Chapter Six #3
He looked up, gaze flicking from me to Levi, then back again. “So, you’re really keeping him then?”
I didn’t flinch. “I am.”
Pa nodded, slow and thoughtful. “Good boy,” he said, not looking at Levi, but making sure he heard it anyway.
“He’s mine,” I said, because there was no point in pretending otherwise.
Pa smiled, just a little. “Guess I’d better clear the land then.” He rolled the plan back up, handed it to me, and went back to his legal pad.
That was the entire ceremony. Nothing more was needed.
We left the house, neither of us speaking until we were a good twenty yards away. Levi exhaled, loud and shaky. “Did you just out-butch your own dad?” he whispered, giddy with disbelief.
I shrugged. “It’s easy when you’re right.”
He shoved me, just hard enough to show he meant it, then grabbed my hand and laced our fingers together. We walked the rest of the way to the shop like that, Levi humming under his breath and me pretending not to notice how fucking good it felt.
The next day, Pa handed me a manila envelope over breakfast, no words exchanged. Inside was a printout: the deed to the stretch of land by the creek, with my name and Levi’s scrawled at the bottom. I ran my thumb over the signatures, felt the roughness of the paper, and knew it was real.
That night, I showed Levi. He looked at the deed, at me, then at the open field through the kitchen window. He said nothing. Just came over and wrapped his arms around me, holding tight like he might never let go.
I let him.
It was the only blueprint I’d ever need.
We broke ground on a Friday. The air was still sharp, holding on to the last scraps of night, and the grass by the creek was slick with dew.
I arrived early, tools slung over my shoulder and stakes rattling in a five-gallon bucket.
By the time Levi got there, the sun was just cresting the far ridge, burning off mist in slow swirls.
I’d marked out the foundation the night before, using string and stakes and every trick I’d learned from Pa.
You could see the bones of the house already: a rectangle in the wild grass, lines crisscrossing to show where the walls would run, little flags of orange tape at every doorway and window.
I’d even tied blue ribbons to the porch perimeter, knowing Levi would spot them first.
He jogged up the path, out of breath, hoodie unzipped and hair even wilder than usual. “You started without me,” he said, but there was no accusation in it—just the edge of a smile.
“Figured you’d want to see the sunrise from the bedroom,” I said, gesturing to the east-facing corner. “Come here.”
He followed me down the gentle slope, feet crunching through wet grass. The creek was loud today, swollen from rain upstream, and the old oak by the bend had dropped half its leaves overnight. I stopped at the threshold—where the front door would be—and made a show of bowing him in.
He rolled his eyes but went along, stepping carefully over the string like it would trip an alarm if he broke it.
Inside the skeleton, the air was different—warmer, somehow, and already humming with a sense of belonging.
Levi turned slow, arms out, pirouetting in place as he tried to take it all in.
“It’s bigger than I thought,” he said, surveying the space. “I thought you said ‘modest footprint’?”
“Perspective is everything,” I replied. “Wait until there’s a roof on it. Then you’ll see how much room there is for making a mess.”
He grinned, then drifted toward the line that marked the edge of the living room. He crouched, ran a finger along the string, then looked back at me. “Is this the fireplace?”
“Centerpiece of the whole place. Stone, floor to ceiling.”
He made a face of mock reverence, like he was in a cathedral. “I’ll never want to leave.”
I watched him walk the perimeter, touching every stake as if blessing the ground. He stopped at the studio corner, the one I’d measured to catch north light. He stood in the middle of it, hands on hips, and closed his eyes.
I let him have the silence, listening to the sound of water and the wind rattling leaves in the oak. I wondered if he was already imagining the finished room—easel, shelves, the big table for sketching. When he finally opened his eyes, he caught me watching, and for a second neither of us moved.
After a moment, he walked back to where I stood, stopped just inside the “front door,” and put his arms around my waist. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “This is… real, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
He pressed his forehead to my chest. I put both hands on his back, then let them slide up to his shoulders, holding tight. I could feel the slow, deep drag of his breath.
“Thank you,” he said, voice muffled.
I didn’t answer. I just held him, the two of us standing in the middle of nothing and everything at once.
Eventually, he stepped back, leaving one hand hooked around my wrist. “You gonna let me help?” he asked.
“Not if you want the place to stay standing,” I said, but I squeezed his hand to show I was joking.
He smacked my arm, then smiled. “You’re lucky I like you.”
I watched him move through the frame of the house, already seeing where his energy would live in it—the way he’d fill the rooms with his sketches and music and the sound of his laughter.
I wanted to remember this moment, the two of us in the grass, the world not quite finished but close enough to touch.
“C’mere,” I said, pulling him back into my arms.
He came easy, body slotting up against mine like we’d been built from the same set of plans.
Together, we looked out at the creek and the oak and the lines of string that would one day be our walls.
The wind picked up, flapping the blue ribbons, and for a split second I saw the whole future laid out in front of us.
I rested my chin on Levi’s head, felt him relax into the hold, and knew that this was it. Foundation, framing, the roof of the sky above us. All the pieces were there.
Now we just had to build the rest.