OUT OF THE RED ↝ dave grohl

eighty-seven.

Dave gave her a smirking smile. "You sound like you're reciting lines from a bad romantic comedy. Are you sure you're Reagan? Or did someone kidnap my wife?"

"Excuse me for being romantic, then," Reagan returned hotly.

He knotted his fingers into hers and laughed, ever amused by the easy way he could poke fun at her. "You're allowed to be romantic. Most of the time you show it in a different way, though."

"What do you mean? I tell you that I love you all the time."

"You do. But I know that you really love me when I steal the sheets at night and instead of pulling them back, you just get closer. And when you leave before work, you always start a new pot of coffee for me."

"Now who sounds like the character in a bad movie?" Reagan said tauntingly.

"Okay, so it sounds cheesy in theory, but it's all true. I know that you love me because of the things you do. It's always been that way. Ever since the beginning. You loved me way sooner than you're willing to admit and I knew it from the get-go."

"Bullshit!" She smacked his thigh and scrunched her face in a failed attempt to disguise the warmth pooling in her cheeks. Dave didn't know what he was talking about. She'd fallen in love with him on her own terms and she'd made sure of it. Her love had been secret, her own private truth that she'd kept under lock and key until the time had come to reveal it to him.

"Not bullshit," Dave corrected. "Remember when I came back from that first tour? You ran right into my arms. I was thinking to myself, yep, she loves me. I had you wrapped around my finger."

"Really? Is that so? Then how come you were a total mess over dinner that night?" Reagan challenged. "And that doesn't even count. I was already planning on telling you that I loved you that day. I knew I had to, or else you were going to run off with some groupie from a different state."

"I was never going to leave you. I realized it on that tour. I was absolutely fucked," Dave chuckled, threading her fingers in and out of his. "It was 'so long' to a life of sex, drugs and rock n' roll. You had me whipped."

"Yeah, as if you were really investing your time into those first two things anyways," Reagan said, rolling her eyes.

"Maybe not, but I was definitely under the impression that I was the baddest motherfucker in Seattle. The title comes with perks, you know. Can you blame me for not knowing what to expect?"

"And then you ended up with me." Reagan's voice lowered, adopting a small ring of disappointment that she assumed Dave must have felt when he'd committed to being tied down in the prime of his youth.

"Yep. It was the best thing that ever happened to me," Dave replied. He spoke proudly, cancelling out Reagan's note of defeat. "I'm pretty much convinced that I didn't come halfway across the country to join a band. The universe was doing its weird, intuitive thing. I was supposed to meet you. That's why it happened."

She flushed and smiled, looking away so that he couldn't catch the way her lips abruptly turned up with joy. If another man had said that to her, Reagan was sure that she would have gagged in disgust at such sticky tenderness, but it was different coming from Dave. It was more real, concrete with an authenticity that was a once in a lifetime sort of thing.

"Corny bastard," she muttered around her smile. She jumped off of the couch, untangling her limbs from his. Their night alone called for a small celebration, and by celebration, Reagan was thinking along the lines of two beers drank straight from cold cans. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd been truly, totally drunk, but the thought of getting drunk with Dave on their night off from being parents wasn't half bad.