“Come on.”, I laughed and pulled Damien up the stairs by his sleeve. He grunted.

“I don’t feel comfortable leaving them alone. She’s my little sister.”, he said, his eyebrows pulled together.

“They are not alone. There are tons of people downstairs. Your parents included, by the way. And also, you should really get used to seeing them together. They’ve been dating for almost 8 moths or so.”

“Eight months? Are you serious? For that long? I am so going to kill Jared. He can’t just date my sister without my permission. And why didn’t you tell me?”, he growled, and he halted to go back downstairs but I stepped in front of him before he would do something he would regret later.

I put my hands on his chest and smiled a little.

“Clary and Jared are adults, Damien. You can’t stop them from dating, and I really wasn’t in the place to tell you. And they did tell you in the end, right? Also, Clary is your sister and Jared is your best friend, so why wouldn’t you want them to be happy?”

I let go off him and crossed my arms when I could be sure he wouldn’t try to storm off again.

“Oh, I want them to be happy. But I also want as much space between them as possible. And also, they didn’t tell me. I just found them in the back of Jared’s car making out.”, he said frowning as if he were truly disgusted by the memory of it and I chuckled.

“It’s really sweet that your being so protective of her. But how do you think my dad felt when I suddenly stood in front of his doorstep, pregnant at the age of 19. I could barely stop him from coming to New York to strangle you. And Connor. And even now he keeps staring at us suspiciously. Which really isn’t a surprise by the way after you and Charlie kept talking about another baby boy as if he were already on the way. Was that really necessary with him standing right next to you?”, I grimaced and now it was on him to smile, while he grabbed me by the waist and pulled me closer.

“Well, I am sure your mom wouldn’t say no to another grandchild. And my parents wouldn’t object either. They adore Charlie. I think mom is devasted that he is going back to kindergarten now.”

Every time I thought of Charlie my heart swelled up with joy, even more than it used too. The surgery had gone even better than expected.

He was as healthy as any other child his age now and even his hair had grown back.

The black locks were covering his ears already, but he refused to let me cut it.

“Who’s talking about another boy anyway? I can’t handle another Charlie jumping around telling me how useless I am when it comes to handling tools. He keeps mocking me because I had to call you from work to fix the dryer last week.”, I complained and now it was on Damien to chuckle.

His eyes sparkled in amusement and he raised an eyebrow.

“You do realize that it really didn’t need any fixing, right? It was unplugged. And it wasn’t just last week. What about the lavatory? Or when you managed to fuse the trips because of that stupid old radio you insisted on using? Or the lightbulb that you broke? I still don’t know how you did it by the way.”

I slapped his chest.

“I told you it was just an accident! Charlie insisted on playing with his new toy-cars.”

“Well, yes. But as far as I know cars usually stay on the ground. They don’t fly.”, he said dryly, not at all affected by my punch, and I rolled my eyes.

He wasn’t entirely wrong of course, especially because the ceilings in the apartment were at least twelve feet tall.

Charlie and I had moved in with Damien just recently, and I had tried to make the apartment a little more coz but unfortunately there had gone a few things wrong with montaging everything.

Charlie had found it excruciatingly funny of course.

I hated how much Charlie was like him already. He had gotten his temper and his ego, and unfortunately he had gotten that irresistible smile and the blue sparkling eyes too.

He would break many hearts when he was older.

Then Damien’s smile dropped a little.

“But getting back to your dad, did he really want to come and kill me?”, he asked, his eyebrows pulled together now.

I smiled and turned away, not answering.

“We should really go now, otherwise we will miss the fireworks. I bet everyone else is already outside.”, I said, grabbing Damien’s hand and pulling him with me.

He sighed a little, not sounding to enthusiastic, but then the smirk returned to his face.

“Do you really want to go outside? If everyone is at the terrace downstairs, we would be completely undisturbed up here.”, he said ambiguously.

I rolled my eyes and he shrugged. “It was worth a try, right?”

He followed me outside to the upper terrace of Mr and Mrs Black’s apartment. They had invited friends and family to a New Year’s Eve party at their place.

We had decided to view it from the terrace upstairs. It was much smaller but at least we would have some privacy for once. Damien had been talking to business partners all night and I had tried to keep Charlie busy while helping Mrs Black, Mrs Davidson and my mom to prepare the food and get the place decorated.

In the past years I hadn’t really celebrated it that much, but this time I actually had something to look forward to. This was about me and my family.

By now I was secretly considering the Black’s my family as well. Still I flushed at the thought of legally becoming a family member one day.

Damien and I had only been dating for a little less than 9 months of course, but the fact that he was already talking about having another child, joking or not, proved that he wasn’t completely reluctant towards it, right?

I shot Damien a side gaze and he raised an eyebrow again.

“What is it, Princess?”, he asked and quickly I turned around.

“Nothing.”, I muttered but he stopped abruptly so that I stumbled and maybe I would have tripped and fell, id he hadn’t caught me.

“What is it? We are not going to see the fireworks until you tell me what’s going on.”

My cheeks turned the dark red shade of a tomato and I was glad in that moment the firework show in the central park started and the loud explosions that were even draining the sound of loud engines down on the street, caught Damien by surprise and I got lose and laughing I rushed to the door, opened it and stepped outside into the mild summer breeze.

Damien, being much taller and taking much larger steps, reached me within seconds.

“Tell me.”, he said again and crossed his arms.

“And you are calling me stubborn.”, I replied, rolling my eyes once again.

Damien smirked a little and I was going to put him off again but when I looked up into his eyes I froze for a second. They never failed to amaze me and for a moment even the fireworks shifted into the background.

He looked at me, waiting for my reply. I knew he wouldn’t push it any further if I denied him now, but I wasn’t even sure whether I wanted to.

“I love you.”, I said finally but instead of the usual smirk that he gave me whenever I was being gooey again, but this time he grabbed my hand and sighed a little.

I frowned. Did I say something wrong? Had he changed his mind about us?

Damien seemed to sense my worries because he gave me a short, but intensive kiss.

“I love you too. I just- I feel like you deserve more than this.”

“What do you mean?”, I asked confused.

What more could I possibly ask for?

“I will never be the type of guy to make you a bath and put rose pedals and scented candles everywhere, or to make you a picknick and feed you with chocolate covered strawberries. I don’t care much for fireworks and to be honest you are the only interesting thing I saw the entire evening.”

I laughed a little, shaking my head. He wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t bothered by it either. I put my hand on his cheek.

“I know. And I wouldn’t want you to do these things. I love you, Damien. For everything, even your flaws.”, I whispered and within a second his smirk returned.

“Well, I wouldn’t call lack of romance a flaw. I am just extraordinary. Also, all the romanticists are douches. Just pathetic. I just wanted to make sure that you won’t expect me to get you 365 red roses for our anniversary.”, he grinned and the moment of him actually being sweet was over.

“That’s why I love you. Because you always find a way to travesty every serious conversation we have. And because you always find a way to make it about you.”, I snorted sarcastically, but I could hardly hide my smile.

“Sorry.”

“No, you are not.” I crossed my arms.

“Maybe not.”, he admitted, then, without warning he wrapped his arms around me and kissed me so deeply that for a second I forgot how to breathe. Then I gave in and our lips moved in perfect synchrony.

Fireworks exploded inside me, and the ones exploding above our heads were nothing in comparison.

When we separated breathlessly I smiled against his lips.

“You know what?”, I asked with a raspy voice, “I don’t need rose pedals or picknicks, I just need you… And chocolate covered strawberries.”