Engaged

Chapter 10

It was dark when Elizabeth walked up the path to Iain's parents' front door.

She rang the doorbell, and waited. A few seconds later she heard footsteps coming towards the door, and a second later it opened to present Iain.

"Lil!" he exclaimed. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes, yes, Iain, I'm fine," assured Elizabeth quickly, before he could become too worried.

But before she could say anything more, they heard Iain's mum call out from further in the house, "Let her in, dear! Don't leave her standing outside!"

Iain raised an eyebrow at Elizabeth as he stepped aside to let her in, and said, "Seems like someone knew you were coming tonight."

Elizabeth smiled sheepishly. "I had to make sure it would be okay for me to come stay a few days before I flew up here, but I wanted to surprise you. So, surprise — here I am!"

Iain quickly shut the door closed behind them before turning and hugging her tightly.

"And surprised and very happy to see you I am, for sure," replied Iain. "And speaking of surprised, I thought it was going to be a day or two before you came by."

"I did say that, but I always knew it might actually be tonight," answered Elizabeth. "I just didn't want to say anything since I didn't know how other things would go, and I could have always stayed with my parents until I could make it up here if need be."

"Oh, yeah — other things. Have you...?"

Iain trailed off, clearly unwilling to complete the rest of the question. Elizabeth rolled her eyes at him.

"Did I break up with my fiancé, you mean?" she completed slightly teasingly. "Yes — I am officially a free woman now."

Iain grinned brightly. "I know we said we were going to wait a while, but —"

Elizabeth didn't bother replying, instead grabbing his face and pulling him down for a searing kiss. Iain wrapped one hand around her back as the other tangled in her hair, as one of Elizabeth's hands slid around to grip the short hair on the back of his neck, the other sliding down to his shoulder.

They didn't break apart until they heard a teasing, "Well, you did at least let her inside."

They had completely missed the sound of Iain's mum's footsteps coming towards them, too absorbed exploring each other's lips.

Breaking apart, they both looked sheepishly at the mother De Caestecker, but she merely said, "Hi, Elizabeth, glad you made it safely. And don't worry about an old woman like me, though I do believe there are some details my son failed to enlighten me of."

"It's not his fault, Mrs De Caestecker," said Elizabeth quickly. "He didn't know anything for sure until I just told him right before I kissed him. But yes, I have broken it off with my now ex-fiancé. And as for Iain and I, we're technically not actually dating yet, but we have promised to start to soon and I just couldn't help but kiss him now that I can."

"Well don't let me stop you, I just wanted to say hi and make sure my son didn't make you stand out on the front porch as you two talked. And the guest bedroom is of course all made up like normal if you want it, but don't worry, neither myself nor my husband will say anything if you choose to sleep in a different room."

"Mum!" exclaimed Iain.

But Mrs De Caestecker merely laughed and said, "There's fresh cookies in kitchen dears," before heading out of the room and leaving Elizabeth and Iain alone again.

"Sorry about that," sighed Iain. "Mums, you know."

But Elizabeth rested her hand on his upper arm and said, "I think she's wonderful. Now what about those cookies?"

~AoS~

A few hours later, Iain's parents had bid them goodnight, and Iain and Elizabeth were sitting alone on the living room couch.

"Tomorrow I want to know how things went with your ex, but not tonight," Iain said after a while. "I'm too happy you're here to let anything mess that up tonight, and you've seemed to be in good spirits the whole time you've been here, so I assume it couldn't have been too bad or you would have been crying into my shoulder instead of kissing me. But it is getting late, which means we should eventually go to bed, which brings up that question."

Elizabeth yawned from where she was nestled into his side. "The question of whether I'm okay with sleeping in your bed, or if I'll be taking the guest bedroom like I always have when I've come to visit? That question?"

"Yeah."

"I do still want to hold off on dating, and not just when we're in public, because trying to date in secret would just be too hard to do and too much of a pain to try to keep public and private separated. But I also want to keep kissing you while we're here and away from any prying eyes," said Elizabeth. "So as long as you're okay with us having to stop for a while once I leave here, and certainly during the upcoming press and convention tour, I'm okay with being more personal while we're here, including me sleeping in your room — if you want me to, of course."

"I'll take anything I can get, and I'll make it through the convention season on the promise we'll start officially dating soon after that's over," answered Iain.

"Then your room it is," replied Elizabeth. "But no sex until we're officially dating, and maybe even wait a while then. I want to, believe me, I really do, but I want us to work out for real even more, and a relationship has to be built on something more important and solid than sex."

"Of course, of course!" exclaimed Iain. "I mean obviously I want it as well, but don't agree to it before you're ready just because you want to make me happy. Hopefully we'll have the rest of our lives for that."

Elizabeth nodded. "Then how about we head up to your room, and sleep in the same bed for the first time in our lives, since the only other time I've tried I was drunk and dating, so you made me sleep on your couch instead."

"Hey! I was going to let you have my bed and I sleep on the couch, but you would only take my bed if I was there too, and given you having a boyfriend at the time, I wasn't about to do that," defended Iain as he stood up and offered his hand to Elizabeth.

"I know, I know, I just wanted to tease you," smirked Elizabeth as she took his proffered hand, letting him pull her up. "But that's no longer a problem, and I'm not at all drunk tonight, so let's take advantage of what I know we've both wanted for months now."