Together

Why I Love Her

Oh my goodness, I have to thank you all for that love on the first chapter of this book. I'm so glad that you're all excited! (I am too!)  with that being said, here's the second chapter. I hope you all like it as much as the first! Comment/vote please!
-ab

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September 29, 2025

Patrick

"How was it, love?" I ask my fiancee as she gets home from her rehearsal. I wasn't expecting her to be home from work after me, but she is.

"It was nice," she replies. "The tube was absolutely insane trying to get home, though. I had to wait two trains until there was even room for me to get onto it, and even then, it was absolutely packed."

"Love," I laugh, "you know that I don't want to hear about the tube. Tell me about rehearsal. Your cast. Do I need to feel threatened by any of the guys there? Are the girls nice?"

"Honestly," she laughs, "I really only talked to the guy who plays Dimitri. We were whisked off pretty quickly to do work on our solo songs."

"Well, was he nice?"

"Yeah. We have both done Les Mis, and I actually saw him in the show when I was a teenager."

"That's crazy," he laughs. "So he's quite a bit older than you are?"

"Yeah, Toby said that he just turned thirty."

"Well, as long as he plays a good Dimitri, then that doesn't matter, does it?"

"Nope," she tells me. "And he's great."

"I bet that the two of you sound great together. Just... don't enjoy kissing him too much."

"Oh boy," Harper rolls her eyes with a laugh. "Listen up, Patrick Alwyn. I only have eyes for you, and you know that. Plus, you're way hotter than he is."

"Aw, shucks," I tease her, playfully hitting her arm. "I love you, babe."

"I love you too."

"So," I ask, after we share a quick little kiss, "is your rehearsal schedule this crazy for the whole week?"

"Yeah," she tells me. "And I'm meeting up with Nessa and Katherine for dinner after my reherasal on Friday. I guess Kath's Nutcracker is slightly ahead of schedule, so their director is letting them all out two hours early on Friday. We have to start planning for Taylor's concert."

"You're so crazy," I laugh. "You're sure that you don't want Taylor to know that you have tickets?"

"Nope. I want to remember what it was like to be a fan, and sit up in the upper bowl wearing a tutu, dancing my heart out."

"Taylor thinks I'm pretty cruel for coming to this concert without you, you know."

"Taylor thinks that I need to save my vocal cords for a Monday show. I mean, it isn't a lie, but I'll be alright... hopefully. I'll just steam and consume lots of tea that day."

I roll my eyes at her. "You're crazy, you know that?"

"You love me," she giggles.

"That's true. I love you more than anything in the world."

Harper and I love our evenings spent together- we aren't going to be getting them very often, starting November 3rd, so we know that we are going to have to savour them for now.

The two of us cuddle up on the sofa, and end up getting absorbed into a movie which we find playing on the telly.

"Patrick," she whispers to me, "I can't wait until I get to call you my husband."

"And I can't wait until I get to call you my wife," I tell her, running my hands through her strawberry blonde hair. "Your hair is so long, love. I don't know how you do it."

"You're one to talk," she teases, pushing a strand of my dirty blonde hair out of my eyes. "We can go for a couple's haircut."

"Touche," I laugh.

"But I'm only getting the ends trimmed. I like it long like this, really."

"Are you wearing a wig for Anastasia?"

"God, yes," she replies. "You've never actually seen the show, have you?"

"I've not."

"There are lots of different hairstyles that are required, and they're all really complicated. It would be a giant mess if I didn't wear wigs."

"Well, then I'm glad that you will be," I tell her.

"I should take you to the show sometime so that you can know what I'm talking about."

"No," I protest. "I want to see the show for the first time with you in it, so that I can always have that image of my gorgeous, soon-to-be wife when I think of the show."

"I like it when you call me that."

"Well, then maybe I should start saying it more often, because I really like what it feels like to say."

She giggles a little bit as she snuggles in a bit closer to me.

If you were to ask me what it is, exactly, about Harper which causes me to be so in love, I don't think that I'd be quite able to tell you. There's so many things. Of course, I think that she's drop dead gorgeous, but it's so much beyond that. It's all of her little quirks. Her love of Taylor Swift, the fact that she knows probably every word to every musical ever written, how she finds fruits and cookies more satisfying if they've been refrigerated or frozen, instead of at room temperature. It's all of the parts of her which only I get to see. Her smile when she wakes up in the morning, her tears when she's had a hard day, the way that she jumps when something scares her.

I just wish that I could hold her in my arms, and never let her go.

I'm not going to lie, I'm a little bit jealous of this Toby guy who she spoke of. He gets to kiss her. I suppose that is the challenge of dating somebody who works in theatre- I can't have her kisses as only mine.

But it's okay. When Harper kisses Toby, it's really just going to be their characters kissing. It's Anya kissing Dimitri. It isn't actually Harper kissing Toby, right?

When I snap back to reality after being lost in thought, I realize that my fiancee has fallen asleep in my arms. Even though it's quite early, she has had a long day. It's been quite some time since she has rehearsed for a show like this. It has been since before we met, as the matter of fact.

She isn't used to putting in the amounts of work which she put in today, in spite of the fact that it was amazing that she did so.

I try not to wake her up as I pick her up, bridal style, and carry her into the bedroom. She wakes up a little bit, but goes back to sleep almost instantly.

Without even bothering to change her into pyjamas, I simply tuck her under the duvet, then change and join her. I think that both of us could use the extra few hours of sleep.