The ride to Lydia's apartment was silent except for her giving Arthur the directions. She suddenly felt awkward around him again, but she wasn't sure why. It didn't help that she kept stealing glances to look at him. She knew he wasn't this handsome the last time they saw each other.

"Does Vulko still come around?" Lydia asked when they were almost to the apartment.

"Not really," Arthur answered with a shrug. "Pretty sure he figured once I became an adult I didn't need any training anymore. You remember any of that training we did with him?"

"Of course I do. I just wish I had a weapon like you did. Then I could've done a little more training."

"Yeah, well I don't think we're gonna need to use that training any time soon."

"True."

Lydia glanced over at Arthur again, catching him doing the same.

"You should really be watching the road ya know."

Arthur snorted out a laugh, looking back over to Lydia for a moment.

"So, you can get away with staring, but I can't?"

"I wasn't staring."

Arthur could see right through her words; it didn't help that she was blushing madly, too. Lydia looked out the passenger window to try and prove that she was never staring but found herself looking over at him again.

"See," Arthur said triumphantly. "Can't keep your eyes off me."

"Well I see someone hasn't lost any of their ego," Lydia retorted with a mischievous smile.

They'd reached the apartment by then and Lydia led Arthur up to it, not even daring to try and look back at him. As she entered, it certainly didn't feel like home to her. It was still too unfamiliar to be considered a home yet. Going into the kitchen, she turned on the light over the table and turned to face Arthur.

"I'm gonna grab the kids' clothes real quick," she said before walking past him again into the hallway. She decided it would be best to get two outfits for each of them, just in case. She went and set them on the kitchen table before going back down the hallway to her room. She grabbed a change of clothes for herself and a few other essentials she would need the next morning before going into the small bathroom to grab a few other essentials for her and the twins. She wasn't really thinking about what she was doing, and suddenly thought about needing something to carry everything in. This made her go back to her bedroom and dig out a duffel bag from her closet, but what she wasn't expecting was for Arthur to be right behind the closet door when she closed it.

"Jesus, Arthur, you trying to give me a heart attack?" she asked him after bumping into him. He tried to hide the smirk on his face but was unsuccessful.

"I was actually gonna see if you wanted some help," he said in an amused tone. "Wasn't trying to scare you, I swear."

Lydia raised an eyebrow at him, finally making eye contact. Suddenly she was hyper aware of the fact that she never backed away from him when she initially ran into him, but she stayed rooted to the spot. He was simply staring at her unabashedly, and she couldn't find it in her to look away from him, either.

"You have no idea how much I missed you after you left," Arthur said in a low voice, as if he were trying to make sure no one else could hear him despite the rest of the apartment being empty.

"I know," Lydia responded in an equally quiet tone, finally looking away from Arthur's eyes to stare into his chest. "I missed you, too. My time in Boston, at least those last few years of high school, were some of the hardest years of my life. A big part of that was being ripped away from my best friend when I needed him most."

"We would've been more than friends if you'd stayed and you know that."

"You think so?"

"Of course."

Lydia looked up at Arthur again to see a smile tugging at his lips and Lydia couldn't help but do the same.

"You're my girl," he continued, gently placing his hands on her hips. He stepped forward just slightly, closing the gap between them.

"I hated myself for allowing my mother to make me leave," Lydia said, looking away again. "If I'd fought against her wishes just a little bit harder, I probably could've stayed, even if that meant getting kicked out of the house."

"I'm just glad you came back."

Arthur placed a finger under Lydia's chin, slowly raising her head to make her meet his eyes. She'd forgotten how his eyes were such a strange color – not quite hazel, not quite green, but somewhere in the middle.

"I've always loved your eye color," Lydia said, her nervousness making her want to ramble. "April has the same color. Once I knew her eyes would be that color it bothered me for a while, but eventually I was able to get over it."

"And what about Arthur?"

"He has my eyes."

"How many people in his life have tried to tell him they're blue?" Arthur asked with a small chuckle, knowing full well that if his son had the same eye color as his mother, they were not blue but gray.

"Too many," Lydia said, also chuckling. "When he was five or six, he used to get so defensive over it. It was actually very cute to watch."

They stood in silence again, just enjoying the other's company even if they were standing a little closer than they should've been. Arthur bent down slowly and let his lips brush against Lydia's. She gripped his arms to keep her balance, their height difference making it hard for her to stand straight. Arthur kissed her a little more forcefully, practically lifting Lydia up so she was standing on her toes.

"Ya know, the only thing that ever bothered me about you is how goddamn short you are," Arthur said in a teasing tone after the kiss. Lydia gasped in fake anger, lightly hitting his chest before smiling at him.

"I can't help I'm from a family of short people," she retorted, moving her arms so she had them around his neck. "And how do you think I feel having to crane my neck so much just to look at you properly?"

Arthur held back a laugh and shrugged before Lydia noticed a mischievous glint in his eye.

"There is one way to displace the height difference," he said suggestively, holding onto Lydia a little tighter. She raised an eyebrow at him, suspicious of what he had planned even though she knew exactly what he was thinking about. Without warning he hoisted her up and turned towards the bed, eliciting a small yelp from Lydia from the sudden jerk. He gently settled her onto the middle of the bed, effectively trapping her there by straddling her.

"You know I saw that coming," Lydia said with an uncontrolled grin after Arthur kissed her again.

"That yelp told me you weren't," Arthur said with a triumphant smirk. Lydia rolled her eyes at him before putting a hand on the back of his neck and pulling him to her for another kiss. She let herself get lost in the familiar sensation, but eventually had to pull away because of one unfamiliar sensation – Arthur's hair. It had grown quite a bit since the last time they found themselves together like that and was tickling her neck.

"I guess I know how you feel with me leaning over you now," she said, unable to wipe the stupid grin from her face as she attempted to move Arthur's hair out of her way. Arthur couldn't help but lower himself closer to her as he rested against his forearms, full-on belly laughing at her. When he looked at her again, she had a sour look on her face.

"I'm sorry," he said, his laughing only just dying off his lips. "I'm promise I'm not laughing at you. I just thought what you said was pretty funny. And true, if you're curious."

Lydia shook her head before giggling, having held back her own laugh once he'd started. She couldn't remember the last time she'd smiled so much in such a short period of time. As a matter of fact, she wasn't sure she'd ever seen Arthur smile as much as he was then.

"You know, you should smile more often," she said before Arthur could start kissing her again. "I get that you have a bad boy reputation to hold up, but it wouldn't kill ya to look like you were a halfway pleasant person some of the time. The broody face can get old."

"'Broody face'?" Arthur asked, finding Lydia's words funny again as he chuckled. "Never heard it called that before, but okay. Doesn't mean I'm gonna be lookin' all happy and shit all the time."

Lydia smirked and was about to say something else, but Arthur stole her breath away with another kiss. But this time, it was a deeper kiss and more passionate than the others. There were feelings behind the kiss that neither had felt in several years. He took a chance and let himself rest against her body and she inhaled deeply, trying to hold back everything that one simple move made her feel. Arthur continued to kiss her and reached one hand down to her waist, lifting the hem of her shirt to caress the bare skin of her waist. It made her breath hitch, and Lydia felt the need to break the kiss in order to catch her breath, but Arthur only broke away from her for a second. He continued to move his hand up her torso, taking her shirt with it. Suddenly a cell phone started going off and made Lydia jump and accidentally headbutt Arthur. He sighed in defeat and sat up, hoping that whatever interrupted them was important. He barely looked at the screen before answering the call.