind her, I can’t see her reaction but all my previous fears that it would be too much were tossed to the side when she turned around and wrapped her arms around me in a hug.

“This is so much better than going to a restaurant,” she says, leaning up to kiss me. “Did you think this up all by yourself?”

I circle my arms around her and kiss her nose. “Right down to the candles.”

“It’s perfect,” she breathes out, turning her head around to look at the table again. She looks back at me. “Thai food?”

“Your favorite.”

“Did you make it?”

“Would you believe me if I said yes?”

She laughs and squeezes her arms around me. “Probably not. It’s all so perfect though.”

“Just wait until you see what I have for dessert.”

“Good thing I haven’t eaten since eleven.”

I run my hands down to rest on her hips. “Not good. You’ll waste away to nothing.”

She rolls her eyes and starts to respond but I silence her with a kiss.

“Let’s eat before the food gets cold,” I say when I pull back. She nods and I let go of her and pull out her chair for her. Once she’s settled, I sit down in my own chair. I can’t help but simply stare at her as she loads up her plate with food, so glad that we have this time alone together. Ever since I got home from Hawaii a week ago it’s seemed like she’s been incredibly busy and I’ve hardly seen any of her. But we have all night together and I made her promise that she wouldn’t go into work until noon. Maybe if I’m lucky I can convince her to not go in at all.

“So what interesting happened at work today?” I ask after a short moment of silence.

She swallows her food. “I spent almost all day in the back working on a coat so not much.” She begins to raise a forkful of food to her mouth but her fork stops mid journey. “Oh, but you know what happened? Kyle signed a five year contract with me today.”

Kyle seriously comes up with every single conversation we have. He’s an annoying pimple on the face of my life. “Oh?” I ask, trying to seem interested in yet another story about Kyle.

“We just had that six month trial contract which was already over so today we talked about it and we agreed on a five year contact.” She takes a bite of food. “Which is such a relief because he’s been so amazing with everything.”

I desperately want to spit out some sarcastic remark but I keep myself in check because for starters, I’m not going to ruin our perfect evening with this broken record of a fight and second, I’m pretty sure Cassie kind of wants me to bring him up so she can try once again to prove to me that he’s just the most stellar guy on earth. I’m way too stubborn to give into that though so I force myself to swallow my words and smile.

“Sounds like it.”

My eyes fall to my plate and I stare at it, trying to figure out what exactly is bothering me. It only takes a minute before it hits me like a sledgehammer.

Why is she so at ease with a five year contract with someone? That’s a big commitment to undertake. And from a commitment phobia person such as Cassie, shouldn’t that not sit so well with her? A contract is major. You can’t easily get out of those. And I mean, great if she’s slowly getting over dislike of commitment but shouldn’t I be feeling those benefits too? She signs a five year contract with Kyle but freaks out at me mentioning how many kids she wants? Something about that is really off in my eyes.

I’m starting to stress myself out thinking about this too much and I have to make a conscious effort to push it into the back of my mind. I can lose sleep over it tonight. I don’t need to think about it right now.

Instead of letting the conversation revolve around Kyle anymore, I quickly speak with carefully chosen words.

“Cass, you don’t feel like I’m ever pressuring you, do you?”

I can tell my question surprises her because her eyes widen slightly and she takes a few seconds to respond. “Why would you say that?”

I don’t want to let her know that I was talking to Hannah and I’m in on their discussion. “No real reason. I just wanted to make sure that you don’t think that by certain things I say I’m trying to pressure you to be a different person or think a different way than you do.”

She stares at me for a short moment before her face relaxes into a smile. “I don’t feel like you’re trying to change how I am.” She fiddles with her fork and looks to the side before making eye contact again. “Justin, around you I actually feel…” She trails off and seems to struggle slightly with her words but finally gets them out. “I actually feel completely accepted.”

Her words make me feel so good and I swear I can actually feel my heart warm. I don’t want to completely demasculinize myself but I can feel myself tearing up. I take a minute to compose myself before allowing myself to speak. “I’m feeling the exact same, Cassie.” I swallow hard. “The exact same.”