A/N: I don't update this story like I should. I'm going to try harder lol
"Listen... I thought you said you could handle this?" I try to hold back my laughter as I watch Ben and Fergal try to fit an over sized washer through my front door. My old washer had taken a crap on me last week so I went to Sears and ended up getting an awesome deal on a washer dryer set. Here's the kicker to the story... Fergal was with me and when the sales man offered to deliver it I jumped right on it, then when he said there'd be a fee to have it delivered Fergal said no. He insisted that he and Ben could get both into my house. True, they had no problem loading them into the back of my truck, but once we got back to the house it's just been a shit storm.
"I said nothing." Ben grunts, "He put me up to this." He adds giving the back end a good shove.
"It's almost in the front door." Fergal mutters.
"You know the dryer is still in the truck right?" I chuckle. "You haven't even won the first battle yet." I say to him.
"It'd be much easier to get this into the house if you weren't laughin' at us." He replies, glowering at me. "How about some supportive talk from the peanut gallery, yeah?" He suggests.
"Come on boys, show me those how you use them big muscles!" I exclaim, patting Ben on the back. "I wanna see them ripple!" I add making both guys burst out laughing.
"I can't. I'm going to drop the washer." Ben laughs.
"I'm never going to get any laundry done at this rate." I chuckle, rolling my eyes. "I'm going to go in the house, y'all let me know when you get it inside." I tell them, retreating into the garage to go in through the kitchen. It took them another hour to get the dryer into the house, but they were finally in the little foyer area at the back of my house. "Thank you for your help Ben." I smile at him.
"It's no problem." He returns the smile.
"Thanks, mate." Fergal agrees. "I'm going to walk him out, I'll be right back." He tells me. I only nod, heading into the kitchen to start on dinner.
"I see you're making new friends." His voice made me jump, and I put a hand over my heart as I looked up wide eyed at David. He was standing at my back door, Hamlet in his arms.
"Put Hamlet down David, he's not yours." I say through gritted teeth.
"I'll put him down when you give me back my fucking dog." He snarled at me. I was silently begging Fergal to come back into the house, I had no idea what David would do if I yelled out for him to come back.
"Stevie wasn't your dog." I say, trying to stay calm. He takes a few steps further into the house and I step to the side, putting the kitchen island between us. "And he died David, a few months ago." I add.
"What the fucking did you do to him? You never liked Stevie, you wanted him to die!" He accuses me. I furrow my brows and shake my head.
"Stevie was my dog and I loved the fuck out of that dog. He was old David. We all die when we get old." I explain.
"You're a liar." He growls at me.
"I'm only going to tell you one time, to put Hamlet down." I let out a breath of relief when I heard Fergal's voice. He walks into the kitchen a moment later. David only looks amused.
"Or what?" He chuckles. "The fuck did you come from? The lucky charms box?" He ridicules him. Ferg only raises his eyebrows at his insult.
"I'll ruin your life David. Just put down the pig so we can all get on with our day." He suggests, still calm about the situation.
"I don't think so. How about you leave, and stop bothering my girlfriend?" He shoots back at Fergal.
"I'm no-"
"She wants nothing to do with you. But who would? You're crazy as fuck." Fergal exclaims. "Throwing a rock through her window? Breaking in while we're out of town? You're insane. She should have called the cops on you the first time." He says then looks at me. "Babe, go into the living room and call the police." He tells me. I'm still wide eyed, just staring back and forth between the two. "Go." He nods.
"I'll be long gone by then." David chuckles, starting to back up towards the door. I watch almost in slow motion as Fergal closes the gap between them. David sets down Hamlet, who trots over to me, before putting both hands up as if he was going to fight off Fergal.
"Fergal..." I say nervously. David takes a swing at Ferg who grabs his wrist, twists it behind him back and basically slams him into the tile floor. "Oh my god!" I exclaim, peering over the island.
"Go, call, the police." He tells me again. I finally nod, pulling out my cell phone to call the cops.
"Get off me you dumb mother fucker!" David struggles against him. In one fluid movement Fergal lifts David up about a foot and slams him back down, his head bouncing off the tile. David went still, but I could see he was still breathing.
"You're just going to sit on him till the cops come?" I smirk at him.
"Yes." He respond seriously. "He's fine love, just unconscious." He tells me when he sees the worried look on my face. A few minute later there was a knock on the door. "Go answer it." He states.
"He just showed up in your kitchen?" Officer Brennan asked. Billy Brennan was actually a friend of mine, he and his wife lived down the street from me.
"He came through the back door, it's on the cameras." Fergal answers for me.
"I just want him to stop bothering me." I sigh to Brennan.
"He broke into her house a few weeks ago." Ferg adds, shoving his hands in his front pockets. I glower at him, and Brennan looks at me expectantly.
"Why the hell didn't you report that, Annabelle?" He basically scolds me, which makes me glare ever harder at Fergal who was glancing anywhere but me.
"Because there was no proof he did it." I shrug.
"But at least it would have been on record." He tells me. "You want to press charges?" He asks me without actually giving me a choice. It was more like, you're pressing charges so we can put this guy away.
"Yeah..." I sigh softly.
"Good choice." He nods. "Breaking and entering, plus he broke the restraining order you have against him. I'll be honest it won't land him much time but he'll have a monitor on to track his location when he does get out." He tells me. That along makes me feel better. "Come out to my squad, I need you to sign a few things." He adds and I nod, following along behind him.
"I can't believe you threw me under the bus with Brennan like that." I grumble at Fergal when I'd walked back inside. Honestly I was annoyed with him. I know it was immature and I shouldn't be, but I was.
"I didn't throw you under any busses. I was protecting you, I'm trying to keep you safe and the only way that I can do that is to make sure that lunatic stays in jail." He explains. "So if I have to 'throw you under the bus' as you call it, to keep you safe, I will."
"Why are you so fucking sweet?" I growl at him, earning a smirk.
"Will you go out to dinner with me tomorrow night?" He questions. I tilt my head looking at him, honestly a little bit confused.
"What?" I chuckle.
"We've skipped a few steps in this whole thing... But I'd really like to take you out on a date, to dinner, tomorrow night. If you'll let me." He clarifies. "I don't really consider dave and busters and the beach a date."
"I would love to go to dinner with you." I smile shyly, making him grin wide.
***...***...***
It was almost 7 and Fergal would be here any minute, and I wasn't ready. Appearance wise, I was ready, I looked really hot actually... Mentally I wasn't ready for this. Or maybe I was and I was just scared. I hadn't dated anyone since David.
"You look gorgeous, stop chewing your lip like it's gum." Kelly scolds me, letting my last curl fall from the iron. "You really do look gorg." She adds, looking at me through the mirror. She'd come over a couple hours ago just to help me get ready. Hair and make up was her thing, I'd never been gifted at that kind of stuff.
"I haven't been on a date in so long." I murmur to her.
"I don't understand why you're nervous." She says confused. "You've already slept in this guy's bed, you've shared a hotel room with him." She tells me, "Dinner will be easy." She assures me and I nod.
"Yeah." i agree with her, "Yeah, you're right." I say again. I glance at the hall when I hear the front door open and shut.
"Just me!" Fergal calls into the house. "You look absolutely beautiful." He tells me when I walk out of the bedroom. I couldn't help but smile. I also couldn't help but look him over in his black slacks and button up shirt.
"Thank you. You look very handsome." I compliment him, running my fingers down his buttons.
"Thank you, lass." He grins. "Ready?" He asks and I nod. He leads me out to his mini cooper and soon enough we're seated in a corner booth at a little Thai restaurant down town.
"This place is really cute." I tell him softly. It was so quiet inside that I felt like I should whisper or something.
"I hoped you'd like it." He shrugs. "I really have no idea what you like. We've been together a lot the past couple months, but I still don't know that much about you. Except that you love your pig and you like Indian food." He winks and I chuckle.
"I like Thai too." I smirk. "I never thanked you, for defending me against David the other day." I add, "So thank you. Like, so much." I bite my bottom lip.
"You don't need to thank me for that." He shakes his head. I only stare at him, still chewing my lip off. "I haven't taken a girl out since me schoolin' days." He smiles, suddenly thinking about it.
"Why?" I grin, thankful for the subject change.
"I just..." He thinks about it for a moment, "I haven't found a woman that I enjoy spending time with as much as I enjoy my career. Did that make sense?" he questions, looking at me.
"Kind of." I say slowly.
"The past ten years I've been so career driven and focused that nothing has been able to take my blinders off. I dated one girl for a little bit while I was in Progress, but I never had sex with her and I hardly ever saw her. I'd just have rather spent time training." He explains. "I get excited any time I know I'm about to see you. I'm attracted to everything that is you. The way you talk, the way you move, everything about your personality. I get butterflies every time I look at you, and I've never had that feeling before." He shrugs. I'm staring at him, part of me doesn't believe he could feel that way about me. The other part can't believe he'd just admitted all of that. "I find myself wantin' to be with ya all the time."
"I can relate." I manage to tell him. He grins at me, which only makes me smile myself and shake my head a little bit.
"I'm not very good at flirtin', so I wasn't sure if you knew or not." He shrugs.
"Well, you did tell me the night I stayed at your house and you woke me up at 6 in the morning." I tease him.
"I did, didn't I?" He chuckles, nodding his head in agreement. "I'm a little nervous." He says softer.
"We can be nervous together." I tell him. "This is amazing, by the way." I say to him, motioning to the curry I had ordered with my fork.
"It is very good." He agrees with me. "Are you excited to go to Japan?" He asks me. I watched his blue eyes glance around the restaurant for a few seconds before focusing back on me.
"I've never been out of the United States." I reply honestly, "Yes, I am freaking excited." I grin.
"You worked with the company before and you never went on over seas tours?" He asks me, cocking his head at me a little confused.
"I never did those." I shrug simply. "They usually split the roster for that kind of stuff and I always ended up on the half of the roster that stayed in the states." I explain to him. "So thank you, because working for you is getting me out of the country." I smile.
"Well, you're very welcome." He replies. "We'll have to do something fun over there." He suggests.
"You lived there for 8 years, what is there to do is Japan?" I question him.
"There's a lot to do." He answers, taking another bite of his lamb dish that he'd ordered. "I don't want to ruin anything for you, it'll be like a surprised." He smiles at me.
"Ok." I say softly with a nod.
"So will Officer Brennan tell you about like his jail time or something?" He asks me.
"He'll have a court date, that I will not be going to unless they make me." I sigh, "But yes Billy will tell me what's going on. I really don't want to talk about it anymore though, can we stop?" I ask him hopefully.
"Yeah, sorry." He murmurs.
"It's ok, just not anything I want to talk about on a date." I tell him and he chuckles.
"What would you rather talk about?" He humors me. He was looking at me expectantly, his full attention focused on whatever I was going to say.
"What's your family like?" I ask curiously. He pauses, like he wasn't really expecting me to ask something like that.
"They're great." He grins big. "Me mum stayed home with us kids, me dad worked at the station. I have two brothers and a sister." He tells me.
"Do you get homesick much?"
"All the time." He nods. "What about your family?" He asks back.
"My parents live in South Dakota. I have 2 brothers and a sister too, they're all married and all in South Dakota or Minnesota." I explain to him.
"So you moved the furthest." He says as more of a comment than a question. I only nod, agreeing with him. "Are you the baby?" He asks and once again I nod 'yes'. "Your parents must've been heartbroken you left." He chuckles.
"They were. They still are." I chuckle. "Anytime I visit home my mom basically begs me to stay." I tell him.
"Well, they miss you." He smiles.
"Just like yours miss you." I smile back.
"How long since you've been back home?" He wonders.
"Like a year." I shrug simply. "I usually go twice a year for a couple weeks, but I didn't go over the summer because I didn't have the money." I explain to him.
"You have the money now." He states.
"I do. But I don't have time for it in my schedule currently." I reply. "I probably will go back around Christmas." I say. We small talked for another hour or so before we decided it was probably time to go. Since the restaurant was starting to close around us. "I had a really good time tonight." I tell him sincerely. "Thank you."
"You're very welcome." He smiles, shutting the front door behind him as we both walked into my house. "Maybe you'll let me take you out again sometime?" He winks and I chuckle.
"Maybe I will." I agree.
"Maybe..." He starts off softer, closing the small gap of space that was between us. His hand rests on my hip as he looks down at me, "You'll let me call you my girlfriend after tonight?" He asks, even though it sounded a little bit like a suggestions as well. I chewed my lip for a second looking up at him. He was serious. My heart was beating faster than usual.
"Ok." I say it in barely a whisper.
"Is that a yes?" He smiles widely.
"Yes." I grin.
It was time for me to start moving on from David and to learn that there are guys out there that will treat women the way they should be treated... And I think Fergal was just the guy to do that for me.