Chapter 29 #2
How serious? I'm thinking about her safety like it ranks above mine on the priority list. I'm rearranging my weekends like a puzzle, fitting the pieces around when I get to see her.
I'm lying in my bed on the nights she's not there, staring at the ceiling, imagining what it'd be like if she were always on the other side of the mattress instead of just sometimes.
So yeah.
Pretty fucking serious.
"Serious enough that I want to talk about what comes next," I say. Out loud. Before my brain has a chance to grab the words by the ankles and drag them back.
Cool. Cool cool cool. We're doing this.
She tugs back a bit until she can look at me. "What comes next?"
My knee's bouncing. I press my palm flat against it. Stop that.
"Moving in together, maybe. Or at least spending more nights together." My pulse is hammering up near my ears, but it's the good kind — the roller-coaster-cresting-the-first-hill kind, not the oh-god-I'm-dying kind. "I know it's fast, but tonight made me realize something."
"What?"
I look right at her.
"I don't want to be apart from you any more than I have to be."
The words just sit there between us, taking up all the air. Laine's watching me with this expression — soft, open.
"I've been thinking the same thing," she says quietly. "About spending more time together."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I like having you here. I like waking up next to you." She pauses, biting her lip. "But moving in together... that's a big step."
"It is. But I'm ready for big steps with you.
" I set down my tea and take her hands. Don't propose Reid.
Keep your fucking cool. "Baby, what happened tonight made me realize—I'm in this.
All the way in. And I know I've said I love you before, but tonight it's bigger somehow.
Scarier. Like I didn't know how much until I thought something might happen to you. "
"Reid..."
"I'm in love with you," I say, and even though it's not the first time, it feels different now. Heavier. More real. "Completely, stupidly in love with you. And I want to build something real with you."
"I love you too," she whispers, and like every time, hearing her say it makes the good settle deep in my bones. "But what about Blake? If we move in together, what happens to your living situation with him?"
"We'd figure it out. Maybe get a bigger place, or maybe Blake would want his own space." The thought doesn't bother me as much as it would have six months ago. "Blake and I have been living together for a long time. But we have our own lives."
Laine nods, but she doesn’t look convinced. "You really think he'd be okay with that? With me basically becoming part of your household permanently?"
"Why wouldn't he be?"
"I don't know. Sometimes I feel like..." She stops, shaking her head. "Never mind. It's probably just me overthinking."
"What were you going to say?"
"It's nothing. Really."
But it's not nothing. I can see it in her face, the way she's pulling back slightly. Whatever she was going to say about Blake, it's been bothering her.
"Laine. Talk to me."
She's quiet, staring at her hands. "Sometimes I feel like Blake doesn't want me around. Like he's just tolerating me because you care about me."
"That's not true."
"Are you sure? Because the way he looks at me sometimes..." She trails off. "It's like he's waiting for me to leave."
"Blake's Blake," I say, hearing myself make excuses. "He's weird with everyone at first. Takes him forever to warm up. But once he sees how happy you make me—"
"It's been months, Reid."
"I know. But he'll come around." I pull her closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "He has to. Because I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you."
"You sound pretty confident about that."
"I am confident." I tip her face up and kiss her for real this time. Slow and sweet. "So we're doing this? Talking about moving in together?"
"We're talking about it." Her eyes sparkle. "But maybe we start with you staying over more nights. See how it feels."
"I can do that." I pull her closer until she's practically in my lap. "Starting tonight?"
"Starting tonight," she agrees.
Laine settles against me, her head finding my shoulder like it was always supposed to be there, and my brain does the thing where it just — runs.
Coming home to her. Every night. Keys in the door and she's already talking before I'm all the way inside, and I'm talking back, and it's just — that. Every night.
Waking up next to her. Every morning. Her hair in my face. Hogging the blankets. Don't even care.
That particular hell that is one of her hairs wrapping around my dick while I sleep. I could live the rest of my life without that fucking treat, but for Laine, I'll take it. Not with a smile, but I'll man the fuck up.
My thumb traces a slow line along her arm. Her skin is so fucking soft.
Blake will figure it out. He always figures things out — the guy's annoyingly good at that. And once he sees how good this is, how happy she makes me, he'll come around.
He has to.
Because I'm not giving her up.