Dinner was at her dad’s favorite place down by the river. Marina had drank 3 glasses of tea during dinner without realizing it. Her dad was enjoying talking with Donnie. He had already insisted that Donnie call him Jim. She was trying to not leave them alone, but the tea soon forced her to excuse herself to the restroom. And there was a line.
“So you really like my daughter?” Jim said.
“Yes Sir. She’s amazing. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted.” He picked up his drink hoping that he had said the right thing.
“She likes you too. I’m glad you came along. I was starting to think she was gonna stay alone for the rest of her life.” Donnie took a drink. This wasn’t so bad. “But now that the two of you have had sex, I know she’s really serious about being with you.” Donnie choked on his drink. Jim laughed at him. “Did you really think I couldn’t tell you had slept with my daughter?”
Donnie cleared his throat and cleaned up a bit with his napkin. “I, uh, hadn’t given it that much thought. I didn’t know I was gonna meet you till just a little while ago…”
“Relax. I like you. I like you in her life. Haven’t seen her smile this much since…ever. Whatever you’re doing to her, keep doing it.” He looked up and saw Marina on her way back to the table. Donnie was blushing.
She sat down. “You two look guilty. What have you been up to?”
“Just talking,” Donnie said.
“I told him a dirty joke. I don’t think he expected it from someone my age.” Jim was a highly skilled liar. Marina totally bought it. After a few more minutes, Jim announced that it was time to go. He watched as Donnie helped Marina into the car. He couldn’t help but smile when he saw her lean over and give him a quick kiss that was followed by Donnie kissing her back much more passionately than she expected. He liked that Donnie had plans to take Marina to meet his kids the next weekend. Things were going to get interesting. He had already had his personal assistant working on possible questions from the media about his daughter dating this man and he already had his answers. However, he was still trying to figure out what to get them as a wedding gift. He knew that would be happening soon. He recognized the look in Donnie’s eyes.
He dropped them off back at Marina’s building. He declined to come inside. Marina seemed a little hurt, but he knew he had done the right thing when Donnie looked back at him and smirked. Donnie followed Marina inside and up to her loft. He closed the door and locked it. She set the alarm. At that point it was a race to see who could get the other one’s clothes off faster.
There was nothing slow or gentle about this time. Even when she cried out in pain initially and he tried to stop, she begged him to keep going. And so he did. He had sex with her in the entryway up against the wall. And he still couldn’t get enough of her.

They apparently found their way to the bed because that’s where they woke up the next morning. Donnie wanted to spend the day getting to know Marina better. So they found some old photo albums and she let him look though them. She told stories about some of the pictures. He was pretty sure this was the best weekend of his life.

Marina talked with her boss the next morning and explained that she would have to cut back on her hours due to personal reasons. He understood. He wasn’t happy, but he understood. Plus, while a little publicity was good for the hospital, the amount of publicity having James Royce’s daughter and Donnie Wahlberg’s girlfriend work there…not exactly what they had in mind.
Donnie asked her to open up a new twitter account. She could keep her old one and make it private for personal use, but he wanted her to have a public twitter for when he announced that they were dating. She almost never came up with a new twitter username. She ended up settling on @marinaroyce for her public twittername. She ended up deleting @marinagirlie completely. She figured that anyone that was really her friend would know what was going on anyway. And she knew she only really had half a dozen close friends. She had about a million things on her mind.
It was true that she was off work that next weekend and she made arrangements to fly to New York to be with Donnie for the weekend and the Monday after. She let the staff from the New York house know that she would be in town and might stop by. She was on call that Thursday night and unfortunately she was at work most of the night. She had come in at 1am and ended up staying at work until 2pm the next day. She left a little early to go home and get a shower before heading to the airport. Donnie had been texting her all day. He was worried about her being too tired for the trip. She assured him that she would survive. He was going to pick her up at the airport and the boys would be arriving Saturday morning. Their mother was going out of town for the weekend.

No one recognized Donnie at the airport. He wasn’t even disguised. People were so busy. She was exhausted but too excited to sleep. They went out to a club and danced for a while before heading back to Donnie’s place, well it was the place that CBS had for him in New York. Donnie knew he had been recognized at the club and that pictures were taken. He knew it was going to happen and warned Marina. She said she was fine with it. So he treated her like everyone already knew he was with her. He made sure there were lots of PDAs. All those PDA’s led to more great sex that night. Marina was no longer sore anywhere and he teased her about wanting to try to change that. She said she figured the sex would be on hold while the boys were there. He said that they could still have sex, but that she’d have to keep quiet. She laughed at him knowing that there was no way she could keep quiet with him doing all the things he liked to do.
She fell asleep in his arms and had the best dream ever about Donnie making love to her. When she woke up, he was doing just that. They got up and showered and got dressed. Donnie’s ex just dropped the kids off outside and left. Once they were inside, Donnie introduced them all and suggested that they have lunch. Marina helped Donnie pull something together quickly. They ate and talked. Donnie asked what the boys wanted to do. They wanted to show Marina around New York. Elijah suggested the Zoo. So they all headed over to the zoo and spent several hours walking around. Donnie took pictures of the boys, pictures of Marina, and had Xavier take pictures of him with Marina. He explained that he was going to tweet a photo later that night tagging her in the picture and telling everyone she was his girlfriend. They all went back to Donnie’s after the zoo and he ordered pizza. They played UNO in the living room floor and Marina and Donnie answered lots of questions from the boys about their relationship. Elijah thought it was totally cool that Marina was a nurse and that she got to help sick people get well. Donnie explained that she had helped take care of him when he was in his car wreck over the summer. Before the night was over, Elijah was sitting in her lap asleep. If she hadn’t known she was in love with Donnie before, she knew it now. His boys were amazing. She carried Elijah and put him in bed. Xavier told her goodnight.
“I’m pretty sure the boys love you,” he said once she joined him in bed.
“They are amazing. I’m pretty sure I love them too.”
“Really?” She nodded and he pulled her to him for a hug.
“There’s something else I need to tell you though,” she said seriously. He loosened his hold on her. “I didn’t want to tell you this until after I met your boys, but I’ve wanted to tell you since we were in LA.”
“Is something wrong?” He was worried.
She smiled. “No, it’s a good thing. At least I hope you think it’s a good thing.” She paused and took a breath. “In spite of all my walls and defenses, I’ve fallen hopelessly in love with you Mr. Wahlberg.” He just grinned at her. “What? What are you smiling about Donnie?”
He took her hand in his and kissed it. “I already knew that.”
“How could you know that?”
“You told me.”

“I’m pretty sure I deliberately withheld those words from you until now. I was afraid the boys would hate me and I’d never want to take your time away from your boys…” she explained.

“You never said the words. You didn’t have to. You told me from the start that you don’t have sex without love or marriage. The way you’ve trusted me with your body let me know that I already had your heart.”
“Damn you’ve got a mind like a steel trap. Do you ever forget anything?”
“Yes I do. I forgot to say I love you back. I do love you Marina. I think I loved you from the minute you told me your name that night at the hospital.  And I want to spend the rest of my life making you feel just how much I love you.” He kissed her again and then made love to her. Every time she started to scream, he tried to remember to either kiss her or cover her mouth with his hand so she wouldn’t wake up the boys. He loved having her at his home, in his bed; it just felt right.
They all got up early the next day and Donnie realized that he had been so busy hanging out with the boys that he had forgotten to tweet his announcement. He grabbed his phone and sent out his usual ‘Rise and Grind’ before working out the specifics of how to phrase this tweet. He had gotten a few emails from people asking him about the recent pictures of him that were now on the internet from the club that Friday night. He finally settled on sending two tweets. ‘Soldiers, your Ddub has fallen in love. Please do not panic. She loves for me to spend time with my soldiers.#loveeternal’ A few minutes later he sent ‘Me with my girlfriend @marianaroyce yesterday afternoon at the zoo. #loveeternal’
While Donnie was crashing twitter, Xavier was learning about Marina’s musical skills. He had a guitar and keyboard there at Donnie’s and he let her play the keyboard and he played his guitar. They played around for a couple hours & then had lunch.
Elijah stumped her during lunch. “Did my daddy make you cry last night?” he asked all of a sudden.
She looked at Xavier and Donnie wondering if they knew what he was talking about. Both of them shrugged. Donnie tried to help her out. “Why would you think I made her cry? I love Marina.”
“Cause last night I got up to get something to drink and when I went past your room it sounded like she was crying.” Marina turned about six shades of red. Donnie just laughed.
Xavier was trying to keep a straight face but mouthed the word “Busted” and pointed at the two of them.

Donnie cleared his throat and explained. “We were watching TV and it was a really sad movie. Even I cried for a minute.”
“See Elijah. It wasn’t your dad. It was that silly movie. I shouldn’t have been watching TV so late anyway.”
He looked at Donnie. “Dad you should really be more responsible and be more careful about what movies you watch. I don’t want Mari to be sad.” He was scolding Donnie and it was precious.
Xavier laughed and stood up. “Yeah, Dad. Be more careful. Mari is a loud crier.” He patted Donnie on the back and went to play more music. Elijah played some video games while Donnie and Marina washed dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. Donnie apologized for their getting caught and for it being revealed the way it was. She decided to take a quick nap because she knew that Donnie was planning to take her out again tonight once the boys got picked up.
Donnie got the boys together and talked to them. He was relieved to hear them talk about the woman he loved with such affection. He went outside and threw a baseball around with them for a little while. The boys stayed outside playing after Donnie went inside. Xavier said he figured that Marina could use some sleep after being up so late, so he would keep Elijah outside for a little while. Donnie jokingly told Xavier to shut up and he went back inside. He checked twitter.
Chaos had taken over. Five of the ten worldwide trending topics, had something to do with his tweets earlier that morning. They were: #donnieandmarina, #donniestaken, #loveeternal, #marinaroyce, and #Ddubsgirlfriend. He looked at his mentions and wasn’t all that surprised. Some were upset. Some were from fans begging him to leave Marina for them. But several messages from the handful of Block Heads that he followed were very positive. They were happy for him.
He was still reading and making the occasional reply to the fans when there was a frantic knock at the door. He couldn’t imagine who would disturb him today. He peeked out and saw his ex wife, Kim, at the door. And she looked pissed. He opened the door. “I thought you weren’t picking up the boys until around 9.”
“How dare you bring some rich slut Paris Hilton wannabe into the house with my kids. I don’t let your social life affect me anymore because I’m not married to you any more. But when your social life affects my kids and puts them in harm’s way, I have to do something about it. I’m taking you back to court and changing the custody agreement.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I saw that picture you posted on twitter of you with your girlfriend. Then I saw pictures of you with her on the internet from Friday night. I won’t have my kids exposed to someone like that.”
“You haven’t even met her…”
“Exactly my point. Maybe if you had told me about this in advance, we could have worked something out. But now…”she was saying before she got interrupted by Elijah.

“Mom, Dad” he said tugging on their sleeves. “Come quick. Xavier fell down and I can’t wake him up.”
They ran for the back yard thru the French doors and saw Xavier laying on the ground not moving. They ran to him and tried to wake him up. “Now see what you’ve done?” Kim yelled. “Xavier probably fell out of that tree and he’s hurt. Why did you have them outside without anyone watching them?”
“Kim, how are you saying that this is my fault…” he countered. The continued to argue and Elijah walked off into the house and went to wake Marina.
“Mari, Mari,” he said and pulled at her arm. She woke up quickly and was surprised to see Elijah standing by the bed. “You gotta come quick. Xavier fell down outside and we can’t wake him up.” She didn’t have to be told twice. She was out of the bed in a second and scooped Elijah up into her arms. She slowed for just a moment when she saw who she thought was Donnie’s ex wife with Donnie. And they were arguing with each other. Xavier was just laying on the ground. She walked up to them and handed Elijah to Donnie.
“One of you better be calling 911 right now.” She got down on her knees and began an assessment on Xavier. He wasn’t responsive and had no pulse. She began CPR. After about two minutes, he started coughing and came back around. He had a good pulse. She rolled him onto his side.
The paramedics showed up about that time and they took over. Marina gave them a quick summary of what she knew of Xavier. Donnie and Kim offered some other information. Kim rode to the hospital with the ambulance. Donnie ended up asking Marina if she could stay with Elijah and he’d be back as soon as he could. Kim was very apologetic at the hospital. She had assumed that Marina was just some groupie type chick with lots of money. “Once we get Xavier back home, I want to thank her. She saved his life. She kept me from losing my son. ” Kim was crying and Donnie pulled her into a hug.
“I know. I don’t remember ever being so scared in my life.” Donnie looked up and saw the doctor coming down the hall to get them. The doctor had checked Xavier over and they couldn’t find anything wrong. They felt certain that he had fallen and it knocked him out somehow and assure them that he would be fine. They kept him for a couple hours and then Donnie drove everyone home.

Kim rode back to Donnie’s place with him and the boys. She needed to get their things and her car. Plus she wanted to apologize to Marina. When they got back, they found Marina sitting in the recliner asleep with Elijah curled up with his head on her shoulder, also asleep. It was Xavier who spoke first. “Dad, Mari’s a keeper.” He went to get his & Elijah’s backpacks.
Donnie and Kim walked over and sat down next to the two of them. He touched Marina’s foot and she woke up. “How’s Xavier?” she asked right off.
“He’s fine, thanks to you. He’s getting their stuff so they can go on home with Kim tonight,” Donnie told her. Elijah picked that moment to wake up. Xavier walked back into the room with their stuff and Elijah jumped up to give him a hug.
“Hey little guy. I hear you went and got help for me when I fell down.”
“Yep, I got Mom and Dad, but they were totally freaking out. So I figured maybe Marina could help you. I knew she was asleep, but I figured you were an emergency.” Elijah was trying so hard to sound like a grown up.
Kim spoke up at that point. “Elijah, what made you decide that Marina would be able to help?”
He turned around and looked at her. “Duh, Mom. Dad said she was a nurse and she helps make people who are hurt all better again. So I figured if you two were just gonna argue about it, I’d better get someone else.” Everyone looked kinda shocked at him.
Xavier reached down and patted his shoulder. “You did the right thing. Thank you for helping save me.”Then he went over and hugged Marina too.
Kim grabbed a few of their things and headed for the door. She looked back for a minute. “Thanks again Marina for everything you did today. I misjudged you and I’m sorry.” She looked over at Donnie. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I know you’d never do anything that would be negative for the boys.” She looked at the kids and asked them to come on out and get in the car. Marina and Donnie got up and hugged each of the boys bye and Donnie watched them drive away before he shut the door.
It wasn’t until Marina came over and gave him a hug that he lost it. He wept. He had almost lost his son and would have if it had not been for the woman in his arms. He spent the next several hours showing her his gratitude.