HAPPY NEVER AFTER ☹ NBA

☹ INTRODUCTION ☹

It's not that he didn't love her. It's just that his career was just taking off — he wasn't ready to tie the knot just yet. He didn't want to be tied down with extra responsibilities other than keeping their relationship healthy and having a roof over their heads.

He sees a future with her but only someday. Not now. He has a career that he wants to focus on and give in his hundred percent.

"Don't you think so?" Aria giggled. "I just like the whole cliché older brother protects his little sister thing."

He glances down at her reluctantly with a small grin on his face. "I like the idea of that, too. But, we've talked about this: settling down and having kids. I want to focus on my career."

"I know," Aria nodded understandingly. "I understand and respect that. I want to focus on my career too. But I was serious when I told you that I want to have kids before I'm twenty-six."

"I know that too."

Up North in Minnesota was RICKY clinging onto ASTRID's waist as she read through one of her commercial scripts.

She scratched the top of her head and looked down at him. "B, what are you doing clinging onto me like a koala?"

"You're not giving me attention," Ricky muttered, squishing his face even more against her hip bone and squeezed her waist ever so slightly. "I want attention."

"Go live on Instagram or something," Astrid shrugged, returning her attention to the paper in her hand. "I have an entire script to memorise by Saturday morning and I remember one fucking line."

"But it's only Monday," he whined. "Please, give me attention. I just want to do one thing and I promise it won't even take too long."

Sighing, the girl puts the script down on her side table. She reaches down and twirled his hair between her fingers. "What is it?"

She loves Ricky. She always has but sometimes he tended to get a little bit too clingy. Being someone who came from a not so affectionate background, he was a drastic and uncomfortable change.

He lied back and pulled her to sit her on top of his waist. "Makeout."

JORDAN and ELIZA sat in the quiet boutique, with their hands intertwined.

"So the venue will be at the church near the beach, and the reception will be at a function room on the beach," the wedding planner had repeated to confirm the venue before she went ahead to book it. "It'll be a ten minute drive from there."

Eliza bit down on her bottom lip and glanced over at her fiancé. He squeezes her hand and nodded, giving her a cute look. "Yes. Exactly."

"Okay," she smiled. "I'm sorry again that Aria couldn't make it today. It's her day off and you guys came in without making an appointment with her."

Jordan smiled. "That's okay. We just wanted to make sure that the venue was all settled before we go to the decorations."

So Jordan had asked Eliza to marry him. It should be a good idea, right? He loves Eliza and she loves him back — so it shouldn't matter that they're only twenty-four. Age didn't matter at this point, right?

"Alright," she chuckled. She gathers the papers and got up. "I'll call you again when the venue is settled."

Eliza gets up to shake her hand. "Thank you."

While the young couple continued gushing over their future together, PAUL wasn't sure if he had one with TAYLAR anymore.

He stares from across the room at his girlfriend have a conversation with a girl — apparently her best friend from High School — and take sips from her drink.

He charged over to the bar and took her arm into his hand tightly, pulling her against him. He leans down to her ear: "Baby, do you wanna go yet?"

Taylar pulls away, giving him a strange look. "What? We literally just got here."

"I'm not feeling too well," he whispers then pulling away to show her that he's serious. Taylar rolled her eyes and looked back at her friend.

"I have to go. Nice seeing you again, though." She bids her friend goodbye with a hug, then a kiss on the cheek. He had to admit that that was fairly hard to watch — watching your girlfriend kiss somebody else.

As they walked out of the club, Taylar smacked him. "I wasn't flirting with her, Paul. You know that. She's just an old friend."

"Yes, you were," Paul scolded, stopping by his car to argue. "I'm not blind. I totally saw you."

They were trying to sort another argument out while LARISSA and DEANDRE did too in their home.

"I'm not saying that you're lazy or anything, but you need to help around the house more," Larissa bluntly states from across the kitchen. "I'm always doing everything around here."

"Doing everything around here? I'm out making money so I can put a roof over our heads!" DeAndre had almost yelled but suddenly remembers that their kids were in the living room watching a movie. "I'm doing everything around here!"

"I'm a highly paid doctor, DeAndre," Larissa taunted, "I could put a roof over our heads singlehandedly and still bond with the children on a regular basis."

She rolls her eyes and dropped the cutting knife in her hand. She washes her hands, pulling the apron over her off. "All I'm saying is, I can't be the only one making an effort to keep this house clean; and make sure that the children's wellbeing is okay. You gotta put in effort too."

She shoves her apron into his chest and strutted out towards the living room. He hears his children whine playfully at the sight of their mother squeezing herself in between them.

KYRIE listens to his girlfriend, SIMAN, yap away about the dishes. He'd just come home from a tiring practice session and apparently, this was the first thing that he would come home too.

It's been like this a lot more often these past few weeks – either of them coming home to the other getting mad petty over something that couldn't been talked over calmly. Their fights seemed a lot more reasonable when this whole phase started, but then now it just seemed like they were fighting for the sake of fighting.

They were barely even on the same page anymore.

"Siman, can you just stop?" He sighed, standing up from the couch. He sighs out in annoyance and rolled his eyes. "You're getting pissed over something that I would've done if you talked to me properly."

"Oh, so when I do it, it's being mad petty," Siman frowned. "But when you do it, it's because you're being the most reasonable person on earth at the time."

"That's not the point," he grunted, turning back to face her. "The point is that if you said this nicely, I would've done it. But, now, I don't think so. Not with that attitude."