Chapter 12

At the end of the driveway I stop to look over at Amy again and ask her gently, "Do you have your medications?"

"Yeah…. Thanks Ty for letting me stay with you and being here for me." She says quietly looking down at her lap.

Reaching over, I wind my arm around her waist to pull her over to me while I pull out onto the main road to drive the 10 minutes back to my apartment.

The entire drive passed in silence. I kept glancing down at Amy to make sure she was ok and every time I did I would wipe away a few tears and kiss the top of her head with as much love as I could project.

When I pulled into my parking space at the apartment I jumped out and turned to scoop Amy into my arms as she slid over to the driver's side.

Hugging her tightly, I set her on her feet then grab her bag out of the back. Turning towards her I wrap my arm around her waist and gently tug her towards the door to inside.

Once inside the building I lead her up the stairs to my apartment door, but stop dead at the top of the stairs when I see who's waiting at my door.

"Why the hell are you here?" I ask in a cool voice once my father turns toward me.

"Well I – I came t-to, er, ask you to come back home," He stuttered at first, then rushed through his words.

"That's not going to happen. I like living here. I like not having you breathing down my back about being a disappointment to you because of where I work." I say quickly, my words tumbling out, emotions unchecked.

Amy tugs on my arm to get my attention. Once I look down at her I can see that she can't handle a confrontation with my dad right now.

"What's this?" Brad asks icily. "Bringing home a slut for a night?"

Amy tenses in my arms and ducks her head so I can't see the tears.

"Leave. Now. Before I do something I might regret." My voice is deadly as I look at my father.

"No. I'm not leaving until you agree to come home."

"I'M NEVER GOING BACK TO LIVE WITH YOU!" My yell makes Amy jump so I lower my voice but the tone remains, "I want to be on my own since you can't seem to be fucking proud of me or support my own choices in life. I'm 18 and have a steady and damn good job that I love so I can make it on my own without your help. And just so you know, this is Amy my girlfriend! And don't you ever think about calling her a slut again."

Having said that I clamped down on my jaw hard to stop from saying more and push past my dad and unlock my door while ushering Amy ahead of me. Closing the door I see my dad still standing there just staring where Amy and I were standing seconds ago

As I closed the door I heard Amy groan. Turning to face her I watch as she throws herself face down on the couch. Smiling slightly, I walk over to the couch and maneuver over Amy so that my back is against the back of the couch and she's cuddled into me. Wrapping my arm around her I bring her flush against me so I can whisper in her ear.

"Are you okay, babe?" I ask with my lips lightly brushing her ear.

Shaking her head, she turns her body slightly so she's facing me.

Sighing, she lays her arm over my waist while moving her head back to look in my eyes.

"There's been way too much drama going on lately. The storm, me being in a coma, me not being able to help out, Ashley moving in with us, and just now with your dad. I'm so sorry Ty that I'm why you're not getting along with your family." Tears welled up in her eyes as she said this.

"Oh Amy, I don't blame you at all. It's my father's fault that he can't accept who I am or who I'm with. You are everything to me Amy; I don't care what my dad says," I kiss her fore head before looking her straight in the eyes. "I. Will. Not. Leave. You." I replied punctuating the last five words.

Sniffling, she pushes herself against me until there's no room between us and buries her head underneath my chin while her arm tightens around my waist.

"I love you Ty." She murmurs softly into my chest.

Tightening my hold on her, I lean down to her ear and say softly, while brushing my lips against her ear, "I love you too Amy, always."

Rolling slightly, bringing me with her so she's on her back and I'm partially on top of her. I slip one of my legs in between hers and place my hands on her waist momentarily before I stand up, picking her up with me.

"What are you doing?" Amy laughs while I carry her bridal style to the bathroom.

"I –" I pause, hitting the light with my elbow before sitting her on the counter beside the sink. "Am going to draw you a bath and let you soak while I make us some dinner."

"Why don't you just join me and we can cook afterwards?" Amy's voice turns husky as she slides her hands up and down my back before resting on my hips to pull me in between her legs.

Grinning, I turn towards the bathtub to start filling it with steaming hot water.

Looking back at Amy I see her smile brightly, obviously thinking I'm going to join her.

"I'll be right back." She says as she slips out of the bathroom to only return seconds later with her toiletry bag.

Cocking my head to the left I watch as she pulls out a little brown bottle and pours a little amount of its contents into the water filling up the tub.

Taking a deep breath I realize that she put some lavender into the water. "Lavender?" I ask with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, whenever I take a bath I always put some into the water. It helps soothe me." Amy replies with a smirk.

"Hmm," was my only reply.

"Um do you mind if I have a t-shirt to sleep in and maybe some sweats or something?" Amy asks quietly while looking down at the floor.

As I walked closer to her, I lifted her chin up so I could look into her grey eyes. I search her eyes for a moment before I lean down and capture her lips in a searing kiss that leaves us both breathless.

"Babe, you don't have to ask to borrow any of my clothing, you're welcome to wear whatever you want of mine. Why don't you go ahead and get in while I get you some of my clothes, alright?"

"Alright, thanks Ty." She says as she starts to undress.

Smirking, I leave the room to go to my bedroom and pick out a long red T-shirt that would go down to Amy's mid-thigh. Going back towards the bathroom, I sneak in to quickly put the shirt on the counter and get a quick peek at Amy sitting in the tub with her head leaned back, eyes closed.

Smiling, I quietly go back out and go to the kitchen to start rummaging the cabinets for something suitable to cook.

Grabbing the ingredients to make quesadilla's, I quickly get to work on getting the skillet warmed and greased. I focus my attention wholly on the preparation of the meal in an attempt to keep it off the woman in my bath tub. While that's warming up I go to the sink to wash the onions, tomatoes, green pepper, and chicken. Getting two different cutting boards out, I start to cut everything into pieces. Once I'm done with that I turn back to the stove to put a taco shell into the skillet, and then add some onion, green pepper, tomato, chicken, and cheese onto half of the shell then flip the other half over it, taking a deep breath of the sizzling smells wafting through the kitchen. Once it's done I repeat the process five more times.

Once I have all the quesadillas on plates, I turn to go back to the bathroom to get Amy but stop short once I see her leaning against the door jam in my red shirt with her wet hair hanging down around her face. She looks up at me through her lashes and says "I thought you were going to join me in the bath."

Smiling as I watch her push off the door jam to walk towards me I shake my head.

"Not tonight Aimes. You know we need to talk about what going on at Heartland and whether you think you'll be going back to live there or not." I say as she stops right in front of me.

Nodding, "I know but I was hoping we could put it off till tomorrow." She says it so softly that if she wouldn't have been right in front of me I wouldn't have heard it.

"I know but we have a week to discuss all this and to do anything else you might want to do." Smirking down at her, I grab her up with my free arm and walk to the living room to sit on the couch.

Maneuvering us on the couch so that she's on the left side leaning against the arm of the chair with me in the middle with her legs draped over my lap.

As I pass her one of the plates with three on it, I start to talk.

"Ok so we know that you and Ashley have never gotten along and that most likely her behavior towards anyone was due to the fact of what her mom was doing. I know you don't want her at Heartland but I do agree with Lou that we could probably help her realize that not everyone who owns a horse sanctuary or horses for that matter is abusive. I'm not the one that will be helping her though. You, Lou and Jack will be the ones to prove to her that to her. Now I told Lou and Jack that you staying with me will most likely lead to you not wanting to leave and me not wanting you to leave either and she said that she's not going to make you move back in if this is where you want to be." I pause to take a bite of my supper and chew slowly. "I'm sure if you do decide to move in with me that they'll keep your room the way it is in case you want to move back later on or someth—"

Amy's forefinger on my lips cut off the rest of what I was saying. Leaning towards the coffee table she puts both our plates on there then moves back towards me so she can straddle my lap.

"Ty, I would love to move in with you and I doubt there will be a need for them to keep my room unless you need me to stay there for a night or something. And as for Ashley, I know I need to help her and I plan to. But she better appreciate all we will be doing for her and I can't promise to always keep my temper with her."

"I know but I just appreciate that you are going to try."

"Of course I am. I'm not that horrible." She said as she wiggled her hips into mine, making me moan.

"I would really like to beg to differ right about now." I mumble towards her.

Laughing, she leans forward and starts to plant feather light kisses all over my face ending with a lingering one on my lips.

Smiling, I turn Amy so her back is against my chest and lean forward to get our forgotten dinner. Reaching over to the left, I pick up the remote to turn the TV on and turn it to a channel that has a movie named Flicka playing.

"Ohh this is a good movie. It's about a girl who goes to boarding school but goes home for the summer to a ranch where her family has horses. She goes for a ride one morning to find a wild mustang and she tries to convince her dad to catch it but he won't so she does it by herself and then she earns the horses trust and tries to train it but her father sells the horse and it goes to the rodeo and –"

"Amy babe, let's just watch the movie and eat, huh?" I say as I turned her head towards me.

Smiling shyly and nodding she turns back to the TV and begins to eat.

After the movie is over, we get up to go into the kitchen to wash the plates and the cooking utensils. As I wash and she dries we talk about anything and everything. Finishing the dishes, we head back to the living room to watch more movies.

After a few hours had passed I look down at Amy, who's lying on top of me, and realize that she fell asleep. Smiling, I cradle her to my chest as I sit up and walk to my bedroom and lay down so we are facing each other, with my arms around her waist.

Amy groans softly and snuggles her way closer into my arms until I'm lying on my back with her half on top of me and our legs tangled. Sighing happily, I fall into a peaceful sleep.