Chapter Six #2
He hesitated, then pressed his hand over his mouth, half-laughing, half-mortified. “I mean. If you want. Doesn’t have to be fancy. Just…big enough for two.” He didn’t look at me when he said it, but the flush that crawled up his neck said everything.
I considered letting him twist in the embarrassment, but he looked so hopeful it was like kicking a puppy. “Already in the budget,” I said, deadpan. “You want to pick out tile colors now, or after we finish the wiring?”
He threw a wadded-up ball of grid paper at me, grinning. “I’ll just Sharpie it onto the walls. Saves time.”
“Good thinking. Less mess.”
The silence was comfortable, broken only by the scrape of pencil on paper and the buzz of a fly head-butting the windowpane.
I started on a new sheet, plotting out the main floor in quick, square hand.
Levi leaned over to watch, his hair brushing my cheek, breath close enough to fog my glasses if I wore any.
He pointed at an empty rectangle off the main hall. “What’s that?”
“Office,” I said. “For furniture orders, business stuff, hiding from Bo when he drops in to borrow money.”
He laughed, short and sharp. “You’d actually use it?”
“Maybe. If I want you to miss me.”
He rolled his eyes, then went back to the original drawing, erasing the kitchen walls to make room for a bigger pantry. “Gotta have space for all of Ma’s preserves. She’ll riot if we don’t have at least three shelves.”
“She’d never forgive us,” I agreed.
We kept at it, trading the pencil and the notebook, working in sync until the lines on the page blurred into something almost beautiful. Levi had a way of adding flourishes—curved doorways, spiral stairs, even a dumbwaiter at one point—while I stuck to right angles and the language of efficiency.
Still, neither of us tried to steamroll the other. If anything, we got closer the longer we worked, our hands bumping, legs pressed together under the table, bodies drifting toward each other until the air felt like it was charged with static.
I pointed at the top corner of the plan. “That’s north,” I said. “If you want a studio, that’s the wall for the big windows.”
He looked up, startled. “Studio?”
“For your art.” I said it like a fact, but I could see his brain trying to find the catch. “You’re gonna want proper light. And space for canvases. And a wall to pin up your reference sketches.”
He stared at me, dumbstruck, as if I’d just suggested putting a moon landing in the backyard. “My art? You really think I’d need a whole room for it?”
I put the pencil down, then took his left hand in mine. The calluses were new—he’d built them up in the shop, but they felt right against my own. “You make things, Levi. Doesn’t matter if it’s on paper or in wood or whatever. You deserve a place for it.”
He blinked once, then again, and I thought he might cry, but he covered for it by pretending to check the sun through the window. “Okay. Yeah. North light. That’s the best, right?”
I nodded. “Never gets direct sun, so your colors won’t go weird.”
He squeezed my hand, then let go, the tips of his ears red as cherries. “You’re the weirdest boyfriend ever,” he said, but there was no heat to it.
I shrugged. “That’s why you like me.”
“Maybe.”
He put the tip of his pencil to my chest, right above my heart. “We’re not putting any deer heads on the walls, though. I draw the line at animal murder.”
“Agreed. Unless it’s Bodean’s. His is technically a crime against nature.”
Levi laughed so hard he snorted, then dropped his head to the table, forehead thumping the wood. “God, you’re gonna kill me,” he groaned, but I could tell he liked it.
We mapped out the main living area: open concept, stone fireplace in the center, built-in shelves lining every wall. Levi insisted on a window seat for reading, and I gave him a look, but drew it in anyway.
Then we debated tile colors for the kitchen and whether or not we needed a walk-in closet, since most of Levi’s wardrobe consisted of jeans and “stolen” McKenzie t-shirts.
For every suggestion, there was a negotiation: how many outlets in the studio, whether the bedroom needed blackout shades, if the porch swing should face the creek or the orchard.
I found myself giving in more than I expected, and every time I did, it felt less like a concession and more like an answer to a question I hadn’t realized I was asking.
We didn’t say much for a while. The sounds of the farm drifted in through the open window—horses in the paddock, someone cussing at a truck that wouldn’t start, the distant rumble of thunder from a storm brewing upriver.
I watched Levi study the drawing, his eyes flicking back and forth, searching for something invisible. The afternoon light caught on the tattoo at his wrist, and for a split second I wanted to frame his hand, pin it to the wall, just so I could look at it whenever I wanted.
He must’ve felt the weight of my gaze, because he glanced up. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
I rolled the pencil between my fingers. “How you looked when you asked for the window seat. Like you thought it was too much.”
He ducked his head, grinning. “I mean, it’s kind of a luxury item.”
“Not for you.” I nudged his knee with mine. “You get what you want. That’s the deal.”
He shook his head. “You keep saying that, but I don’t believe it.”
I leaned in, so close I could count the tiny scars on his cheek, the sunbleached tips of his eyelashes. “You will.”
He stared at me, and I could see the moment it landed—how real this was, how much I meant it.
He swallowed, then said, “Okay. But only if we put a lock on your workshop door. I don’t want you sneaking out in the middle of the night to build stuff and leaving me alone.”
I smiled, the kind of smile that felt dangerous because it was so easy. “Deal.”
For a while, we just sat like that—plans between us, bodies close, nothing left to say. The sun slid lower in the sky, and the only sound was the lazy tick of the wall clock and the scratch of pencil as we made tiny, last-minute edits. Neither of us wanted to let go, so we didn’t.
When we finally finished, Levi leaned his head on my shoulder, letting out a sigh that sounded like relief. I wrapped an arm around him, holding him steady, feeling the warm weight of him against my side.
The blueprint wasn’t perfect. But it was ours.
And for the first time in my life, I couldn’t wait to start building.
We spent the next day in a blur of details. Levi worked on a charcoal sketch of the front elevation—his lines messier than mine, but the emotion in it knocked me sideways. I used my T-square and a ruler to box out the actual dimensions, labeling everything in neat block letters.
The kitchen got a central island, wide enough to eat at and with room for a prep sink. I penciled in cabinets all the way to the ceiling, the kind with soft-close hinges and pull-out drawers that wouldn’t jam up after two years.
Behind the kitchen, a walk-in pantry with floor-to-ceiling shelves, “For the preserves,” I wrote, then grinned when I heard Levi laugh from across the table.
The master bedroom was nothing fancy—a rectangle with good windows and space for a king-sized bed—but I made sure to angle it so the first light of morning would come through at just the right angle.
The en-suite bath got Levi’s tub, big enough for two, and a shower with a bench in case I ever busted my knees again.
Down the hall, a guest room with a fold-out couch, but Levi already called dibs on it for reading days or when he “needed a break from my snoring.”
The wraparound porch was my favorite. I designed it so the widest part faced the creek, with built-in benches and room for at least three rocking chairs.
I wanted to be able to sit out there in the dark, watch the water run, and listen to Levi read to me from whatever library book he’d stolen from the main house.
I wrote “future swing” in the corner of the plan, and didn’t cross it out even when Levi told me swings were for kids.
When the sun started to set, I spread the final draft on the kitchen table and called Levi over. He padded across the floor, bare feet silent, and leaned over my shoulder to look.
He traced the plan with one finger, following the walls and hallways, pausing at the art studio like he still couldn’t believe it. “You really thought about all this,” he said, voice raw.
“For longer than you know,” I answered, which was as close as I could get to saying “I love you” without choking on it.
He didn’t say anything for a while, but I felt his hand on the back of my neck, thumb stroking the short hair there. It settled me, like a counterweight.
Eventually, I rolled up the blueprint and tapped it on the table. “Ready?”
He nodded, and we headed out, locking the shop behind us.
The walk to the farmhouse was quiet, the sky fading from gold to blue and the first bats already skimming the edge of the orchard.
Neither of us talked, but every few steps Levi would look over, catch my eye, and smile like he’d swallowed a sunbeam.
The main house was alive with noise—Ma in the kitchen, Bodean wrestling Harlow in the front yard, even Grandma Minnie cackling from the porch as she called out Jeopardy questions at the TV.
But Pa was easy to find, parked at the head of the dining room table with a legal pad, a pencil, and his battered old laptop open in front of him.
He looked up when I came in, eyes crinkling at the corners, but didn’t say anything until I set the rolled plan on the table.
“What’s this?” he asked, eyebrow raised.
“Our new house,” I said. “Down by the creek. We’re breaking ground next week.”
Pa unrolled the plan, weighed down the edges with his mug and the butt of a pocketknife. He studied it in silence for a good five minutes, tracing the lines, squinting at my notes, even flipping it over once like he expected blueprints to have a back side.