This is Really Happening.

I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I was alone in Brody's bed.  I rolled over and clicked the display on my phone, and saw that it was after 2.  After a few minutes, I got up and grabbed the first piece of clothing I found, which happened to be one of Brody's t-shirts.  I pulled it on, decided it covered enough of me for what I needed it for, and wandered downstairs.

I found Brody in his office, sitting behind his desk, staring at his laptop.  He looked up when I walked in.  "Can't sleep," he said ruefully.

"I know the feeling," I replied, frowning.  I walked over to him and leaned against his desk.

His fingers tugged on the hem of his t-shirt, which didn't even reach halfway down my thighs.  "This looks way better on you than on me," he said with a smirk. 

I laughed and shook my head.  "Do you want to talk about it?" I asked.

"About how that shirt looks better on you?" he replied, cocking an eyebrow teasingly.

I rolled my eyes.  "No, about whatever is keeping you from sleeping."  His fingers were still toying with the hem of shirt, and they tightened as he tugged harder, pulling me closer to him.  He pulled me into his lap and I curled up against his chest, waiting.

But he didn't say anything.  His hand ran up and down my leg, from my ankle to my t-shirt covered (barely) hip, and back.  I waited, silently.  His hand moved absently, and then stopped.  He took a deep breath and said, "I don't know.  I guess it's just my dad.  And his business.  And my business.  Nothing new."  I still didn't say anything, but he didn't continue.

"That's a lot of stuff to have on your mind," I replied sympathetically.

"Yeah," he agreed.  His hand went back to moving mindlessly up and down my leg.  Then he said, "But it doesn't have anything to do with you, or you moving in, or looking for a new house, if you were worried about that." 

"I wasn't, but I'm glad to hear that anyway." 

We sat silently there for few minutes, until I yawned and he said, "You should go back to bed.  It's so late." 

"What about you?" I asked gently.

I could feel him shrug.  "I'll come up when I get sleepy enough."  He kissed the top of my head and nudged me gently out of his lap.  I said goodnight (again) and headed back up to bed.  I tossed and turned for awhile, because I was fairly awake now, but managed to fall back asleep eventually (and before Brody came back to bed).

When I woke up again, it was to Brody getting back in bed.  I looked at my phone and saw it was nearly 4:30.  "Sorry," he murmured, "I was trying not to wake you up."  His hand found mine in the dark and I quickly fell back asleep. 

Needless to say, we slept fairly late on Sunday.  We made breakfast together when we finally managed to drag ourselves out of bed, and then Brody went into the office for a couple hours.  I rode into town with him and met Kinsley at the gym.  I hadn't been spending nearly enough time there lately, and it was pretty obvious by about halfway through our workout. 

"I am so ready for tax season to be over," Kinsley complained as she stretched.  I was laying on the floor next to her, trying not to die, and occasionally halfheartedly attempting to stretch something.  "You look like you're going to need someone to carry you out of here," she teased me. 

"Yeah," I agreed.  "I also need to get my ass to the gym a lot more often.  This is embarrassing."

"It's embarrassing for me too," she joked. 

"Shut up," I groaned.  "You're lucky that I don't have enough energy left to throw this disgusting sweaty towel at you."  Kinsley laughed and stood up, reaching a hand down to me.  I let her pull me up and followed her to the locker room. 

I walked home to shower, do a little laundry, and wait for Brody to finish up at the office.  He was going to spend the night at my house, and we were going to order pizza and watch Beauty and the Beast. 

When I got out of the shower and came downstairs, laundry basket in hand, I was surprised to see Lauren on the couch.  "Hey roomie!" I chirped.  I felt much better after my shower. 

She made a face at me.  "Hey yourself.  Don't worry, I'm not staying long.  I'm just finishing up my laundry.  Great minds, apparently." 

"You can stay as long as you want," I replied, rolling my eyes.  "You live here, remember?"  I dropped my laundry basket next to the couch and plopped down next to her.  "What are you up to tonight?"

"Alex and I are having dinner with some coworker of his and his girlfriend.  Hopefully they don't suck."  I laughed at her bluntness.  "We looked at some apartments today.  I hated all of them.  I'm sorry, I'm trying to get out of here so you can have your space back."

"Actually," I said, wanting to take advantage of the opportunity, "I wanted to talk to you about that."

"I really am looking everywhere," she said quickly.

"Laur!  Shut up and listen to me. And I really do mean shut up and listen, because you are going to have a lot to stay, and I want you let me finish first."  She looked at me curiously, but nodded.  I took a deep breath and then said, "Brody and I are going to move in together."  Her eyes widened, but she managed to keep quiet.  "My lease is up in two months.  We're going to look for a house together.  And if you want to stay here, you could take over my lease."

"Okay, so back up.  Because a month ago, you were all 'Ohemgee, never moving in with annnnyoneeee!' and now you guys are, what?  Buying a house together?"

"Maybe," I said with a shrug.  "If we find something."

She studied me for several seconds, then her face broke into a grin.  "You guys are going to get married and have stupidly gorgeous little babies and you're going to end up being a stay at home soccer mom that takes your stupid little dog everywhere in your purse."

"Do you even know me?" I exclaimed.  "Knock it off."

"What's wrong with stay at home soccer moms?" she asked pointedly.

"Not a thing," I replied.  "But I could never do it.  Anyway, can we get back on track here?  You don't have to let me know anything for sure right now, but is staying here something you might want to do?  If you know you don't, let me know, because then I need to give notice that I won't be re-signing my lease."

"I love your place," she replied.  "And it's in my price range, for sure.  The neighborhood is great.  It's a little far from work though...but it's probably worth it.  Let me think on it for a couple days?"

"Definitely, take your time. Maybe let me know the end of this week or next week some time?  Is that long enough?"

Lauren agreed that it was, and then she grinned.   "So, despite the fact that I'll probably never see you again once you move in with him, I'm seriously excited for you."

"You will see me!" I protested.  "I promise."

"Speaking of which, we haven't all done something together in awhile, and we should do that."  I agreed, and then the dryer buzzed.  Lauren got up and disappeared into the laundry room.  She emerged a few minutes later lugging her laundry basket.  "All yours," she said, hauling her laundry upstairs.  I went in and started mine in the washer, coming out just in time for Lauren to come back down. 

"I'm out of here," she said.  "See you tomorrow for roomie night?"  

"Definitely!" I replied.  "I hope Alex's coworker and his girlfriend don't suck!"  Lauren laughed and left.  While I waited for Brody, I cleaned my bathroom and vacuumed.  Lauren had been doing a much better job of keeping things tidy and I appreciated it. 

I had just settled on the couch with my Kindle when my front door opened.  Brody walked in and I jumped up to grab a pizza box out of his hand.  "Decided to pick it up instead of ordering.  I didn't want to wait," he explained.  He kissed me and then pulled his shoes off while I took the pizza into the kitchen.  By the time I had plates and drinks out, he had disappeared upstairs.  He came down a few minutes later in shorts and a t-shirt, and we settled onto the couch with our pizza.

I couldn't get Brody to admit that Beauty and the Beast is a classic love story, but he didn't hate it at least.  And he gamely put up with my off-key singing along with each song. After the movie I filled him in on my chat with Lauren about her taking over my lease.

"I guess we'd better decide what we're looking for and talk to a realtor, huh?" Brody said. 

"I guess so," I replied, smiling. We talked for a little bit about what we each wanted, and what areas we wanted to consider.  We were surprisingly on pretty close to the same page about most things, which was reassuring to me.  Brody sent an email to the realtor he had used for his current house, and we made an appointment to meet with her a week from Monday.  Brody was on call this week, so we didn't want our appointment to be interrupted by his phone, or cancelled if he had to travel. 

We opened up my laptop and looked at some of the online listings to get an idea of what was out there.  "Hmmm, click on that one," Brody said, pointing to one of the listings on the screen. 

"Ummmm," I said, my mouse hovering over a picture of a gorgeous house with a ridiculous price tag.

Brody looked at me expectantly.  "It's...not cheap," I finally managed. 

Brody laughed, but quickly caught himself.  "We should talk budget and financial stuff," he suggested. 

I cringed.  This was the part I had been dreading since we had talked about looking at houses.  I knew that Brody had a lot of money.  I didn't know exactly how much.  I had no idea how much his business brought in, or how much his dad's business brought in.  I knew that he had spent a lot to buy his branch out from his dad, but I had no idea how much he'd made since then.  And me?  I had barely managed to save any more since I'd moved out here.

"Liv," Brody said gently.  "I know you hate talking about money.  But we need to decide how much we want to spend, where it's coming from, and whose name will be on the title if we do find something."  I just stared at him.  I had no idea where to start.  "Okay," he said, sighing.  "Look, I can afford that house."  Then he pointed at another house, that was twice the price of the one that had originally made me pause.  "I can afford that house.  Actually, I can afford them both.  I could put at least a 20% down payment down on any house on this page.  Closer to 50% for most of them."  He said it matter-of-factly.  He wasn't bragging.  He was just telling me. 

"Okay," I replied.  "And...I can't." 

"I know, and I don't expect you to.  So here's what I'm thinking.  I'll take care of the down payment.  I'm perfectly fine making all the mortgage payments too, though I have a feeling you're not fine with that."  He looked to me for confirmation and I nodded my agreement.  "If you're going to want to help with payments, I think both our names should be on the title.  That way, if anything happens, you're not screwed.  But, that would also make you responsible for the house if anything were to happen to me."  I just blinked at him.  I had no idea how he could just have this conversation with no emotion.  Everything was straight to the point. 

"So, if you're worried about that," he continued, "we could consider just having the house in my name.  Then I would want to make all the payments, unless you wanted to do a separate contract defining your rights to the property.  It would also be more beneficial from a tax standpoint for it to just be in my name.  But I don't want you to feel like it's not your house, so I want you to decide what you want to do."  He stopped and realized I was just staring at him.  "That's...not a good look you're giving me."

"I'm just having a bit of a hard time wrapping my head around how...business minded you're being right now.  It feels kind of cold, I guess.  It's confusing." 

"Liv, this is a huge investment.  Someone needs to be business minded about it, because otherwise that's how people get screwed over."  His point made perfect sense, but his speech about titles and payments and contracts had me completely overwhelmed, and I was getting close to shutting down completely.  Brody sensed it and said, "Okay, how about this: when we meet with Elena next week, I'll let her explain the options to you.  She'll do a better job than I did, and she can present the pros and cons to each option objectively.  And it won't feel so cold, because it won't be coming from me." 

"Okay," I agreed.  "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be difficult, but I've obviously never bought a house, and we're not married which makes it more complicated apparently, and I only just decided to even move in with you, so it's kind of crazy that this is really happening.  Also, I'm feeling a little inadequate, plus kind of stupid for not even thinking about all these things."

He grinned widely and me, and I looked at him like he was crazy.  "Sorry," he said quickly.  "It's just that you're actually telling me your feelings without blowing up and stalking off.  Thank you for saying that.  I'm sorry that I overwhelmed you."  

I nodded, then smirked.  "I'm kind of feeling like I need to watch Beauty and the Beast again now."  He groaned and sunk back on the couch.  I laughed.  "I'm kidding.  But I do need a break from this house stuff."  Brody agreed to that, and we flipped the TV back on.  My brain wouldn't stop going, however, and all I could think was, this is really happening.