Beginnings

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"Well," Anthea said, planting her hands on her hips and blowing one loose strand of long pink hair out of her face. "I guess this is it."

Absently, she rubbed one hand over her lower back, working out the tension of a day's heavy lifting and loading. The front room was small and sparsely furnished, with the muted floral curtains and pale pink carpet a throwback to the house's previous owner. The rest of it, though – half-unpacked boxes, photo frames leaning against the walls, and a vase of fresh flowers on the coffee table – was all theirs.

At last.

The smile on her face faltered when Anthea realised her earlier proclamation had been met with silence. Giving one final stretch, she crossed the room and peered around the door frame into the darkened hallway.

"Waldo?"

His voice drifted out to her from a half open doorway, something distracted and inaudible. Anthea wasn't the least bit surprised to find him kneeling over a cardboard box, one fist curled around a bunch of wires and the the other elbow deep in the box's contents. He scrabbled aimlessly for a moment longer, oblivious to the amused appraisal Anthea was giving his hunched over back, before heaving a sigh and straightening up once more.

"Hey," he said. "You haven't seen a stack of papers around, have you?"

"Research notes?"

"Yes." He frowned to himself, reached one loosely clenched hand – the one still holding the wires – beneath his glasses to rub tiredly at his eyes. "I could have sworn I'd put all my things together..."

"They'll show up in the morning, I'm sure. Anyway, it's getting late."

He nodded his agreement, placed the tangle of wires back into the box – frowning as he did so, as though he had just about remembered he was holding onto them - and followed her through into the front room. The lights were bright in here, artificial and yellow and contained beneath the shells of white crystalline lampshades. The air was filled with the faint smell of coffee; as Anthea began ripping brown tape off a box labelled "MISC." in Waldo's thick marker-pen scrawl, he picked up a previously abandoned mug and took a long, grateful gulp.

The young couple stood across from each other in the cramped space, leaning on opposite armchairs. Waldo smiled at her; Anthea smiled back.

"So," she said.

"So," he agreed.

"I think we've done all right," she said brightly. "It's a bit small..." she gestured vaguely to their surroundings, "but, it's ours, and that's what counts. First night in a new place though... feels like we should be doing something more exciting than this."

She crossed the space between them in two short strides, leaning up to press the flat of her palm against his cheek, fingertips running over the scratchy bristles of his beard, shaving often forgotten in favour of a project for days at a time. It added years to his appearance but at the same time, in a way, it suited him. With a rush of warmth, she recalled fondly an image of him face-first and fast asleep in a textbook at the university library, where Anthea had removed his glasses (they appeared to be digging quite uncomfortably into his face) and, taking a seat opposite him, opened a book of her own as she waited for him to wake up.

Right now he didn't look altogether too different from that memory. Waldo's hair, too, was voluminous – overdue a cut and not helped by the amount of times he ran his hands through it, especially when considering a new idea. He was always thinking about something; Anthea loved that about him, the idea of that sharp brain constantly at work, those bright, thoughtful eyes hidden behind glasses so thick as to be almost opaque. The way passion lit him up from within when he was allowed to talk at length about something that interested him – a quality that Anthea suspected he found mirrored in her, and loved just as much.

If she positioned her head at the right angle, she could just about see his eyes through them. She did so now, bracing her hands on his shoulders as she rocked back on her heels, head tilted just slightly to the left. Waldo quirked an eyebrow at her, bending his arms to clasp his own fingers over hers.

"Anthea, what are you doing?"

She laughed, a soft, warm, single-syllable sound, and shook her head.

"Never mind. Say-" Here she slipped one hand free and returned it to his beard, tapping it playfully. "Pretty soon I'm going to be playing 'Where's Waldo', trying to find you under there."

He groaned. He'd heard all the jokes before, too many times to laugh; his response was, instead, to dig playful hands into the sensitive spot just beneath her ribs, and catch her as she doubled over with a gasp. She found herself pressed against him and his voice rumbled through low through his chest, close to her ear.

"Point taken," Waldo said. "I'll shave first thing tomorrow."

She shrugged, a you don't really have to gesture, before taking his hand and pulling him to sit down beside her on the couch. Seemingly from nowhere, she produced her prized Polaroid and leaned in close to him, aiming the camera at both of them and snapping the picture before Waldo could even react.

"Almost forgot to commemorate the occasion! First photograph in our new house."

"I think I blinked."

She was about to point out the obvious – that no one would notice, given his glasses – when she caught the smirk on his face and realised he was joking. Instead, Anthea swatted her boyfriend lightly on the arm, the other hand tucking the camera and photograph back down the side of the sofa.

She was sentimental in a poetic way when it came to her personal history; the need to capture memories manifested in her scrapbooks and diary entries, lovingly maintained. He himself never thought to take photographs; Anthea was always the one with a camera in hand. Waldo supposed in many ways that there was a lot he would never venture to do without Anthea.

They sunk back into the sofa cushions, curling up into one another in their familiar way – Anthea's legs folded beneath her, her arm draped across Waldo's stomach and his around her shoulders. Opposite them was the bookshelf, half-filled already with books. Anthea's volumes of Norse mythology and British folklore, history and literary criticism where stacked messily beside Waldo's computer manuals and science journals, and inevitably, a vast array of science fiction.

Scattered on the floor amongst the cardboard boxes were clunky computer monitors and heavy keyboards, cables and modems from a dozen different systems. An advert torn out of a magazine for the Tandy 5000 MC Micro ("Our most powerful computer ever!") tucked inside one of Anthea's upturned ski boots.

There was something poignant about the sight. A visual representation of the way their lives had merged slowly and inextricably together over the last few years. To think it had all begun with her watching across the street from the window of her rented house in the heart of the city, as he heaved overflowing trash bags – weeks' worth of procrastinated chores, out onto the kerb.

She wondered how keenly she'd feel the absence of his things, mess and all, if he were gone.

Brushing the thought aside, Anthea stifled a yawn, pillowing her head on Waldo's worn flannel shirt.

"Weren't you talking earlier," he said suddenly, "about doing something more exciting on our first evening in our new house?"

She feigned ignorance - "Did I say that?" - then heaved herself fully upright and leaned in towards him, pressing her lips to his eager mouth.

In many ways they had already moved fully into one another's lives. It was nice, though, to have the house to make it official.

The ring sparkling on Anthea's finger was a nice touch, too.

"I do believe I'm going to enjoy living with you, Waldo Schaeffer."