Nick had always found packing to be pretty easy. Get a bunch of boxes, put them together, throw all your crap into them and seal them up. He never really considering at the time of the packing that eventually all of those boxes would have to be unpacked. He also forgot to consider that there would need to be some kind of order involved that would help him through the unpacking transition.
When he was back in California he had kind of thought that this might be the last time he would have to pack up all of his stuff. The more he thought about his relationship with Peggy he couldn’t see it ending. He always had a tendency to think that way for all of his girlfriends and he’d always been able to come up with reasons why they would eventually break up.
With his last girlfriend he could see the pressure building every time one of his fans said something hateful to her and he knew that eventually she would leave him over it. He had been right, too. One day he’d come home and all of her things were gone from the home they’d shared for three years, including the dogs, the 60-inch flat screen from the living room and strangely, the dishwasher.
Electronics and kitchen appliances were easily replaceable but over the years they had rescued the dogs from shelters around the Los Angeles area and he was unable to just let go of them. It had taken two lawyers but eventually he got custody of two of the dogs and in some sort of twisted Sophie’s Choice moment he had to decide which ones he wanted. He had gone with George and Ringo, despite being the less desirable of the Beatles they were named after, he felt a special connection to the two.
They were the breeds he liked better and the dogs he got along with better. John and Paul, appropriately, were beagles. They were brothers that couldn’t be separated and had always taken a bit better to his ex than to Nick. For the year leading up to meeting Peggy the dogs had been his only companionship and he only hoped that his new partner would get along with them as well as the last one did.
After opening up another box with a bunch of things tossed inside randomly Nick sighed and closed the box top again; he needed a break. He and Peggy had managed to get rid of her family shortly after dinner and once he had settled some things with Charlene she had taken her leave also, leaving them to deal with the mess. He laid back on the hardwood floor, smiling when both dogs immediately came over to try and lick his face.
“Where’s your new mom?” he asked the pair, chuckling when both their heads tilted to the side in curiosity. “Is she downstairs?” he continued to question them, getting a kick over how excited both dogs were getting though they clearly had no idea what he was going on about.
Nick pet both dogs for a bit before getting up to find Peggy and see how her unpacking was going. One thing he had noticed when walking around the house was they would need to get rid of some things that they had in duplicate. There seemed to be way too many bookcases in the living room and apart from the ones that would go in his office he wasn’t sure where they were going to end up.
He padded out barefoot into the hallway, shaking his head at how many random boxes had ended up there with no labels on them. “Babe?” he called out loudly, assuming that Peggy was still down in the kitchen where she’d been when he’d left her.
“In the bedroom,” her voice called out softly in return and he turned in surprise, not having expected her to be so close. As he and the dogs made their way down the hall he figured she was likely diving into boxes of clothes or organizing the bathroom but what he saw when he swung open the door was something entirely different. Peggy had obviously sought out the box with the linens in it and although everything else in the room was in shambles the bed was made and she was lying face down against a pillow on his side of the bed.
He chuckled and hopped on the bed, laying himself flat on top of her. She groaned at the weight but he ignored her pleas for him to move, instead opting to playfully wiggle his hips against her behind. “You call this unpacking?” he joked, kissing behind her ear.
“I call it suffocating,” she mumbled into the pillow and Nick rolled off of her back with a laugh.
“You’re in my spot.”
“The whole bed is your spot,” she said while rolling over onto her back. “Wherever there is a warm spot on the bed you find a way to steal it.”
“I’m cold blooded, baby,” he teased, giving her a toothy grin. “Have you been up here long?”
Peggy shook her head and moved over until she could rest her head on Nick’s chest. He played with her hair absentmindedly and the two just enjoyed the quiet for a moment. “I knew we were going to need the bed made,” she finally spoke. “Then once I got up here I realized how exhausted I am. Today was something else!”
The clock on Nick’s cell phone showed that it was well past midnight so he didn’t blame her for being unable to resist crawling into bed. After all, the mattress was top of the line and he had spent many days and nights hibernating on it.
“What’s with your family hating me?” he felt compelled to ask. Neither of them had dared bring up the multiple altercations between Nick and Peggy’s father until then.
“They don’t hate you, I told you that,” she sighed. Her cheek was rubbing softly against his t-shirt and he could tell by the sleepiness in her voice that she was close to falling asleep. “My dad was really close with my last boyfriend and he was disappointed when the two of us broke up. He never really gave up hope that we would get back together then all of a sudden I’m moving in with you. That’s why I never really told him about us. They also don’t really understand the celebrity thing.”
“What’s to understand? I make music and people like it so they think they are somehow entitled to be a part of my life. It’s made me rich though, so I can have nice places like this to live in with you and I could fly all over the country to have crazy monkey sex with a super hot flight attendant.”
Peggy laughed, “You just don’t know what it’s like to be normal anymore! In the real world people think that’s strange. That’s why strangers want to be part of your life. They want to look into your world and see what it’s like in there because it’s so foreign. My dad might have been a bit defensive today because he got his knickers in a twist over the googling you thing but he’ll come around, you’ll see.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Nick said skeptically. The whole bed moved and he looked down to see that George was now up on the bed, sniffling Peggy’s foot suspiciously. “George, get down. Your new mommy doesn’t want you up on the bed.”
Peggy groaned, “Oh, please don’t call me that. I hate when people do the ‘fur kids’ thing. They’re dogs, not children.”
“They can hear you.”
“No they can’t! They’re dogs. They don’t speak English. They understand maybe 150 words.”
“Wow!” Nick exclaimed, moving to sit up on the bed. “They’re our dogs now, I hope you realize that. They live here with us so it would be nice if you gave them a little respect.”
“Seriously?” Peggy asked rhetorically, pulling herself into a sitting position. “You didn’t even ask me how I felt about them. The only reason I knew you had dogs originally was from following you on Twitter. You just assumed I would be stoked to live with the dogs you won in what I found out was a very public custody battle with your ex, without considering that not everyone is a dog person. I’m not a dog person.”
“What do you want me to do? I made a responsibility to them that I would take care of them. I don’t think it’s fair of you to just throw this at me. I’m not getting rid of my dogs. Do you know how much I had to fight for them?” Nick said aggressively.
Peggy held up her hands in surrender, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m sure I’ll get used to them. It’s just a whole lot to take in at once. I was being petty because they were dogs you shared with your ex and I’ve never had a pet before. I just need to adjust.”
“I’m adjusting too,” Nick reminded her. “That’s what relationships are all about.”
“We should be happy right now, shouldn’t we?” Peggy pouted. “It seems wrong that the first night in our new house and all we’ve done all day is argue.”
Nick knew exactly how she felt. It had seemed all day as though he’d been defending himself every time he spoke. He was exhausted physically from moving boxes around the house and mentally from all the fighting.
“You know what would make me happy?”
“What would make you happy?” she asked with a sly smile, clearly knowing what he was going to say.
Nick just grinned and pointed to his groin, then to Peggy’s, his eyebrows wiggling suggestively.
“I needed a break from unpacking anyway,” she said, laughing when he immediately started peeling clothes off, throwing them randomly around the room before falling on top of her.
