I'll just let you read and I'll leave the important stuff in my author's note at the end...

-x-x-x-

"Since when do you cook?" I ask Emily skeptically.

"Since you told me that you've never had a girl cook for you before," she answers sheepishly, a slight blush creeping its way onto her cheeks.

I make my way to the other side of the kitchen island and wrap my arms around Emily's waist from behind, pressing a gentle kiss to her shoulder that is exposed in the tank top she's wearing and whispering my thanks in her ear.

I peek over Emily's shoulder and watch as she takes a piece of chicken from her right and places it in the bowl in front of her with the breading. She shakes it around and drops a couple handfuls of breading on it, packing it down with her fingers to make sure it sticks. As soon as it is completely covered, she repeats the process with another piece.

"Can you get two big pots out of that cabinet? Fill one up with water and boil the noodles and get the container of sauce I made earlier out of the fridge and put it in the other to heat up," Emily asks, tilting her head to the side to catch my eye.

I nod against her shoulder blade and release my grip on her to do as she asked. Emily gets a cast iron skillet out of the cabinet and pours a bit of vegetable oil in the bottom. She puts in on the spot next to me on the stovetop to let it heat up a bit before she cooks the chicken. When she feels it has warmed up enough, she picks the chicken up on a fork and slowly lowers it into the pan. As Emily and I make conversation, it feels like the chicken cooks in no time. The breading turning a crisp golden brown.

"Go take a seat at the table while I put all this stuff together," Emily tells me with a peck on the cheek.

I concede and sit at the table, glasses of red wine in front of my seat and Emily's seat across from me. When Emily approaches the table with our food and places it in front of me, I'm in awe of how good it looks. The chicken is resting on a bed of noodles with sauce covering it all, mozzarella cheese melted over the top. My mouth waters at the sight.

"And dinner is served," Emily declares as she takes her place across from me, taking a sip of her wine.

"This looks incredible, Em."

"Try it."

I pick up my knife and fork, easily cutting into the chicken before twirling some noodles onto the fork with it. Emily watches in anticipation as I take my bite.

"And it tastes even better," I moan as the flavors invade my tastebuds.

"Well, I can't take all the credit. I had a pretty amazing assistant."

"Aw, thanks."

"What are you talking about? I was talking about my mom helping me with the sauce," she jokes. I give her a pointed look and she chuckles. "Kidding. Thank you, Han. You were a great help."

I smile and take another bite.

After a while, we finish eating and I rise from my seat to clean the dishes. I go to grab Emily's plate, but she stops me.

"No, I got this. You just go into the living room and relax," Emily directs me as she takes the plates from me and makes her way over to the sink.

"Are you sure? I don't mind."

"Positive. Go relax."

I go to the living room and just kinda look around a little bit. Even though we've been friends since October and it's now almost April, this is only the second time I've been in Emily's house, the first time we just went straight up to her room to study. We're usually at mine or hanging out around town or in Philly.

I walk over to the wall of shelves. It's full of books, mostly war journals that I'm sure are her dad's favorite books seeing as he's a military man, and a ton of pictures of Emily throughout the years. I smile as I walk along looking at them until I reach an old record player. My grandmother used to have one and I would listen to it all the time when I was younger. Without a second thought, I started it up and listened as the smooth music came flowing out before continuing through the living room.

When Emily came in, she noticed the music instantly and a soft smile graced her face. She came over to me and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and gazed at her questioningly.

"Dance with me," she said softly as she held out her hand. I blushed and placed my hand in hers. She wrapped her arm around my waist and pulled me in close to her, the hand that was clutching mine pressed over her heart. I wrapped my other arm around her shoulder and held her just as close. As we began swaying to the soft beat of the music Emily broke eye contact to tilt her head forward and rest her cheek on the side of my head. I turned my head to lay on her chest, her cheek now resting on my forehead. As we danced slowly to the music, pressed together as tight as possible, it was like we were the only ones in the world. Nothing else existed.

Too soon for our liking, the record scratched, signaling the end of the set. Emily and I pulled away from each other slowly, our eyes locking and igniting an electric charge in the air between us.

"Want to watch a movie?" Emily whispers.

"Yeah, sure. You pick," I smile.

We break apart as Emily goes to pick out a DVD and I crash onto the couch. Emily queues up the movie and crosses the room with a mischievous look in her eye. I'm confused as to why until the DVD title screen comes up. The Conjuring.

"Emily! No. You know I hate scary movies," I whine.

"Pleaseeee," Emily begs with her puppy dog eyes.

"Em," I sigh dejectedly.

"You'll be fine. I promise. I'm right here."

I look between her and the screen warily before I finally agree. Within the first twenty minutes I'm already scared shitless. I don't know why I agreed to this. I hate scary movies. I get scared way too easily and jump at every little thing. I keep scooting closer and closer to Emily until I'm practically sitting in her lap. My legs are folded over hers, one arm wrapped tightly around her waist with a death grip on her shirt, the other tucked right against her side, and my forehead pressed against her neck. Every time I get scared I turn my face to hide in Emily's hair and Emily pulls me closer to her by the arm wrapped around my back and then runs her fingertips up and down my back to soothe me, all the while pressing soft kisses to the side of my head and whispering words of comfort in between.

After what feels like the longest movie of my life, it's finally over.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize how scared of these movies you really are. I shouldn't have made you watch it," Emily apologizes softly into my hair.

"It's okay, but I get to pick what we do now."

"Go for it."

My eyes wander around the room, looking for ideas, before my gaze locks onto the Wii. I get up and sift through the games, hoping that Emily will have the one I'm looking for. Ah ha! Got it. I remove the game from its case and put it in the console before grabbing two remotes and returning to the couch. I had Emily her remote with a smug smile and take my seat.

"Mario Cart?! You are so going down!" Emily says excitedly.

I scoff, "Dream on, Fields. Get ready to lose."

"Whatever, pick your track, Marin."

I roll my eyes and search though the track list before finally picking one.

"Rainbow Road? How appropriate," Emily laughs.

-x-x-x-

"Damn it! How are you so good at every single game we play?" Emily groans as I beat her for the fifth time in a row.

"What do you say we make the next race interesting?" I ask with a raised eyebrow.

"How so?"

"If I win, then you have to... chug a bottle of hot sauce!" I laugh.

"And if I win?" she counters.

"Pick your own terms."

"If I win..." Emily draws out as she looks around the room, "you say yes to being my girlfriend," she finishes as brown eyes collide with blue.

"Deal," I reply, trying to hide my grin.

The race starts and I instantly pull out into first place, Emily right behind me. For the next two laps, I manage to avoid all obstacles and create a larger gap between Emily and I. I can tell how bad she wants to win this race and I can't help but smile.

We reach the last turn of the track on the last lap and Emily has gained a little bit of ground on me, she's now only a few car lengths away and gaining on me with each passing second. We are about five seconds away from crossing the finish line and Emily thinks she's lost, but at the last second I slam on the breaks and Emily goes flying past me, winning the race.

I turn my head to the side to look at Emily and I find her gaping at the screen in shock.

"Looks like I lost," I smirk.

Emily's eyes snap over to me and the biggest smile I have ever seen slides across her face, her little dimple showing and her eyes bright. She grabs my face between both hands and kisses me with intent. She pulls away breathlessly and wraps her arms around me tightly, burying her face in my neck.

"Thank you. Thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for giving me a chance. Thank you for everything," she says.

"You're welcome," I smile against her head. "I love you, Em."

She pulls back with tears in her eyes, "I love you too, so much."

-x-x-x-

Ahhh! How's that? (;

So, unfortunately, this is the end of this story :(

BUT, I know there are a few of you who made some requests along the way that didn't make it into the story SO I'm thinking about doing a one-shot series of those requests, missing scenes, maybe some future stuff too if you're up for that. Let me if that's something you're interested in and maybe leave scene requests?

My classes start back on Monday and my goal was to have this story finished before I went back, which I did! With a new semester starting, I don't know how much time I will have to write and I never wanted to make you wait too long for updates on this. I feel like if I just do one-shots I will be less anxious about updating in a timely manner, I can just update as I write and not have to worry about you guys not remembering what happened previously since they can all be read individually.

You can leave me requests (for the one-shot series or for a new story) in the reviews, PM me, or inbox me on Tumblr (buttahbenzoobsessed).

Thank you to everyone who stuck with me throughout this story! You've been incredible! Love you all so much! Until next time... xoxox