My bedroom is the Rochester apartment is three times the size of my closet-like tower back at the house by campus. Even sharing it with Banks, our little apartment by the stadium felt like a castle.

"Every burner on the stove works," Banks ogled in the kitchen, still sweaty from heaving the last of our boxes from his truck downstairs. We didn't pack much, since we were only going to be gone for the summer, but enough to make my legs feel wobbly and sore from the multiple trips up two flights of stairs.

"The couch doesn't have any stains or smells," I pointed out from the living room. The place was fully furnished in cheap Ikea furniture, all in much better quality than the ragged hand me down furniture we mangled together at the house.

He peered through the archway from the kitchen to smirk at me. "Not yet anyway."

"The walls are kind of thin," I pointed out, nudging toward the left wall where we could hear the neighbor listening to Judge Judy.

"Nothing can be as bad as sharing walls with the guys back home," he scoffed, and he was totally right. It was bad enough on the second floor when Walker was the only one getting laid, but with Bridgette and Morgan spending a lot of nights there too, it started sounding like a brothel. Banks and I would spend most weekends hidden away in my tower to get away from it.

It was convenient to have the two bedrooms, being able to switch where we slept based on the situation. But this was better. This little apartment that wasn't separated into Banks's space and mine. Everything was ours.

Our bed. Our shower. Our dresser.

It was only for the summer and then we'd be back at the house with all of the guys and all of their madly in love girlfriends. But right now, for these three months, I was tasting the life we'd have together after I finished school.

I could imagine us moving into an apartment like this next year. Merging our furniture, our closets, our lives into one thing that belonged to us. I didn't know where that apartment would be- near Tate or here in New York or maybe in England. It didn't really matter.

"This bed rocks," Banks called from down the hallway. I didn't even realize he'd left the kitchen.

I followed him into the one bedroom where he was now shirtless, splayed out across the queen sized mattress. Of course I was staring, counting all of the tattoos on his chest as if I didn't already know the exact number and their exact placements by heart.

"Better than the one you have at the house?" I asked, leaning against the door frame.

Banks quirked his eyebrow at me. "Come see for yourself."

In a blink, I was across the room, on top of him. I had no idea how the mattress felt, I was too occupied with feeling him. My body still reacted to his body like this was the first time I'd ever touched him.

I'd never get used to it, this electric thing that started in my knees, worked its way up into my chest and then down to my groin.

I don't think I'd ever get used to the way he looked at me, either. Because for the last couple of years, ever since my injury, I'd felt broken and clumsy and wrong. I'd built my entire life around soccer, I used to being The Best, the Rockstar, the Champion. When I lost it, I lost every fragile bit of confidence I had in myself.

But Banks looked at me like I was still The Best. The Champion. He looked at me like I was perfect the way I was. And when somebody like Banks looked at me like that, it was hard not to start believing it myself.

"When we actually move in together, we're getting a California King," he said against my mouth. "I need to spread out and you kick in your sleep."

I liked that he was envisioning us living together for real, like I was. "And a dog," I added, my nose brushing against the stubble on his jaw.

"A dog?" he repeated with a skeptical little laugh.

"We'll have all that room in a California King. A dog will fit just fine."

"A dog that's allowed on the bed?" He said this like I was suggesting we live in a sewer tunnel with the Ninja Turtles.

"Yes," I confirmed, laughing into his neck. "Of course she'll be allowed on the bed. I'm going to spoil her rotten."

"Are we going to be one of those couples that have their dog act as the ring bearer at their wedding?" he asked, wrapping his legs around my thighs, his hands moving up my sweat-laced shirt.

I felt myself unraveling a little bit at the mention of a wedding. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about what our wedding would be like some day. Who we'd invite, where we might honeymoon, what kind of venue and color scheme and the fit of our tuxedos. I never said any of this out loud though, because we'd only been dating for a little over than six months.

"What's wrong with that?" I said with another laugh, this one more sheepish.

"I was hoping we could just elope in Vegas or something."

I pulled away from him, lifting myself up on fully extended arms to give him a stern look. "Eloping? Absolutely not. It doesn't have to be a big thing, but we're going to have a wedding."

"Yeah?" Banks smiled against me. "I didn't realize you felt so strongly about it."

"Maybe it's corny that I want to declare my love for you in front of all of our friends and family, but I really do. Besides, Mom and Quinn would absolutely murder me if I got married without them there."

"Alright," he gave in so easy. "I'm convinced. As long as Ollie officiates, and I want us to write our own vows."

"Obviously."

Banks pulled me into him again. "God, I love you so much."

He kissed me hard on our shared bed.

"Should we test out the shower?" I suggested when our hips started grinding against each other.

He bit my lip and then let out an affirmative groan from the back of his throat.

The bathroom was larger than I expected. The tile was white and beige and clean. There was enough counter space for Banks's hair products, enough height on the shower that I wouldn't have to duck under the curtain rod when stepping in.

"I want you to design a tattoo for me," I told Banks as he was running a soaped sponge across my back.

"Yeah?" he said with a smile in his voice. "Do you have any ideas?"

"That's all you. Just nothing too big," I said.

"I have an entire sketch pad dedicated to tattoos I want to put on your body," he told me. "Where do you want it?"

"I don't know. What do you think would look good?" I asked.

He turned me around to face him and then ran his thumb along the middle of my thigh. I wasn't sure if he thought I should actually get a thigh tattoo, or if he was just trying to get me worked up. The guy could play me like a fiddle, so of course it was working immediately.

"Right here," he said, smirking. "You have great thighs, I really want to decorate them."

"They're all yours," I muttered, despite not really knowing what I was agreeing to. He had that power over me, especially when his soapy hands were all over me like that.

Once we finally finished our shower and toweled off, we found ourselves back on the bed. Our bed. Still naked and damp.

Banks brushed some wet hair from my face and asked, "You really think we'll get married someday?"

"Yes," I responded fast and honest. It was an easy question to answer. Of course I could imagine spending the rest of my life with him. Out of all of the people I'd dated before, it never felt like this. Nobody had ever understood me as much as Banks does. He got into every crevice of my brain, every dark place that I didn't know that well myself. I tried to do the same for him. I tried to be as good for him as he was for me, but I felt like I'd never catch up. "Do you?"

"You're it for me, Liam," he said, melting his dark eyes into mine. "Maybe it should be too soon to say that since we've only been doing this for seven months, but I'm saying it anyway. I am so irrevocably in love with you. If I don't marry you someday, it's just not going to happen for me at all. You're it."

I lifted my mouth to his, wrapping my hand around the back of his neck to pull him into me.

"You're it."