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Move-in Day

People who are meant to be together find their way back. They make take a few detours, but they're never lost.

***

Nick took a sick day to move his stuff into the townhome and to help Maya as well. He started with renting a U-haul and drove to Maya's to start with. She had all her stuff in boxes already and between the two of them, they could lift everything in her apartment. He went up to her apartment and saw her packing the last box, "move-in day, baby!"

"You brought me coffee," she said plainly in response, walking up to him and taking the iced latte from him.

"You told me to," he laughed and watched her take a large sip of her flavored drink.

"You wanted to start at 7am," she said, "and you're surprised?" Maya was exhausted, but happy to be back in the states. She also felt so much more mobile than she had in months and though the doctor wasn't thrilled that she would be doing heavy lifting, they both knew that Nick would have her do as little as possible.

"Someone is a little cranky this morning," he says, "are you usually this cranky?"

She glares at him, "I didn't sleep well last night and no, I'm not usually this cranky because I usually have work to motivate me."

"How are you not motivated, you're moving in with me," he joked and winked at her before continuing, "are you ready to start moving stuff down?"

"My neighbor said that he would help with the couch and heavy stuff," she told him, walking out of the apartment and retrieving her new neighbor from across the hall.

"I'm Jake," he reached out his hand to shake Nick's hand, "I just moved in into the apartments last week."

"Nick," he paused, looking the man up and down and determining how he felt about Jake, "thanks for helping us out, dude."

"No problem. Want to get started?" Jake asked, walking toward the couch.

"Yeah, let's grab the couch," Nick said and they picked up the couch, Nick led them. Maya could hear Nick ask about Jake's work as they went down the hall toward the stairs. Maya followed soon after, carrying a night stand. With the three of them working, they finished fairly quickly. They got the last box in the U-haul at ten after nine. "Thanks again, dude," Nick said to Jake.

"Yeah, thank you so much," Maya agreed, smiling.

"No problem," he smiled, "best of luck to you guys." Jake said his goodbye and went back to his apartment.

"Wanna do a once over and I'll go give my landlord my key," Maya asks Nick and he nods, disappearing into her bedroom. She walked down to the first floor and knocked on the office of her landlord.

The burley man opened the door and smiled wide, "Maya! Moving day, huh?"

She nodded, she always loved her landlord. He was helpful and took really good care of his tenants, "yes, sir. Off I go. Thank you for everything, Jeff." She handed him her key and he took it from her.

"Best of luck to you," he said, "I'll always leave room for you if you need to come back."

"Thank you so much," she said, "I guess I'll see you around." He nodded and closed the door as she walked away. She went out to the U-haul and saw Nick closing the back of the truck.

"Here's your phone," he said, handing her the phone and keys, "I put on the key for our townhome, too."

"Great," she said, "I'll meet you there. Do you want food? I'm starving, I'll pick something quick up so we can keep getting stuff done."

"Yeah, why don't you get McDonald's?" He suggested to her, leaning against the truck.

"Okay," she nods, "what do you want?"

"I'll text you," he said, pushing away from the truck and walking up to her, "see you at home." He squeezes her hand and pecks her on the cheek before jumping into the truck.

Maya went to McDonald's and was at the townhome a little before ten. She could see that Nick had already filled up part of the two-car garage with her boxes. She slipped out of her car and walked over, "take a break?" She went into the house through the garage and really appreciated the new place. The first story was the garage and a spare bedroom and a half bath, and the upstairs was the master, kitchen, and living room. It was the perfect size for the two of them. Nick walked by her and snatched the bag of McDonald's from her hand and walked into the kitchen, separating his food from hers.

Nick is eating quickly and between bites he is talking to Maya about their game plan for the rest of the day, "I say we bring in your boxes from the garage. Pull out the furniture and leave that in the garage for now then drive over to my place and do it again."

Maya nodded, swallowing a bite of her McChicken, "okay, whatever you want to do." She really didn't care about how the rest of the day panned out, she just wanted to be done loading and unpacking.

"We'll be all settled in eventually," he said, "I'm really glad we're doing this." He gave her a small smile and his eyes held nothing but love.

"Me too, baby," she replied, "I'm excited to live with you."