*

My phone has been going crazy ever since leaving the concert, mostly with texts from Mom but also a few from my brothers and – most shockingly of all – one from my dad. A long one. It's his that I read as Storie drives us back to her apartment.

DAD: I didn't know Astoria was back in your life. I hope you'll treat her right, William. She's a wonderful young woman and as happy as I am to see the two of you together again, I know how much you hurt her. I like to think you have matured in the years since then. I've seen you grow, and nothing would make me a happier and prouder father than for you to find love again. Especially with Astoria. Please treat her right this time. A fair warning ahead of tomorrow's lunch: Dasha is already planning your wedding. You may wish to warn Astoria.

I want to text back her name is Storie, but my dad has never been good with nicknames unless it comes to my sisters. I'm not used to getting such a long message from him and some of his words are tiny knives that prick my skin, but some of them stand out. Nothing would make me a happier and prouder father. He cares. Fuck. That shouldn't make me well up but my eyes are stinging and I don't even realize we've reached Storie's building until the engine dies and she unclicks her seatbelt.

"What's up?" she asks, looking from my wet eyes to my screen. "Everything ok?"

"Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It's just my dad."

"Is he all right?"

I show her the screen. Her eyes dart from side to side as she reads the message, her eyebrows slowly climbing.

"Wow. Your dad likes me?"

I laugh. "Evidently so. I, uh, I'm not used to getting messages like that from him," I say. "To be honest, he never texts me. So he really doesn't want me to fuck up. Which means he really likes you."

Her cheeks go darker when she blushes deeply and gets out of the car. I follow her to the dreaded elevator and she hits the button for the twenty-fifth floor, and only once we've started moving does she talk.

"I love your family," she says. "It was so weird to see them again. I still can't get over Daria being seven. And your mom is just the same, and ... god, it's weird." She rubs her forehead, shaking her head to herself. "I can't believe it's been four years. It feels like one. But it also kind of feels like ten."

"Weird is putting it lightly," I say. I still can't believe I'm here. That this is really happening.

When we reach Storie's apartment and slip off our shoes and she fetches the bottle of wine, the evening catches up with me and my heart starts racing a million miles a minute when I remember what Daria asked, and I remember what Storie said.

"I just need to double check," I say, "because I don't want to make a fool of myself and it's very likely that my hopeful ears heard wrong, but ... we're dating again, right? I'm ... I can call you my girlfriend?"

The word is a hug. It is Storie's arms around me, her words in my ear, the scent of her shampoo lingering. It's comfort and relief and everything I've missed over the last four years.

"Yes," she says. She sounds so confident. The solitary word is so definitive. And yet I still can't believe it. My head and my heart are refusing to work together, refusing to believe that this is really what she wants. That she wants me, after everything I did.

"Are you sure?"

She meets my eyes. Two half-filled glasses in her hands, she comes over to the sofa and sits next to me, one leg up so she can face me. "You sound like how I felt for the first, like, month of our relationship," she says. Her voice is measured, her posture at ease. "I'm sure, Liam. I'm not being flippant and I'm not rushing, and you're not rushing me."

She passes me one of the glasses. "Yes, you hurt me, but you know what? I forgave you. A long time ago. It's been years, and I still love you. And you still love me. I'm not pranking you, I'm not playing some long game to get you back. I'm saying ... let's pick up where we left off. Except this time, everything's out on the table. No lies." She holds up a finger. "No secrets." She takes a sip of her wine. "Just you and me."

Her words are balm on chapped lips. Water in the desert. They're exactly what I needed to hear, reassurance from her that I am not imagining this, that I'm not pressuring her.

"Thank you," I say. I clink my glass against hers. "To us. To second chances."

Her whole face lights up when she smiles. "To second chances."

The knot in my chest is loosening. I can feel my shoulders slackening, my heart slowing to its regular pace and right now, in this exact moment, I feel peace. I feel joy. I sink into the sofa and pull my leg up, letting my socked toes touch Storie's calf. I don't know quite how to pick up where we left off when I've had four shit years of guilt and loneliness and depression since then, but I want to try. I want to try so hard.

"What's Grey going to say?" I ask. Storie laughs.

"Oh, god. Um. Yeah, there'll be questions," she says. "I mean, there's the whole sibling code. If someone wrongs your sibling, you're contractually obliged to hate them. So I'm not going to lie, he hates you."

"I don't blame him."

"But he loves me," she adds. "And I'm pretty sure he loves me more than he hates you, so as long as I can convince him that this is what I want, and that I'm not being coerced, then he'll be ok. Plus, he's married now – he's got his own life and wife to worry about."

I hope Grey will come around. I hope Storie and I will last this time, because honestly there's no-one else I want to spend my life with, and I hope Grey will forgive me because I want him as a friend. Something tells me that'll be a hell of a lot harder than getting Storie back as my girlfriend.

She's my girlfriend again. I can't believe it. A giddy grin breaks out. She tilts her head at me.

"Sorry, just ... I've dreamt about this for a long time. I've tortured myself for ages over the idea of seeing you again and I'm still getting to grips with the fact that this is reality."

She touches my knee, her hand electric warmth. I don't think she will ever understand how much she means to me, how much I love her, but I am determined to show her, even if it takes the rest of my life.

*

It's Saturday, which means no work, but I wake up early anyway because I'm in Storie's bed and my mind is buzzing and I'm having lunch with my family in a few hours, and Storie's coming with me.

We didn't stay up late last night. It wasn't long before the yawns kicked in and we ended up in her bed again – no funny business, of course. It'll be a while before that returns, I'm sure, and I don't care. I'd give it all up just to be with her.

She's still asleep when I wake up, so I slip out of her room to make breakfast. It takes a few minutes to orient myself in her kitchen, but soon I've found bread and butter and I've figured out the toaster, and there are two glasses of orange juice waiting when Storie emerges to the same breakfast I used to make her when she stayed over on a weekend.

When she comes out of the bathroom, tying her long hair into a ponytail, she beams at me and my heart melts. God, she's stunning. She crosses the apartment to me and my old instinct kicks in; I hold out my arms to her and she doesn't think twice before folding herself into my embrace. I wrap my arms around her warm body and rest my chin on top of her head, and I close my eyes to inhale the moment.

In her ratty pyjamas, still smelling of sleep, she is everything and I am a broken record.

I don't want to let go. Storie makes no effort to end the hug.

It's a four-year hug. Making up for lost time. Making up for the emptiness. I hold her like I've never held her before, like I would have held her the last time I held her before she broke up with me, if I had known it would be the last time. But it wasn't, because we have this. This everlasting moment.

I hold her tighter. I hear her sigh. I dip my head, so my nose and lips touch her hair, and I could weep.

But I don't. I grin, instead. When we eventually part, some kind of unspoken mutual agreement, I am grinning like mad and she touches her thumb to the corner of my mouth.

"I've really missed you," she says, quietly. Almost to herself.

"We're going to make it last this time," I say. "We're going to make it."

I'm sure now. After sleeping on it last night, after going to bed with her words of security and assurance, I woke up with a balloon in my chest, floating on cloud nine, and I'm excited for today. Nervous, sure, but excited too. It'll be weird, reintroducing her to my family four years later, like no time has passed, like they don't know all the sordid details of our break-up. Like my mother didn't stop talking to me when she heard what happened. Like my brothers didn't glower at me when they heard how I acted. Like my father didn't tut at me and tell me how disappointed he was, how utterly disgusted and let down he felt.

"A good breakfast is the best preparation for the third degree," I say when we sit down with toast and eggs and orange juice. It's the kind of ensemble that needs coffee, too, but neither of us drink it.

"How intense do you think it'll be?"

"Um ... medium. Dad'll rein Mom in a bit, though she'll still be intense, and the boys will be fine. Anna doesn't know you, but Daria could be an issue. Mom and Daria are for sure the ones to worry about."

"I can handle your mom and Daria," she says, tearing a piece of toast into pieces to scoop up a bit of egg yolk. "You must be forgetting that I met your mom by walking in on her in the bath, and she took me out for coffee the very same day." She points her toast at me. "That was intense. Most people never see their boyfriend's mom's boobs."

"You're part of an elite club," I joke, trying not to laugh at the memory of Storie's mortification when she told me at the time. "It's an Alexandrov right of passage – everyone who passes the threshold will probably see Mom naked at some point."

Her eyes shine when she laughs. It's such a beautiful sound. God, I've missed it. "Does she give all of her guests a goodie bag of condoms too?"

"Oh, god, I forgot about that." I choke on a bit of toast. "I mean, good thing she did. I'm pretty sure we used them all."

Storie snorts and looks away, her cheeks darkening. Perhaps it's too early to mention sex. But she's still smiling, and she says, "What're the odds that'll be my Christmas present from Allie?"

"Fuck. I might need to intervene," I say, meanwhile my brain is spinning thinking what do I get Storie for Christmas?! We never spent a Christmas as a couple. We made it to December, but only just. We didn't spend a single birthday together; the only holiday during our relationship was Thanksgiving. We've never done presents before.

Storie's foot nudges mine, pulling me out of my own head. "So. Meeting the parents, take two," she muses.

"Definitely gonna be worse for me this time."

"Oh, absolutely." She nods seriously, but there's a glimmer in her eyes. "Don't worry about it. You've got until the twenty-third to figure out how to grovel to my family. But hey, we've both got a blank slate: Jasper has no idea who you are, and Anna has no idea who I am."

"I think I'll be spending the entire carol service with Jasper then," I joke. Well. Semi-joke. Truth be told, even though it's still days away, I'm scared shitless about meeting Storie's parents again. I haven't seen them since the night I drove over to explain everything to Storie, and she broke up with me, and Tad took my elbow and led me to the door.

When it was just him and me on the doorstep, bitter wind whipping my skin, he told me to leave Storie alone. He spoke in a low, measured tone that chilled me to my core when he told me not to show my face again, when he told me he had never seen her so shattered. And he was there when she found out that her dad's remains had been found.

I don't think she knows that Tad said anything to me, that he told me in no uncertain terms to stay far away from Five Oaks before he shut the door on me and I drove the two hours back to South Lakes, numb with cold and shock and devastation.

"I doubt I'll have a choice but to spend all of lunch with Daria," Storie says.

"Oh, for sure. She's waited four years for this moment; she won't let you out of her sight."

"I'm impressed she remembers me. She was so small when we were together."

"She adored you. You made a big impression the, like, two times you met." I top up my orange juice and swig it down, cold and crisp and refreshing. "She asked about you every time I was home from college until after I graduated."

"Damn." She curls her toes; I feel it against the side of my foot. I want to catch her ankle between my feet, to play like we used to. But it's too soon for that. Baby steps.

*

We swing by my place on the way to lunch and Storie waits in the car while I rush up to change; she asks to see my apartment but I can't bear for her to see it like this, when I haven't had a chance to tidy up and make it look at least a little homely, so I take as little time as possible and skid on the icy sidewalk on the way back.

Mom sent me an address last night for a restaurant in Shaker Heights, and after getting stuck in traffic for almost ten minutes, making the journey more than a half hour, Storie finds a spot two blocks away with a few minutes to spare. I may have lived in Cleveland for a couple years now but I've hardly ventured further east than University Circle, no further south than that one time I went on a date to the zoo. I've never been to Shaker before, and even after two years of Annika raving about how cute Chagrin Falls is, I've never been there either.

"I love this place," Storie says as we head to the restaurant, bundled up in thick coats and scarves.

"You've been here?"

"A couple times, with Kris," she says, reminding me of another of her family members who hates me. "I love Shaker Heights. I come here for the Larchmere PorchFest every summer." At my confusion, she explains. "It's like this big street fair, loads of food and stalls, and thirty houses open up their porches to local bands. Tons of music and fun. I love it."

My hand is hanging by my side as we walk; Storie catches it, her gloved fingers intertwining with mine. I squeeze her hand, a rush of warmth spreading through my body even though it's barely thirty degrees and I can feel my nose turning red before it goes blue. When we reach the restaurant, I pull Storie to a stop and face her.

"If they're being too nosy or invasive, you don't have to say anything. If Mom asks any inappropriate questions, tell her to butt out. Or, I guess, kick me under the table and I'll tell her to butt out."

She squeezes both my hands. "Liam. Don't worry. I can handle your family. Now let's get in there, because I am freaking freezing."

The restaurant is buzzing and boiling and our layers are shed before we make it to the huge table my family's occupying, three tables pushed together to fit the nine of us plus Storie. Mom leaps up when she spots us, squeezing past Sam and George to pull me into a tight hug that almost chokes me, and then she gives Storie the same treatment.

"You're here! Look at you two," she says, going all soft and sentimental, her hand over her heart, her other hand on Storie's shoulder. "Gosh, Storie, it's so wonderful to see you, honey. It's been a long time. Come on, take a seat, choose whatever you want. Lunch is on me!"

Dad sneaks a glance at her. Lunch is on him, seeing as Mom hasn't worked since the last in a string of part-time jobs that ended twenty years ago. But he's smiling. It's a rare sight, a smile from Vitaly Alexandrov. He stands, hand outstretched to Storie.

"It's nice to see you again, Asto- Storie," he says, cutting himself off just in time. Storie shakes his hand.

"Thank you, Mr Alexandrov. It's nice to see you all again, too. I can't believe how long it's been."

"I'm confused," George says, looking from Storie to me and back again. "Didn't you guys break up, like, five years ago?"

It was inevitable, but I didn't expect to stray into that awkward territory within a minute of meeting my family. I glower at George, but Storie answers him as she drapes her coat over an empty chair and sits down.

"Four years ago," she says. "We needed some time and space apart, and now we're giving it another go."

Matthew, my oldest brother, raises his eyebrows. He gave me the harshest berating once he found out what had happened. He called me out the way only a big brother can, saying all the things I'm sure Mom and Dad and Tad wished they could say to me; he knows exactly what went down, and I bet he's wondering why the fuck Storie is willing to give me another chance.

"It's been a long time," Storie says, this time directed at Matt. She must've caught his expression. "We bumped into each other at the right time."

Johnny, the next youngest after me, says, "I can't believe you forgave his dumb ass."

She shrugs, holding her cool. "It was a complicated situation. But that's all in the past. What happened four years ago is done, it's gone. We've dealt with that. This is a fresh start."

Johnny shrugs. "Fair enough."

"Dunno what you see in him," George adds. Typical sullen sixteen-year-old.

"Oh, boys, stop it!" Mom says, flapping at the two of them. "Leave poor Liam alone. Storie, honey, I'm delighted to see you again, and please ignore my useless sons."

"Hey!" Sam cries out. "I'm not useless. I didn't say anything."

Mom pats his hand. "You're fine, Sammy, don't worry. Now let's not put Liam and Storie on the spot, and let's just be happy and grateful that we're all together, and that Storie's back, and that Sammy did so amazingly in his concert last night!"

Wow. And here I thought Mom was going to be the most difficult one. It's only then that I notice an empty seat between her and Anna, who is more interested in her coloring book and the crayons Dad's holding out for her.

"Hey, where's Daria?"

Mom rolls her eyes. "She insisted she's old enough to go to the bathroom on her own now. I told her if she's not out in five minutes, I'll assume she's locked herself in the cubicle."

Storie nods at the back of the restaurant. "Speak of the devil."

Daria emerges from the restroom, wearing a Christmas jumper and a pair of antlers on her head, and when she spots Storie, she squeaks like a banshee, making everyone around us stare at her.

"Storie!" she cries out, running through the obstacle course of tables and chairs and bags that she navigates with ease to throw herself at Storie. The two of them almost go flying off Storie's chair, she hits her with such force.

"Hey, Daria," Storie says over Daria's head, hugging her tightly. "We've got a lot of catching up to do, huh? It's been a while!"

With a mischievous grin, Daria pushes Matt and says, "You gotta move, Matty, I need to sit with Storie. She's my absolute favourite."

Matt grumbles, but he does as he's told, moving down to sit next to Mom so my sister and my girlfriend can catch up.

"You're boyfriend and girlfriend again?" Daria asks, pointing at us. Storie nods. "Do you love each other?" Storie nods again. My heart swells. I know my cheeks are flushing red and my brothers will rib me for it the moment Storie's not here, but I don't care.

Daria lets out a happy sigh, like everything in the world is right. "That makes me very happy," she says, tucking blonde waves behind her ears. "Are you coming home with us? Can I do your hair? I wanna braid your hair! Mommy taught me how to do the French ones!" Her voice keeps getting higher and louder. "What do you want for Christmas? What's your favourite Christmas song?"

"Take it down a notch, Dasha," Dad says.

Storie's in her element, as she answers each of Daria's questions in turn and they turn into a unit of their own, chattering away about everything and nothing, and I'm transported to the old days, the first time they met. I'd been nervous to introduce Storie to my family. I'd never taken a girl home before. But she fitted in so perfectly. And now she's doing it again, slotting into my family like that's where she belongs. Because it is.

Halfway through the meal, when Storie disappears to the bathroom, Johnny leans over and not-so-subtly nudges me when he says, "I don't know what the fuck you did to get her to fall for you again, especially after what you did to her"—I shrivel up inside, but Matt thumps Johnny and calls him a dick—"but don't fuck it up this time, dude. Storie's awesome. Plus, I haven't seen you smile like that in, like, four years."

Daria scoots over to Storie's seat and latches onto my arm and gives me puppy eyes when she asks, "Are you gonna get married?"

I cough when a bite of potato goes down the wrong way. "Um. It's a bit soon for that, Dar."

"But you love each other! And you're super old. And I want her to be my big sister." She bats her eyelashes at me and pouts, both hands clutching my arm. "Please marry her, Willy. That would be so cool."

Mom rolls her eyes. "Daria's going through her marriage obsession phase at the moment," she says. "All in good time, Dar. Liam's only twenty-four, he's got eons ahead of him to settle down."

Daria furrows her eyebrows. "Mommy, you were twenty when you got married."

Mom taps Daria's nose. "And I had two children by then! And your daddy and I had been together for three years already."

Shit. That makes me feel old. All I've done with my life so far is get a degree that I can't use; by this point my parents had been married for four years and they had three kids.

Storie comes back. Mom gives Daria the look, and it's enough for my sister to stop questioning me, and to slip back to her own seat. Storie sits next to me and rests her hand on my knee under the table, and that beatific smile shines like a beacon of hope.

"So," she says, swirling tagliatelle around her fork, "what'd I miss?" 

*

it's been more than 2 years since i last wrote anything for this story so it's weird to come back to it! i hope you liked this! It's weird to post a fresh chapter with no comments!