24. Chapter 24
Cole
This friend thing wasn’t going well.
The kissing? I was absolutely on board.
And the fact that we were sitting on a hard kitchen floor, only pausing long enough to breathe? I could get used to that. Maybe not the hard floor. There were probably better alternatives.
Was Sadie going to panic when it ended? Build another wall? Decide we needed a new friends first, but no oxygen-sharing rule?
I hoped not.
Because she felt like she belonged in my arms.
“You’re terrible at the friend thing,” I whispered, pressing kisses along her jaw.
She didn’t answer. She just kissed me again.
“Alright,” Dax drawled. “If you make out in the house, you buy it. Should I start the paperwork?”
Sadie sprang to her feet as if the floor had caught fire.
I stood slowly, like I had nowhere to be and all the time in the world. “I never agreed to those terms.”
Dax grinned. “So, what do we think? And why did you pick the most uncomfortable floor in the place?”
“You can’t plan these things,” I said.
Sadie’s face was the exact shade of a tomato. I slipped an arm around her waist and kissed her temple.
“Ignore my brother,” I told her. “He’s never had great manners.”
“It’s a nice house,” Sadie said, avoiding both of our gazes. “We haven’t seen most of it, though.”
“Got it,” Dax said. “I’ll go. You can contact me later. You’re welcome to kiss in all the rooms, just to make sure you’re feeling the vibe.”
I looked around for something to throw at my brother, but I couldn’t see anything.
Sadie took my hand. “It might take a while.”
Dax snorted, and I’m sure my smile was about to break my face.
“Alright,” Dax said. “You know where I live.” He turned and left.
“That was so embarrassing,” Sadie said.
“But you stood up to my brother.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Did I? I thought I was just telling him the way it was.”
My eyes narrowed. Was I understanding her right? Or hearing what I wanted to? “And how is that?”
Her eyes sparkled. “Let’s go into the next room and I’ll show you.”
I didn’t have to be told twice. I pulled her into the living room and kissed her. “What happened to friends first?” I asked between kisses.
“Friends who kiss first,” she said, as if that made all the sense in the world.
“I can live with that.”
Sadie
Was I messing everything up? Probably. Did I care? Not while Cole’s lips were on mine. I might lecture myself later, but right now, I was in. All the way. I was pretty sure Cole was as well. At least his hands—which were stuck in my hair at the moment—were.
I pulled back and looked into Cole’s brown eyes. “I don’t know what you do to me,” I admitted.
“Nothing you don’t do to me.” His lips were back, and I was sure I had nowhere else to be for the next… forever. I was also sure that by the time we left this house, even ChapStick wasn’t going to save my lips.
The upstairs had bedrooms and two bathrooms, and the basement wasn’t finished. By the time we stepped into the backyard, we’d kissed in every room of the house, and I was sure Dax was right. We needed to buy this place.
“Wow,” I said, looking at the back of the house. It looked like a house had been cut in half. “When they said they built half of a house, they really meant it.”
Cole studied it. “Yeah, that’s kind of weird. What do you think? Do we buy it?”
“Yes,” I said. “I have good memories here.”
Cole chuckled. “The best.” He wrapped me in his arms, and we made sure the backyard got just as much action as inside the house.
Cole
Dax let us move into the house before it was official. That meant we spent most of the day after we got married unloading things into the house.
It didn’t even feel like work, because I was busy reliving all those perfect kisses in my mind.
We’d gone and purchased three beds and ordered furniture for the other rooms. Sadie wanted to stay in a guest room while Alyssa wasn’t here, and I was fine with that. She could have as much space as she wanted.
I got the last bed set up and glanced at the window. It was dark, and I was exhausted. The furniture wasn’t coming for a few days, so the only place to sit was on Sadie’s grandma’s rocking chair.
I got up and yawned. The last two days felt like a month.
Sadie had helped put up the first two beds and then disappeared. I found her sleeping in the rocker. Her feet were pulled up, and her head was tilted at a funny angle.
I moved over and scooped her into my arms.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “I was only going to sit for a minute.”
“It’s fine,” I said, carrying her to her room. I tossed her onto the bed, and she let out a squeal.
“Goodnight, Sadie,” I said. I wanted to kiss her, but she looked done with the day.
She sat up. “I better get ready for bed. I don’t want to become the person who always sleeps in her clothes and misses brushing her teeth.”
“Do you need help?”
She gave me a tired smile. “You want to brush my teeth?”
I laughed. “Not especially, but I’m willing.”
“I think I can manage, but thanks.”
I smiled and left the room, closing the door behind me. The house appeared bigger at night. Maybe a little dark. Not that I was scared of the dark. When I climbed into bed, I felt lonely. That was the only word that came to me.
I’d never shared a room, so the feeling didn’t make sense. I’d probably kissed Sadie too much today, and now I felt like I needed to be with her.
It was probably a good thing that I started work on Monday. I turned over in bed as a swirl of nerves hit me at the thought. Teaching one on one was different from teaching an entire room of kids. I’d survived student teaching, so I should’ve been able to do this.
I tried to fall asleep reviewing math formulas, but the last thing I remembered picturing was Sadie sleeping in the rocking chair.