There was a strange smell emanating from the kitchen and Nick followed his nose until he was next to the dinner table. Peggy was bent over the table, putting down place settings and he couldn’t stop himself from taking a moment to appreciate the view.

“You making dinner?” he asked, somewhat rhetorically. Before she could straighten he grabbed her hips, playfully mimicking what they had been doing in their bedroom the night before.

“Yes,” she replied though her breathing was cut off every time he bumped her into the table. “Nick!” she laughed as he continued dry humping her and swatted at him. “Would you stop that? Are you a dog in heat or something?”

“Maybe I am,” he teased, letting go of her. “What’s for dinner, babe?”

“Pad thai,” she replied as she moved back towards the stove.

Nick sighed, hoping they weren’t going to have the same issue that night as they’d had the night before. Peggy definitely wasn’t the greatest of cooks, though she always gave it her best effort. The problem was that she didn’t really know how to cook for a vegetarian. She had it in her head that Nick would be able to just pick out the chicken or whatever animal-based protein she added to the meal but he felt like if he did that he might as well just eat it. He wasn’t doing any favours for the animals by throwing the meat in the trash instead of eating it. Either way he felt bad for complaining when she had made the effort to make dinner.

“What’s that?” he played dumb even though he had eaten the dish more times than he could count during visits to Thailand over the years.

“You’ve never had it?” she asked, surprise evident in her voice. “You’ll like it!”

Nick forced a smile and turned towards the large picture window in the kitchen overlooking the backyard. He had always heard that when couples were shopping for homes it was the kitchen and the master bathroom that would sell a house to a woman. In their case though, those were the things that had sold the place to Nick. He liked to cook and both he and Peggy were clean eaters so they prepared nearly every meal themselves.

He had liked the size of the kitchen, the big marble island, and the fact that it was set off from the rest of the house, not an open concept where smells had a tendency to linger around for far too long. One of the biggest draws though was a huge floor-to-ceiling picture window that took up an entire wall of the room. The patio in their narrow backyard had a small shed and a pool along with a comfortable seating area where the barbecue and fire pit were situated.

The pool cover had a layer of fall leaves strewn across it and Nick stared at it longingly. It had only been a couple of weeks but he already missed the days of being able to get up in the morning, no matter what time of year and start off his day with some laps in the pool.

“I want to go for a swim.”

He heard the sound of a spoon banging against the side of the skillet on the stove then Peggy crossing the room towards him. He felt her hands on his shoulders then his entire body lurched as she hopped onto his back. Reacting quickly he hooked his arms under her knees, holding onto her strongly until her arms hooked around him to support some of her weight.

“Sweetheart, it’s October,” she replied, playfully nipping at his earlobe.

“I’m aware of the date,” he chuckled, flinching when she blew a stream of air into his ear as a payback for his sarcasm. “In California...” he wasn’t able to finish his sentence because the sound of her groaning drowned him out. She had been on him constantly about even mentioning the words California or Los Angeles. He didn’t realize he had been making comparisons between his old home and his new home quite as much as he was and it was clear that Peggy was not a fan.

“Maybe you should move back there,” she said flatly. She tried to jump down off his back but Nick held onto her legs, not letting her down.

“Hey you’re going to knock us both over!” he exclaimed, hanging on though she was fighting against him. “Calm down!”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” she snapped. “Just let go of me!”

He made it clear through his tight grasp that he had no intention of letting go and he finally felt her concede defeat, wrapping her arms back across the front of his chest with a heavy sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he immediately said. “I lived there for a long time so I’m still getting used to being up north and everything that comes along with that. I can’t help that there are things I miss about LA. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be here, it doesn’t mean I want to move back.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she replied, both of them still looking straight out the window. He felt her lips press against his cheek and her arms held him just a little bit tighter. “If I had moved from California I’d probably miss it too. Maybe you should get the pool heated? Ooh! Babe, we could get a hot tub. You know how much you like going in the hot tub at the gym after your workout.”

“Maybe in the spring,” he nodded, finally letting her down so she could check on dinner. He watched her move back over to the stove and stir the contents of the skillet. He realized just then that they had spent almost every evening since they’d moved in together cooped up in the house. Peggy had mentioned a few times that they should get together with her friends or just go into the city but it hadn’t happened. They spent all day either unpacking or arguing over whose stuff should take precedence in various rooms then there was dinner and then they would take the dogs for a walk or spend an hour or two in the gym downstairs. He sometimes forgot that Peggy was still at the point in her life where going drinking and dancing with friends was more normal than staying in and watching a movie on Netflix with the dogs. He didn’t want her to think that she was stuck in suburbia with nowhere to go.

“Nick?”

He looked up to see her holding two plates full of food expectantly, “I must have zoned out!” he smiled and joined her at the table. “I have an idea...”

“Hold that thought,” she grinned and motioned down to the plate. “First let me know what you think of dinner.”

He decided in that split second that rather than disappoint her again he would just eat whatever was in his plate. Looking down though he was pleasantly surprised to see that there was not a bird in sight, rather it was cubes of tofu on his plate covered in a delicious looking peanut sauce on a bed of whole wheat noodles.

“Tofu?” he asked excitedly, giving her a warm smile. “Thanks! You didn’t need to do that.”

“I bought a cookbook, for vegetarians,” she explained. “I don’t want us to have to eat different things all the time.”

“You’re awesome,” he told her as he took a big bite of his dinner.

“What were you going to say?” she wondered, leaning her chin on her hand as she watched him eat. Nick used to be weirded out by it but he had come to find some normalcy in the fact that if she made dinner she would always watch him eat it as if to be absolutely positive that he liked it.

“We should go out tonight!” he proposed between bites. “To a club or something! I haven’t seen you get dressed up in a while. I’m positive you’ve got a short skirt somewhere in that enormous closet upstairs that is dying to be shown off.”

Peggy grinned widely and nodded her head, “Yes! That sounds like so much fun. Where should we go?”

“Downtown?” he suggested. “Wherever we go though, I have to call ahead so they know I’m coming. I don’t want to cause any problems so I’m better off sticking to a VIP area somewhere.”

“Oh my god!” Peggy’s eyes went even wider and Nick couldn’t help but laugh. “I totally forgot we would get to hang out in VIP! Sometimes I forget you’re famous.”

“That’s why I love you,” he chuckled, reaching out to grab her hand.

She was practically dancing in her seat, “I should invite some of my friends! I know they would love to meet you. It’s so weird to have been seeing someone for a year but not have introduced them to any of your friends.”

They both concentrated on their food for a while before Peggy broke the silence, “Should we get a cab? It might take awhile for one to get all the way out here. Maybe we should get a town car or something?”

Nick waved her off, “I’ll drive.”

“But honey, if you drive you can’t drink.”

“I don’t really drink anymore anyway,” he said, thinking back to the heart condition he had suffered with a few years earlier as a result of his penchant for hard-partying. He still drank but normally only when he was a short walk away from his hotel room or was being driven by someone in his entourage. He’d had too many issues with waiting outside clubs trying to get cabs home, dealing with annoying paparazzi and occasionally the police.

“Okay,” Peggy said skeptically. If there was one thing she had come to know about Nick it was that no matter how often he said he wasn’t going to drink it was rarely true. She had heard the speech about his heart condition and how he was going to take it easy on the drinking a million times in the year she knew him. Still though he always managed to get completely shitfaced without even trying. She only hoped for both their sake since they weren’t going to be drinking in the comfort of their own hotel that he keep his promise.