Okay, I allow you all to beat me with sticks. In fact, here are some sticks to beat me with. I fully planned to have this up before last weekend when I went away. But that weekend turned into a near-on week of vacation and pushed this back. So many apologies! I hope you can forgive me!
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It was on. Moving Day. Stella had woken up early and eager, her mind running wild with what was to go Mac's and what was to stay for Connor. She'd managed to sweet talk Danny, Connor and even Steven into helping her haul her belongings to her new home.
Natalie was grinning wildly when she followed her husband into Stella's old place. On more than one occasion she'd sang to her "You're moving in with a boy!", but it kept falling on stony ground with the recipient never having seen that episode of Friends, which just made Nat giggle.
They all grabbed trash bags of clothes and boxes of books, DVDs and general necessities and threw them into their waiting cars on the street below.
"Are you sure you have everything?" Natalie asked Stella, taking one last look around her apartment. It seemed the same, all the furniture was still there for Connor and art was still on the walls, there being no room for them at Mac's. Just the bookshelves were empty, and the photographs of friends had been packed away. It was so strange.
"Yeah. Got it all," she smiled somewhat sadly, taking a deep breath. She locked the door and passed the keys onto Connor. "S'all yours."
"Thank you," Connor grinned. "And here, my first months rent. I know you said you didn't want it yet, but here," she handed her an envelope, "Have a celebratory meal. Or take out."
She smiled, reluctantly taking it and placing it into her bag.
"Come on, Mac'll be waiting for his new roomie." Nat said, linking arms with Connor and practically skipping down the hall.
Stella took one last look at her door, her fingers tracing the number plate. "Here goes…"
Xx
When the cars pulled up at Mac's door, Stella jumped out first. She was debating whether to use the key or not but was saved when the door opened and Mac stepped out, "What took you so long?"
"Traffic. Okay, listen," She warned, twisting the handle of her bag in her fingers. "There's still time to back out. I'll get over it, just say the word."
Mac looked into her eyes, green meeting green, and chuckled. He looked over her shoulder and waved the watchers in. "Welcome home," he told her.
Xx
The boys and Natalie and Stella had thrown everything into the house, leaving the owners be and shooting down to Sullivan's for a well-earned drink.
Stella marvelled at how what little she thought she had brought now practically filled Mac's bedroom. Their bedroom. He shuffled some books around to make room for hers on the shelf, keeping the multiples she'd brought in the boxes. Same with the DVDs, though there were very few multiples, and, really, very few of Mac's.
He left her to her own devices when it came to the closet. He went to make some sandwiches for lunch as she placed her work clothes next to his in the tall wardrobes. Putting the hangers on to the rail, Stella realised how over-prepared she actually was. She had had a million scenarios race through her mind all week of how Mac might have been when replacing Claire's things with hers, how she was claiming Claire's space as hers, but he was taking it remarkably well. Maybe she underestimated him. Maybe he really was ready for this step, and maybe for any other steps. Maybe it was Stella who wasn't ready.
Stella folded the now-empty hold-all into itself and arched her back, kneading out taught muscles along her spine. She pushed the bag onto the top shelf of the closet, punching it into the small gap between suitcases and other rucksacks. Unknown to her, as she pushed the hold-all in, a box at the other end was becoming dislodged. She only noticed when it crashed the ground, spilling its contents across the carpet.
"Damn-it," she cursed, bending down. Photographs were strewn across the floor, a small velveteen box had bounced behind her to the bed and what looked like a deflated poolside toy had dropped with a thud.
She was right, it was a beach ball that had been folded delicately, the stopper still in its place. She placed it back into the box, collecting up the photographs as she did so. They all seemed to be of Mac and Claire: Wedding day, honeymoon, house-warming. Even one with the couple and a baby Stella didn't recognise. Neither Mac nor Claire had siblings, so it must have been a friend's child, or a cousin's maybe. She shuffled them back together and put them next to the ball in the box. It was only when she looked in the small velveteen case that she realised what she was dealing with.
Shining back at her was the gold wedding band Mac had worn for 17 years of married life. It had the occasional imperfection, but which was only expected for the amount of time it was worn daily. She tried to think back to when she had realised he wasn't wearing it anymore. It was before they had started their relationship, maybe even before he went back to war. She half expected him to start wearing it again after he came back. He didn't though.
"What are you doing?" Mac snapped, practically slamming the plate he was carrying on the dressing table. He bounded up to her, grabbing the ring box and clasping it shut before throwing it back into the box. "Is this what you're going to do? Root through my stuff?" he shouted, pushing the box back into the closet and slamming the door closed.
"Whoa, whoa, the box fell, I was putting it back," she defended, standing back up.
"After you had a good nose-through?"
Stella was all ready to shout to her defense when she took check of herself. "I'm not going to talk to you if you're just going to accuse me before you've thought the situation through. I'm not going to fight with you, but what I am going to do is take my sandwich and go into the kitchen. Join me when that vein in your forehead isn't as prominent." Stella took the plate from the side and left Mac to his thoughts.
"I'm sorry," he said after a few minutes, stepping into the kitchen. She was sat at the table, her back to him, placing her half-eaten sandwich back onto the plate. "I'm sorry for what I said back there."
"It's okay."
"No, it's not," he whispered, sitting down opposite her. "I guess this is a little harder on me than I liked to admit. It's not that I don't want you to move in, or that I don't love you, it's just…"
"This was your house with Claire. I get it, believe me." Her serious and sympathetic look turned smug, "I was actually prepared for this."
"I saw," he chuckled, "Very impressed with calm-Stella back there."
"I'm always calm," she said, mock-hurt.
Mac grinned as he stole half of her sandwich. "So, that was our first fight."
"Please, we've had hundreds before and all a million times worse than that."
"Yeah, but that was our first fight as cohabitating adults."
"'Cohabitating'?" she giggled.
"What should I have said?"
"Shacked-up, maybe, I don't know, but 'cohabitating' sounds like what they're doing with the Pandas down at the zoo."
"So, we're shacked up?"
"We're shacked up."