Not the Last Time

Michelle had a ritual for the days she worked at McDonald's.

Get home. Shower. Change. Breathe again.

It wasn't that she was ashamed of her job. Far from it. She was nineteen, she had bills to pay, and she had plans for her future that required more money than she could conjure out of thin air. There was nothing wrong with earning a living by flipping burgers and working the fryers. Plenty of people did it, and plenty of people worked harder jobs for less money. Anyone who looked down on her because she wore a uniform and handed out food at a counter could take their opinion and shove it somewhere unpleasant.

Still, none of that meant she wanted to smell like a kitchen when she got home.

The scent clung to everything after a shift. Grease, cooking oil, fried potatoes, and the unmistakable aroma of meat that seemed to sink into the fibres of her clothes. Even her hair picked up the smell, along with a faint film of grease that made her feel as though she needed to scrub her scalp twice to get properly clean. By the end of a busy shift, Michelle could practically feel the restaurant following her around.

Her shower was the dividing line between work and the rest of her life. Under the hot water, she could wash away the smell, loosen the tension in her shoulders, and let the chatter of the kitchen fade from her head. Afterward came clean clothes, a little lotion, and the wonderful feeling of being herself again.

Today, there was an even better reason to hurry through the routine.

Roy was home.

Michelle had heard him moving around the apartment as she shut off the water. A drawer opened. Something thumped against the floor. Then came the unmistakable rasp of a zipper.

She frowned, reaching for her towel.

What was he doing?

The sound came from the bedroom. Their bedroom.

Their bedroom. The thought still made her ridiculously happy. She'd spent so much of her life trying to build a future that would belong to her, a future where she didn't have to depend on someone else's goodwill or worry that the ground might disappear beneath her feet. And now she had Roy, a man who made her feel safe without making her feel small, and a life that seemed to grow brighter every time she looked at it.

Wrapping the towel around herself, Michelle hurried out of the bathroom, nearly slipping on the last step because she'd been too impatient to dry her feet properly.

Then she saw him.

Roy stood beside the bed with a large suitcase open in front of him. A pile of clothes rested inside, folded in his usual careful, slightly uneven way. More clothes lay on the bed beside him, along with a toiletry bag and a pair of shoes. For a moment, Michelle simply stared. Then the realization arrived all at once.

He'd decided.

They were moving!

"Mister Man!"

Michelle squealed and launched herself at him. Roy barely had time to turn before she was in his arms, her damp skin pressed against his shirt. The towel slipped loose and fell to the floor, forgotten as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

"When were you going to tell me?" she demanded, pulling back just far enough to see his face. "You can't just start packing a giant suitcase without warning me! Do you know how hard it's been waiting for you to make this decision?"

Roy laughed, his cheeks colouring as he held her securely around the waist.

"Well, you were in the shower," he said. "I thought I'd let you finish before announcing a major life change."

"Baby, I want you to disturb me in the shower! Especially with news like this!"

The words came out with such absolute sincerity that Roy's blush deepened. Michelle grinned. Making him blush was one of life's small but satisfying pleasures, right up there with finding an extra nugget at the bottom of a takeout bag and discovering a sale on something she'd been saving up to buy.

"You're moving in with Jessica," she said, as if she needed to hear it aloud to make the decision real.

"That's the plan."

"All of us?"

"That's the plan, too."

Michelle let out another squeal and hugged him so tightly that he made a small, theatrical noise of protest.

"Oh my God. Oh my God! We're actually doing it!" She pressed her face against his neck, smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. "We're all going to live together!"

"That's the general idea, sweetheart."

"You're going to have to get used to me being excited about this for, like, the next six months."

"I think I can manage that."

She kissed him again, this time on the mouth. The kiss was quick and a little clumsy because she was laughing, but that hardly mattered. Roy was here. The suitcase was real. The move was happening. For once, something she'd hoped for was actually coming together rather than turning into another obstacle she had to find a way around. Then another thought occurred to her.

"Do the other girls know?"

Roy's expression shifted slightly. "I've told Jessica. I haven't had a chance to talk to Elaine or Zara yet. And I wanted to make sure the idea was still okay with everyone."

Michelle stared at him. Then she stared at the suitcase. Then she looked back at him.

"Baby," she said, with all the patience she could muster, which wasn't much, "you are standing in our bedroom with a suitcase packed full of your clothes. Nobody is going to want to be left out of this."

"Only some of my clothes."

"That is not the important part of what I said!"

Roy chuckled. "Fair enough."

"Can I tell them?" Michelle was already pulling away from him, looking towards the side table where she'd plugged her phone in. The device was charging beside her lamp, tantalizingly close and yet somehow a million miles away. "Please? Can I? Let me tell them!"

"Okay, okay." Roy raised his free hand in surrender. "Go for it. I'll keep packing."

Michelle darted across the bedroom, unconcerned about her complete lack of clothing. Her towel lay in a heap near the bathroom door, but there were more important things happening in the world than maintaining a modest appearance around the man who'd already seen every inch of her.

Besides, Roy was family.

The word made her smile as she scooped up her phone.

Family.

She hadn't always been sure she'd get one of those. Not a happy one, anyway. Her father had been a good man, and she'd loved him terribly, but his death had changed the shape of her life in ways she'd never entirely known how to explain. Her mother had tried to hold everything together, and Michelle had tried to do the same, until the two of them had become so tangled up in their grief and expectations that loving each other had started to hurt.

Now there was Roy. There were the other women. There was a big house waiting for them, a chance to build something that wasn't defined by all the things they'd lost.

Michelle flopped onto the bed on her back, one leg bent at the knee, and opened the group chat she'd created with the women. Elaine, Jessica, Zara, and, of course, her mom. Her thumbs flew across the screen.

She hit send and watched the message appear. The responses started almost immediately.

Michelle laughed so loudly that Roy glanced over from the suitcase.

The warmth in Elaine's message made Michelle's smile soften. Elaine had a way of saying things that made them feel simple and true. No grand declarations, no pretending that everything would be perfect. Just the quiet confidence that they could build something good together.

Michelle paused at her mother's message.

Not long ago, she would never have imagined reading those words in a group chat with her boyfriend's other girlfriends. Her mother had been furious about Roy, convinced that he was taking advantage of her daughter. Their confrontation at Walmart had left Michelle hurt and angry, carrying the familiar ache of feeling as though her mother couldn't trust her to make her own decisions.

Things had obviously changed since then. Her mother's affection for Roy was now a fact of life, as ordinary to Michelle's mom as it had once seemed impossible. Michelle had known that Roy could win her over. How could he not? He was the most wonderful man she'd ever met. And now that her mother had come around to seeing how good Roy was for Michelle, of course she had started to feel the same way about herself.

Roy had given them a chance to start over.

Now, thinking back, the argument seemed small. Petty, even. Michelle couldn't imagine a world where both she and her mom were hopelessly in love with this wonderful man. She couldn't see any reason to fight, at least no reason attached to Roy.

Michelle laughed again, kicking one foot against the mattress. She could practically hear Zara talking as she read the messages, all rapid-fire enthusiasm and absolutely no internal filter. There was something wonderful about having a friend who could turn a conversation about moving into a house into a discussion about beds, spreadsheets, and party management.

Then Jessica's next message appeared.

Michelle tilted her head. That sounded serious.

Michelle glanced at Roy. He was kneeling beside the suitcase now, folding another shirt and placing it carefully on top of the others. The sight made her heart do a little somersault.

"Hey, baby?" she called.

Roy looked up. "Yeah?"

"I'm coming with you tonight, right? To Jessica's?"

"Of course. I thought we'd take some of these things over together."

"Good!" Michelle returned her attention to the chat and typed.

Michelle grinned and set the phone back on its charger. She was still smiling when she leaned back against the pillows, stretching her arms above her head and gazing at the ceiling.

The same ceiling she'd stared at so many times since she moved in. Before Roy, she'd lain awake worrying about money, work, the future, and whether she'd ever manage to get where she wanted to be. But since Roy had allowed her to move in, she'd begun falling asleep feeling safer than she'd ever expected to feel. This apartment had been the first place in a long time where she'd started imagining a life rather than merely trying to survive one.

She would miss it.

The little kitchen. The familiar scuff on the living room floor. The bedroom window that let in a thin strip of sunlight in the mornings. The sound of Roy moving around in the next room. All those ordinary details had become wrapped up in her memories of being with him, of learning how good it could feel to be loved without having to earn every scrap of affection.

This place was hers and Roy's. It mattered.

But Jessica's house would matter, too. It would become the place where everyone gathered, where the women could learn how to live together, where Michelle could see Roy at breakfast and talk to Zara over coffee and maybe, finally, work out what kind of relationship she wanted with her mother now that their lives had become so tangled together.

A new ceiling, a new bedroom, a new chapter.

Michelle smiled at the thought.

"Roy?"

Her voice came out quieter than she'd intended.

He looked over from the suitcase. "Yes, sweetheart?"

"We're leaving here soon."

"I know."

Michelle turned her head to look at him. "How about one last time in here? For memories."

For a moment, Roy simply regarded her. The warmth in his expression made her stomach flutter, that familiar mixture of affection and anticipation that still seemed almost too wonderful to be real. Then he set aside the shirt he'd been folding and rose to his feet.

"Michelle," he said, beginning to unbutton his own shirt, "we have the lease on this place at least until the end of the month."

She blinked.

A slow smile spread across her face.

"You're saying..."

"I'm saying that we don't have to make tonight the last time."

Michelle laughed, reaching for him as he came around the bed. "You know, Mister Man, sometimes you say the smartest things."

"Only sometimes?"

"Don't get greedy."

Roy leaned down and kissed her, and Michelle forgot all about the ceiling, the suitcase, the group chat, and the mysterious conversation waiting for them at Jessica's house. For a little while, there was only the man she loved and the apartment that had been theirs.

They had a whole new home ahead of them.

But there was still time to make a few more memories here.

Author's note: Holy crap! Story of the week again! Yeah! Thanks for all the reads on this crazy story!