"Avery," Jordan spoke, coming out of the bathroom over to where I was sitting on one of the benches outside.

"Yeah?" I replied.

"I wanted to ask you this on the picnic, before I got that phone call, and I want to be completely honest with you, but I'd really like to move in with you, like, into a house that we can call our own," Jordan said.

"Oh, wow, is it not maybe a little early?"

"Probably, but I love you, I want to spend every night with you, and I wanted our own space."

"We can always do a bit of house hunting, and if the right one is there, then go for it?" I suggested.

"I like that idea," he smiled. "There is another thing though, but this development has in no way impacted me wanting to do this move... the lawyers think that me living in a stable home, perhaps with you, could perhaps cause the ruling to be in my favour. They don't want to send a kid from one unstable home to another you see?"

"I understand, let's just do a bit of house hunting and work it out as we go, I guess."

"What did I do to deserve you?" he asked rhetorically, pulling me close to him, and not letting go.

***

The next couple of days were mostly house hunting. Of course, I went to visit Tabs' new home with her, and she walked me through all of the different rooms, telling me what her vision for each one was. They were having to fast track a lot of it, so that it would be in a suitable shape for when the baby arrived, so it would not be perfect, but it would be enough for then, and then they can grow the house together as a family. She was extremely happy, and according to Oli, cried for about two hours, happy tears though.

A lot of Jordan's time was still spent sorting out all of the legal stuff and publicity stuff. I tried to not ask the hard questions, because I didn't want to add more pressure to what Jordan was dealing with, but often he would ask me little questions, tell me little things and let some steam off. I knew if I wanted to know more he would tell me, but for now it was best dealt with in the meeting rooms with all of the professionals. I mainly just knew the main points, and one of those was that Cleo had agreed to take a DNA test, after the threat of a lawsuit that would take her for everything she was worth. On top of that, the lawyers had also filed so that Jordan would get custody of Zeke. That meant the house hunting was going to have to speed up a little bit.

We had basically every good estate agent working with us to get the perfect house. It needed to be nearby to where I worked, as well as where Jordan trained and would go for runs, I wanted parks nearby and good schools, and a shop within walking distance. Other requirements were for it to have a gate, of course, and an extremely good security system. In terms of the house itself, we were flexible, but I think we both liked a lot of glass, woods, and an open plan kind of style, as well as a nice big garden.

It didn't seem like too much to ask for, but apparently it was, especially in London. Each one had something just wrong with it, and much to Jordan's dismay, who would have bought the first house he had been shown and gone with it, I still wasn't happy to settle.

Then, as if by some miracle, the perfect house, fitting the description, yet also have a number of other perfections to it came on the market. It came on the market early that morning, we were shown it pretty quickly after that, in the afternoon there was a slight bidding war, but we won.

"Avery," Jordan turned to me, finally getting off of the phone with the seller.

"Jordan," I was grinning at him.

"We have a house," he beamed down at me.

"We have a house!" I squealed. He ran over to me, although we weren't that far away from eachother, picked me up and span me around, repeating the words "We have a house," over and over again.

The purchase went through pretty quickly, and pretty soon the keys were being dropped into my hands. Jordan was in meetings all morning, so I took Noah, Kyle, Tabs and Dahlia with me to see the house.

"I love the lighting in here," Noah exclaimed as soon as he stepped through the door. "Kyle, I want a house now."

"Oh do you now, we can start looking," Kyle replied, pulling Noah in for a hug.

"So, give me a tour," Dahlia said, so I did.

There were five bedrooms, each with an ensuite, one walk in wardrobe, an office room, various living areas in the huge open plan bottom floor, which included a kitchen, other bathrooms and cloak rooms, there was a basement with a spa, including a sauna and a wine cellar. Outside there was a large, well-kept garden, with a patio area that had sliding doors into the kitchen and a swimming pool. It wasn't decorated at all though, but I kind of had a vision, and Dahlia, Kyle, Noah and Tabs helped me loads that morning with the designs, and various ideas.

"Avery?" Jordan called out, walking through the front door.

"Here," I called back to him. I was in the kitchen, with some blueprints and plans all laid out, discussing with an interior designer who had arrived just after my friends had left.

"I love this house already," he smiled at me.

"It needs furniture."

"We will get furniture," he rolled his eyes.

"Come, help me choose," I beckoned him over. The rest of that afternoon was spent picking out furniture, choosing which colours to paint the walls, carpets, flooring, and everything in between. Jordan was surprisingly opinionated about a lot of it, clearly having his view on what his ideal house would be, and I liked that, because then the house would reflect us and not just me.

The next week was pretty hectic. I had taken the week off work so I could fully oversee the house developments, which were coming along nicely. Most of the bedrooms were done, including one specifically for Zeke, but it was mostly a skeleton design for his room, so that he could decorate it in whatever way he wished when he saw it. I decided to leave the kitchen as it is for now, as we can always do renovations whenever, but it was just important that we had it all finished by the time they were making the decision on custody. I spent Wednesday afternoon picking out rugs and paintings, and Thursday morning choosing pots and pans for the kitchen, as well as all of the other little bits. By Friday evening, it was pretty much complete, for now anyway, there was still a lot more I wanted to do, and I don't think it will ever be completely finished, but it would do.

Saturday was the day that I was moving in. It was also the day that Tabs was moving into her house, and Kyle was actually moving into the apartment, to live with Noah, after buying it from Tabs. As you can imagine, the apartment was crazy, with all of the boxes and people moving boxes and everything else. Jordan was doing a lot of the heavy lifting for me, as my arms could be compared to spaghetti, whilst Oli was moving loads of the boxes for Tabs. He said that he didn't want her touching a thing; he was getting very protective over her recently, because of the baby.

At some point all of the rest of my 'family' arrived, and with them came a crate of beers. See what I mean? These guys love bringing beers. They were passed around, missing Tabs of course, and we all cheered, celebrating these new steps in our lives.

Just as we were all taking a break from packing and moving things, Jordan's phone started ringing. He picked it up, listening to what the other person was saying first, before thanking them, and hanging up. I watched him carefully, he clenched and unclenched his hand, and ran his hand down his face, his eyes squeezed shut. Just when I thought he was about to tell us some bad news, he broke out into a full-on grin, literally ear to ear, like a Cheshire cat. "DNA test states the baby isn't mine," he informed us. The boys all broke into screams of joys, and they ran over to Jordan, hugging him and patting him on the back, whilst I got a huge hug from Tabs and Dahlia. I was smiling too, selfishly being super happy that it wasn't his child, and we would now get to build our own family together.

"I'm suing her, and I'm suing Anne and Colin, and I am filing for custody of Zeke," announced Jordan, getting even more cheers from the guys.

"Fuck, let's finish this move then," I said, beaming over at Jordan, who was beaming back at me, his eyes all crinkled because of how wide he was smiling, looking every bit like the man I fell in love with.

He came over to me, and pulled me in close, holding me tightly. We didn't really say much at that point, not many more words were needed than what was already said, and all was needed was the comforting embrace of eachother. "Thank you for sticking by me," he spoke softly into my ear.

"I always will," I spoke back.