"I hear that you're struggling, but I don't think there's enough words in any language to express how much I care about you and what I would do for you. I want to teach you how to love yourself and prove to you that you truly are loved. I want to be that support for you."

We started out humming in flawless unison, and then we were moving, our feet shifting and crunching over the grass beneath us as we lightly swayed to the music together. The distant notes became our lullaby as we settled lower and lower into a dreamlike trance, allowing the rest of the world to slip away and our only worry to become where we would next set down our foot.

Her paws still settled at the back of my neck, mine still nestled around her waist. Her face was hardly inches from mine, staring up into my eyes with her own that shimmered under the starlight. The distant music still thundered on from somewhere out there, but the only thing we followed was the decidedly close sight buried in each other's eyes.

I watched as her eyes flicked here and there to examine the grass at our feet, refusing to look into mine for another second, at least at first. She pushed out a faint sigh, her dark eyes snapping up to meet mine once again, immersing us back into the sensation of the eye contact for nothing longer for a few seconds before she was pulling my face in by her paws resting on the sides.

.   .   .

The very next morning on Monday the fourteenth, I sprung out of bed from the moment my alarm chimed out into the night. It was like a motor had been strapped to my heels, propelling me forward with the unbroken stride of confidence. I tugged on my work uniform, checked my appearance in the mirror, and cleared out to the kitchen in ten minutes flat, all the while only one thought was bolted into my mind. Yesterday night had proved to be the most unpredictable and rare night of my life and I wasn't about to forget it.

I emerged from my house half an hour early due to the diligence in getting ready, arriving at the main entrance no later than seven forty-five. It wasn't quite yet the time I would have been expected, but since Lottie and Lyle were usually present earlier than me, the doors would have already been unlocked. I allowed myself into the building, first ascending to the second floor to unlock my personal office door and restart my computer for the morning. I even took the time to tidy up the area, fueled by enthusiasm of the morning, before I set off once again to prepare myself a nice, pleasant, steaming cup of coffee.

A bounce had begun to wind up my step, a stride of certainty in bold optimism. After the events that had unraveled last night, it was as if music vibrated deep within my mind and shook my very bones, shooting rhythms to my feet as I advanced through the day in an upbeat nature. I was on top of the world today, stalking the hall in the confident pace of my commendable achievement of yesterday night. I nudged my way through the door to the break room, somewhat anticipating the presence of the particularly slim group of designers, and as I walked into the room, I discovered that my suspicions had served true.

Lottie was situated at the velvet chair facing the door, her paws folded together on her lap in a polite seat. Lyle was at the counter, his paw outstretched to the coffee maker as he assembled it in preparation to pour into the glass pot sitting beneath it. After the brief observation of Lyle arranging the coffee maker, my focus had fixated on Lottie in her seat nearly from the moment I stepped through the door. Instantly, at the sight of her face, the entire atmosphere shifted—A lens of admiration descended sharply over my own common sense, an unsatisfied itch to come nearer and spend time with her. Lottie's eyes met mine from across the room almost as quickly as mine did, her face purely lighting up with surprise at my arrival.

"Oh, Digby!" Lottie exclaimed, seemingly taken aback by my early appearance. The acknowledgment snatched Lyle's attention at the coffee maker as well, twisting around to face me as the machine let out a noisy beep to announce it was just about to begin pouring the wonderful drink.

"Well, you're here early. I didn't expect you in here for another..." Lyle's voice trailed off as he pushed up his sleeve to check his watch. "Twenty minutes or so. What's with the change?"

"Oh, no change," I replied, reaching the array of chairs and adjusting one to position it right at the side of Lottie's. Lottie, still seated quietly in her own chair, kept her eyes locked upon me with every blink, shimmering under the lights fixed above us. "It's a beautiful day and I'm ready to live it to its fullest."

"I'm glad to hear it," Lyle said as I plopped into a seat beside his niece. He had reached up into the cupboard above his head, fishing for the mugs that had been set up there. "Coffee?"

"As usual," I said, perching an arm on the arm of the chair to prepare to engage in conversation with Lottie next to me when I would first get the chance. "Thank you."

"Of course," Lyle answered. I caught the sound of a mug being set down on the counter where he stood. "Lottie?"

"I'll go without, thank you," Lottie told him, only sparing him a brief glance before her eyes found their way back to mine.

"No coffee?" I teased her as a second mug made a soft impact with the counter. "How do you manage?"

"I have other techniques to wake up in the morning," Lottie replied. Her timid nature appeared to be resurfacing from years ago, raising a paw to restlessly scratch at her head and smooth down her hair yanked into her bun. Her eyes, after following me for so long, had begun to stray, flicking to and from me in a fidgety way. She was so cute. "Sometimes, I drink some tea or have short periods of stretching."

"Oh, is that right?" I outstretched the arm that had been perched along the arm of the chair to encircle it around her shoulders, cradling her close to my side—As close as I could manage with the arms of the chairs in the way. Lyle had begun to pour the coffee behind us, I noticed from the splattering sound of flowing liquid. "Well, you're remarkable, did you know that? You work so hard and you do it so well, too. I don't think there's an animal out there quite like you."

Lottie gave a short murmur, but whether she had actually said something or had just mumbled, I couldn't tell. She rushed to bury her face in her paws, almost like the statement had completely humiliated her, but the lack of resistance when I pulled her close and the leaning of her weight into my shoulder in the half-embrace assured me of a different story.

"Oh, ugh. Enough with the lovey-dovey mush," Lyle complained from the other end of the room at the coffee maker, setting the coffee pot back into the machine with a click and turning to face us, resting his back against the edge of the counter. "I'm still here, in case you've forgotten. Now, come and get your coffee before I drink it all up."

"Or you could take your lazy self over here and give it to me yourself," I shot back, but a smile was already clawing onto my face at the playful jab as I tossed a glance over my shoulder at him.

"Okay, you can shut your mouth now," Lyle told me, waving his paw in a dismissive gesture that nearly grabbed the laugh from my throat as he turned his back on me, reaching down to tug open the fridge door at his feet. "Lazy, my goodness. Youth these days."

Unlike his joking threat, Lyle didn't pick up my mug or drink from it. Instead, I watched him withdraw the milk from the fridge, nudge the door closed with the carton, straighten up to face the two coffee mugs, and began to pour the milk. He didn't say another word on the topic, allowing the joke to pass on its own, but in the brief moment where he snuck a glimpse back at Lottie and me to ensure that we didn't need anything, I realized that a soft, genuine, and rare smile had found its way to his face as well.

The three of us kept ourselves shut away in the break room for as long of a grace period before work that we could permit ourselves. I held Lottie close to my side, resting the side of my head against hers in a closeness as near to the moment we had shared last night as I could manage, floating in the weightless feeling of such beautiful and unbroken joy. Lyle carried over the mugs of coffee for me and himself, prepared precisely the way each of us liked it, and provided me with my beverage as he seated himself in the last available chair. For the next forty minutes, we had become more of a family than ever, sharing smiles, poking fun at each other, and exchanging lighthearted laughs—Once including Lyle. If my life hadn't just surrendered to a complete turnaround from the events of last night, I was sure that this day had a fairly good chance of being among the best.

And so, the official Happy Home family sat together, prioritizing our bond over anything else the morning could have held at that moment. From where I had once stood at the beginning, I would never have anticipated that this was where we would have been on some random Monday. Things had certainly changed since I had first stepped inside this building, or even out of the school building for the very last time in graduation, and even that was putting it mildly. I was closer with these two now than I ever could have dreamed of. In regards to Lyle, that might have even been true three years ago, but we were so much better for the change now. Between Lottie and me, I wasn't fully certain that we would ever figure out just what was happening between us, what we had turned out to be. Between friendship and dates and heartbreak and the breathtaking uncertainty of the void that wasn't quite either side of the spectrum, even now there was a mountain of things to figure out. But we would get there someday. I was sure of it. I would continue to love her with everything I was each and every day and she might continue to be nothing more than a friend for as long as our story endured.

That was fine with me.