We talk some more while sipping at our caffeinated drinks before the waiter arrived with our hot meals that we got eating this early afternoon.

"Ellie?" I ask her while we're in the middle of eating our meals.

"Yeah?" she replies after drinking from her now half full soda.

"Do you think Dylan is ever going to come back for Henry? Or want to see him again?" I ask curiously since I've had this thought a few times. She seems a little taken aback by me saying that.

"To be honest, I really don't know, Paul. I hope he never will, but he's always been pretty unpredictable." she answers my question softly and I send her a small smile that she musters in return.

"He still has some rights to him, doesn't he?" I ask and she nods her head.

"I dunno why he's kept them, because he never wanted Henry from the start. For example, if I was to get married and the man wanted to adopt Henry, then Dylan would have to sign him over and give up those rights, you know?" she explains.

"Yeah." I reply after thinking about it and how I've always wondered how that would work. I wonder if I'll always be his dad.

"You don't have to answer this, but what was it that Dylan and you fought about that day?" I query a bit hesitantly, because I know that she still doesn't like to talk about it. I think I'm the only one she's talked about it to.

"He said that his whole reason for coming over was because apparently Child Services kept sending him stuff in the post about giving me money for Henry. I never knew about it though, and I sure as hell didn't tell them to do it." she answers and I wrap my arm around her after finishing the last bite of my turkey sandwich, I rub her shoulder before she rests her head on mine.

I kiss her hair before picking up the spoon sitting in my tomato soup to finish off the last of it while she finishes her burger and we share the crunchy chips that came along with it.

"You wouldn't wanna ever go back to him, correct?" I ask, for the record.

"Definitely not," she answers before taking a pause and I lean down to kiss her forehead. "I'm far too happy with the man I'm with right now who is so witty and kind. Other than Henry, you must be the best thing that's ever happened to me." she finishes with a sentence full of flattering words that put a big, genuine smile on my face.

"You and Henry are the two best things that have ever happened to me." I return with honest words, and she grins.

"After the Beatles' brilliant success." she kind of corrects me and I purse my lips while thinking.

"Maybe, but you two are mighty high up there. You two mean more to me than my career does." I reveal and she lifts her head to kiss me for a second and my eyes focus back on her after she had broken it.

"Would you like any dessert?" the waiter barges in to our moment there by coming up to collect our mostly cleaned off dishes and I look back to him.

"Paul, we should get Henry a cookie. You know how much he loves them." Ella whispers into my ear and I nod at her suggestion.

"We'll take one of your chocolate chip cookies, and one of your tall chocolate milkshakes." I answer for the both of us since I know Ella doesn't mind and he writes it down on his little pad before leaving.

"Mm, I love their milkshakes." Ellie states as I turn to face her again, and I catch a long glimpse of her happy smile. She's gone through so much in life, but yet she keeps on smiling, I love that about her.

"So do I, they're perfectly chocolatey and smooth I think." I agree with her and I rest my head on hers.

"Yum." Ellie responds and I sigh with a perfectly content smile.

Once our dessert comes we share the milkshake and keep the cookie for Henry who'll be finishing at Ellie's parents house an hour and a half now that it's one o'clock. I offer to pay the bill for our lunch and then we leave in our separate cars after deciding to meet up at my house, and she follows me back.


We were sitting in the living room while she flips through a magazine and I look through today's newspaper.

"All of my old friends from high school are having kids, and not just their first. I'm kind of jealous, I must admit. It makes me want to have another baby." Ella declares while she sits on one end of the couch and I on the other.

"It looks like we both want babies, huh?" I state and she nods in agreement.

"But do you really want to relive those sleepless nights taking care of a crying baby who needs to be fed every few hours and who needs a new nappy just as often?" I ask her after I had folded the paper to set down.

"Yeah I would want to. As challenging and tiring as it sounds, I'd love to do it all over again with another baby to take care of and raise." she answers and I smile at her words, she's a fighter, Ellie is.

"Have you considered those things when you've thought about the whole aspect of having kids?" Ella asks me and she closes her magazine about fashion and I think all of that.

"I didn't probably as much as I should, but it's not like it slipped my mind." I acknowledge truthfully to her.

"Have you ever thought about how Henry would react to not being an only child anymore?"

"Sure I've thought about it. I've never seriously considered it because it's never been a possibility, you know?," she replies and I nod as she takes a short pause. "But in all honesty, I think Henry would do really with having another sibling, even though it would take some work of course."

"You know, Ellie, I agree with you. Henry's always been kind of independent because he's an only child, but I'm sure if that was to ever change he'd be keen about it. He's such a sweet boy that I reckon he would love his younger sibling whenever that happens." I comment and she smiles at it.

"I reckon he would be too. He is pretty adaptable to new situations, and even though he's never said it word for word, I know that he truly would love to be a big brother." Ella adds onto the subject at hand that we speak of.

"Do you want a big family, like a lot kids?" I question her out of pure curiosity and after all we are dating.

"I don't really want a huge family, but a couple of kids yeah. How about you, Paul?" she responds to my questions related to our topic we've been discussing.

"I want a few kids, and maybe it's because I grew up with a big extended family and that's what I've always known." I give my own reply to the same question I posed to her, and she nods.

"In your opinion was it really all that bad being pregnant?" I pose the mom another question that she takes a second to think about, she must be trying to remember being pregnant over five years ago.

"People and the media make it look rather nice and as if the mother doesn't go through pain and suffering, but luckily for me after I got over the shock of being pregnant at eighteen, I enjoyed it for the most part when I had reached the point where the morning sickness wasn't happening so often," she begins with her positive response aided by her glowing smile. "It was crazy to first feel the baby kick, that was when Dylan was actually around and seemingly wanted to be apart of Henry's life and be a father. My body changing all of the ways that it did were hard to get used to at first, but I loved feeling him kick, even when he was keeping me up at night with his strong legs. Feeling Henry move was the best part, and the being tired a lot of the time and the morning sickness was the worst part." she finishes with reminiscing coating her remembering words.

"You wouldn't mind doing it all over again, maybe a few more times?" I query since we're together and that could potentially come up for us one, maybe it will, but also maybe it won't.

"Nope, but I'm certainly not having four more kids." she answers with an amused grin to my question and we both chuckle.

We vegged out some more on the couch while watching the telly when some somewhat interesting program was on and then she helped me clean around the house even though I have a housekeeper for that. I came to realize that I really do miss having her living with me. Everything is so much better when I'm with her.

"You're like the best girlfriend a man could possibly wish for, do you know that?" I tell her as we stand in the smallish laundry room off of the hallway from the living room. I watch as a smile grows on those lips of hers while she measures the laundry detergent for the current load of colors.

"You're a wonderful boyfriend and best friend, Paul. You make me really happy." she returns which puts a grin on my own mouth as I toss the last few wet socks of mine into the dryer that she helped me with washing.

I get the last shirt in the bottom of the laundry basket to toss into the dryer and I shut the door before closing the space between us in a hug after she also closed the door to the washer. I lean forward to have my forehead rest on hers after she moves my dark haired bangs and I pucker my lips kind of to kiss her sweetly for several seconds while our arms are laced around the other.

"You're all that I want in somebody else, Ellie. You're so smart, and hilarious, kind, caring, compassionate and ridiculously beautiful." I tell her as I cradle her soft cheek.

"I can say the same thing, Paul. Even though you're not perfect and I know your faults, I think you're perfect for me. You're the ideal boyfriend. I feel so lucky." she returns and I smile at her before we kiss once again.

We get on talking about other things aside from having babies, family life and doing laundry before I drove with her to her parents house who kind of recently moved to London, even though I know where they live because of picking up Henry from their place multiple times.


We soon get to our one month anniversary that we celebrated with a nice dinner out together, and we meet our second month as well third and we're nearing our fourth. The next almost four months for us go just about wonderfully, with the exception of a few disagreements, and fights of course. No couple is perfect, and neither are we. We certainly enjoy the other's company, the laughs we share with each other as well as the smiles and personal talks. We continued on with having dinner together at least once a week, Henry sleeping over at my house on the weekend usually only once, and I picked up Henry after school when I could and when Ella couldn't. Ellie came over for Henry and i's famous slumber parties often when her work schedule allowed her to, and we always had a blast together alright.