Sprousehart Oneshots

Those three words

"God, this is beautiful." Lili said, leaning onto the reeling of Debbie's balcony, crooking her head a little to not stare directly into the sun.

Cole looked up from stroking one of the cats behind its ears.

"She sure has a great view from up here." he said, standing up and making his way over to her. He slung his arm around her shoulder lazily and she leaned into him just a little bit, just enough to make this warm and giddy feeling spread inside him.

For a second, he gave into the thought that in a few years' time, they could be standing on a terrace too, watching over L. A. while the sun was sinking on the horizon. But then it would be their place, maybe with their own puppy running around instead of the cats. They were only a few months into their relationship and still trying to figure things out, but somehow, he was sure that it would be happening. Maybe it wouldn't even be L. A., their way of life made it very likely that it could be any other place, but he knew that it would be with her.

They stood there for a while, just looking at the sun slowly go down, leaning onto each other and when the sun had almost disappeared, Lili asked:

"So, what do you wanna do now?"

A low grumble from her stomach answered the question for her.

She blushed and buried her face into his neck.

"That answers the question, I guess." Cole laughed. "Take out?"

Lili shook her head. "Maybe we could... I mean you live here too, so we can take out groceries of the fridge, right? Maybe we could cook up some pasta?"

He raised an eyebrow at her: "Us? Cooking? You remember the last time we tried that?"

His mind wandered back to that one night in Vancouver when they tried to get pasta done and actually managed to burn sauce. (Okay yeah, maybe they got... distracted).

"Well, only practice makes you better." Lili shrugged.

"Yeah, but I'm not sure if Debby would appreciate us burning her kitchen down"

Lili rolled her eyes. "We won't. Cooooooome on! Pretty please?"

"You know I can't say no when you look at me like that. That's not fair." Cole huffed.

"Pleaaaaaase." she said again, and he sighed.

"Okay, but I tell you, the kitchen is going to be a mess and you are going to explain it to Debby if we burn it down."

"Deal."

...

He had been right. It took them about 30 minutes to turn the kitchen into a whole battle field.

"This is only pasta? How did we end up like that?" Lili asked, throwing her hands in the air.

"I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so." Cole answered, while looking around for a rag to clean up all the sauce that had spilled from the overboiling pot.

"Don't get all cocky about it." she scoffed.

"But..." Cole pushed his bottom lip forward, making her laugh despite all the mess around the kitchen. "I like to be right."

She stepped closer, circling his neck with her arms and looked up at him. "You sure do, don't you?"

"Mhm." he mumbled, leaning in to kiss her. But before he could lean down all the way, her hand had shoot out towards the pot, dipped into it and smudged sauce all over his face.

He stood there, stunned for a moment, then he narrowed his eyes at her.

"Oh, you didn't Reinhart."

Lili put her hands to her hips and grinned at him defiantly. "I sure did. What your gonna do about it?"

They stared at each other for a minute, then Lili took off, wildly giggling and Cole sprinted after her. By the time they reached the living room, Cole caught her by the waist, picking her up, dropping her down on the couch and tickling her mercilessly until she was laughing so much that tears were streaming down her face.

"Stop." she breathed out, between her giggles. "Please, I can't breathe anymore."

Cole let go off her and they both sat up, Lili catching her breath while slumping back on the couch. He looked over at her and couldn't help but stare. She was even more beautiful when she smiled or laughed although he had thought that wouldn't be possible. He looked at her for her a second, trying to find words to say and then:

"God, I love you." it just came out, without him even thinking about it.

Lili froze and turned her head towards him. It took a minute for her brain to catch up to what he just said, because although she might have thought about those three little words, about saying them to him and viceversa, she hadn't been sure how to go about it. But now he had said it first and she realized that it had been easy all along. So she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, leaned in for an almost bruising kiss and then mumbled against his lips: "I love you too."