Chapter 26
Ridge
For the next three weeks, I basically lived between my office - the new one I chose because I couldn’t stand to be in the other one anymore - and my parent’s house.
I was, for all intents and purposes, homeless.
Not in the traditional sense, since I had the means to afford a place but because I still hadn’t chosen somewhere new to put down roots.
I decided to search for the perfect house for my family.
The one that would fit a future with all three of us in it and maybe a few more kids down the road as well.
I wanted to move Violet and Liam into a house with me instantly, but I knew she would never agree to that.
Still, it killed me every time I had to leave her apartment.
I missed the midnight and two in the morning feedings and changes.
I knew there were a lot of men out there who would give anything to be able to get a decent night’s sleep and not have to get up with a baby.
I wasn’t one of them. I was up anyway, worried about the possibility that I might never be able to convince Violet to be mine again.
I also didn’t want Vi to be angry that I chose a house without her input - even though I knew she’d never give me the time of day if she thought I was house hunting for us. Instead, I enlisted my mother and Violet’s best friend, Duri, to help me narrow down the choices.
Duri had been playing a game with Violet about which house she might choose if money wasn’t an option and she might have more children in the future. According to DD, my wife shot down the theory of more children or marrying anyone else.
I took the last bit as a good sign. I didn’t want her to marry anyone else either. Violet was meant to be my wife and only mine. She never said she wouldn’t marry me again, so I held onto hope that I could make it happen one day. I just had to earn her trust back.
Duri would send me links to the houses Violet loved and she highlighted the things my wife loved about them.
I, in turn, fed that information to my realtor and she started to narrow down the options for homes.
It was a daunting process, but one I refused to drop the ball on.
Even if I couldn’t live in the house with her right away, I wanted Violet to have more room to spread out, maybe get back into her party planning business, have a gym where she could work on physical therapy for her arm, and maybe one day invite me to move in with my family again.
It was a dream that I dared to hope for even when the chances of it happening seemed bleak.