Chapter 49 #2
I hold my ground, just far enough away that I won’t be tempted to sit, even though every part of me wants to because I’m exhausted.
All I’ve wanted since my plane landed was to take a breath—to get some rest and calm down—but I guess I’m having this conversation today after all.
I know that if I sit down next to him, I’ll melt into him and forget everything that’s been swirling in my brain since last night and bask in his warmth.
I take a steadying breath and fold my arms over my chest. “What is there to talk about? I heard everything you told Slade last night.”
“Tell me what you thought you heard.”
My shoulders go rigid and I stare him down, trying not to cry as I say the words out loud—what’s been scaring me. “You’re leaving for Seattle. You’re taking the apartment Slade got for you, and… you’re selling Gloria’s.”
“Good,” he says, catching me off guard with his confident tone and a little smirk to go with it. “I’m glad to see you can listen, at least a little bit.”
Did he really just say good?
I throw my hands out to my sides. “Good? How is any of what you two talked about good?”
He clasps his hands together between his knees again, but he doesn’t flinch. He just looks at me with that brightness, that compassion, that love I know is still there between us, even if I wish it wasn’t because it would make this so much easier.
“Good because now I can get right to the point. I can tell you what I wanted to tell you last night, at The Hatch, before you left.”
He stands up and steps toward me, leaving just inches between us when he looms over me. I fight every urge in my tired body to lean into him and press my cheek to his broad chest and be wrapped up in his arms.
He swallows and I can see just how tense he is, despite probably being as exhausted as me. “I am going to be in Seattle.”
I palm my face in exasperation and shake my head before jabbing a finger into his chest. He looks down at the finger with an amused smile before I continue venting what I’ve been holding back. “I don’t know why I ever believed you. Were you ever really planning on staying?”
“Part-time,” he emphasizes those syllables and wraps his callused hand around my finger, pulling it out of his sternum, “I’m going to Seattle, part-time, for the next two to three months.”
He holds my hand and my heart skips a beat at the sudden inkling of hope. “Part-time?”
He nods. “Yes, it’s going to suck for a while. I’m going to be stretched thin—working here and there—but it’ll be worth it.”
“Why only two to three months? Who’s going to run the new restaurant after that? What about Sly, and the garage, and Sterling Springs?”
The corners of his mouth lift into the brightest, proudest smile that nearly makes my knees buckle. “Slow down there. Don’t make me remind you of your original nickname, Miss Verbal Spewer of—”
I shoot him a glare and he laughs, but I think he gets the message that now isn’t the time for jokes.
“OK. Remember how I said it’s my job to make sure the people that work for me are always growing?”
“Jade?” I ask, feeling that inkling of hope grow into something that feels tangible and real enough to grasp onto.
“Yes, she’s going to take it over. She’s from the Pacific Northwest and wants to be closer to home, but more importantly, she’s earned that chance.
I’m going to help her get up to speed and settled in, but it’s going to be her restaurant when this is all said and done.
While that’s happening though, I will be taking one of the bedrooms at the apartment Slade leased without asking, like the dumbass he is.
After that, it’s his problem. And as for Sly and the garage, he said it’s finally time they hire someone to help pick up the slack. ”
I take another breath, feeling like the oxygen I didn’t know I was missing has started to return to my lungs.
He’s not leaving me. He’s going to stay.
“What about when you’re done helping in Seattle? You’re selling Gloria’s. You talked about a price and said that you can’t get it over with soon enough.”
He tilts his head and his amused grin returns. “I love you, but again, you’re really bad at listening. I did say all of those things, but I never said that I was selling Gloria’s. We talked about my purchase price and me closing on Gloria’s.”
“What?” My question is barely a whisper.
He reaches up and tucks a loose strand of my hair behind my ear. His fingers graze the bare skin of my cheeks and this time I don’t fight it. I lean into his touch. He still cradles my hand in his, between our chests, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the back it.
“That was my condition for Slade. I love my family and I will always help them, but even I have my limits. It took me a while to realize what I really wanted. It wasn’t chasing a star or culinary glory, like him.
It took you letting me back in to see that I just wanted a home of my own.
That’s what I told him when I said I’d help him in Seattle.
My condition was that he would let me buy out his share of Gloria’s. ”
“You mean—”
“Yes, Slade will have nothing to do with Gloria’s anymore.
I’ll own it and we can do whatever we want with it now.
I don’t care if you want to rip out the restaurant and turn it back into a house.
You could tell me that you want to turn a room into a pet spa for our spoiled fur children and I’ll say yes.
I can find another place to open a restaurant in town.
I’ll borrow the money if I have to. It doesn’t matter to me.
All that matters is that I love you and I want to keep building a life with you here… if you still want that.”
This time there’s no fighting the tears or my wobbly knees. I give into every emotion that’s taking hold of me in this moment, that feels all too right, but all so impossible.
I give into my emotions. I give into my exhaustions. I give into him.
I don’t know when the inches between us were erased or who moved first, I just savor the warmth of pressing my face into his warm chest and having his arms hold me tight.
“Yes, I’d like that very much,” I mumble into his chest, feeling my tears soak into his t-shirt. “Can we go inside now?”
He chuckles and that sound rumbling in his chest peels off another layer of the fear and bitter emotions from the last day.
“No, we still have something else to talk about.” He brushes my bangs to the side, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “I meant everything. I love you."
“Me too.”
He swipes a thumb over my cheek, wiping away one of the few remaining tears that have all but stopped. “Then we need to promise each other something, OK? From now on, we will talk to each other before we ghost the other or hop on a plane?”
“Or make decisions about taking jobs out of town, or closing real estate transactions on treasured family homes?” I shoot him a playful glare through still puffy eyes.
“Again, I was planning on telling you last night,” he says, huffing a laugh while he rubs my back, “but yes, that too. Promise?” He takes one hand off my back and holds out a pinky.
I shake my head. “Dork.” He raises his brows with a grin, looking between his hand and me. My eyes roll back and I raise my hand, looping my pinky into his. “Fine, promise.”
“Also, that officially makes us even now.”
“For what?” I tilt my head in confusion.
“Well, I took your car and you took my rental car. I believe grand theft auto is illegal in both Wyoming and New Mexico. So yeah, I think we’re even. Can we call it a truce on stealing each other’s cars too?”
“I guess.” I give him a coy look, playing along. A quiet moment passes and I look between him, the food truck, and the house and I still can’t believe that this is how my day is unfolding. “So you mean it? You’re really staying?”
“Yes, Shadow. I think you’re stuck with me.”
I let out a dismissive hum. “You know, Pretty Boy, I really think Shadow’s a better nickname for you then, if I’m stuck with you.”
He laughs and I rest my cheek on his chest again because honestly, there’s no one on earth I’d rather be stuck with.
I still can’t believe he’s here. I breathe in his woodsy scent and let it flood my mind with our recent memories, but also the ones that I know lay ahead.
Even with my eyes closed, I can picture the heart melting smile that’s on his face.
“Ready to go inside? I’m freaking exhausted and need to lay down.”
“Please,” I groan against his chest. “I want to curl—”
Before I can finish that sentence, he drops his hands to the curve of my ass and lifts me up into his arms. My legs react on their own and wrap around his waist. I drape my arms over his shoulder and giggle into his neck.
“You sure that you can carry me up there? I’ve seen you get winded before on a single of flight of stairs. ”
“Don’t really care. I need to start somewhere if I’m going to make it a habit of carrying my girlfriend into our place.”
He reaches down to grab my purse, but I barely notice because he said our place.
My grandma’s house is now our place. I don’t exactly know what our future is going to look like, but he’s choosing me and the place I love.
That only makes everything that’s happened the last two years—the arguing, the glares and scowls, the drama of the last day—completely worth it, because it feels so insignificant to the future that’s in front of us.
I sniffle into his neck and he holds me close as he starts taking awkward steps up to the apartment. I feel one stray tear run down my cheek and onto the warm skin of his neck. His grip on me tightens while he keeps lumbering up the steps. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah.” I nod, quietly enjoying the way his stubble rasps over my skin. “Just a happy tear, even if I’m still pissed at you.”
“What’d I do now?”
“You didn’t tell me that flying commercial sucks.”
He lets out a gut-busting laugh as we reach the top of the stairs and he sets me down on the landing to the studio apartment. “You drive my luxury car for months and you fly private just once, and your small-town-girl principles disappear. I see how it is.”
I glare back at him. “Are you saying I’m spoiled?”
“No.” He shakes his head and grabs his keys from his pocket.
He hesitates and steps toward me, pressing me against the door.
“But if you want to be spoiled, I’ll spend every waking hour I can making sure you are.
” The corner of his mouth lifts into a hungry grin and suddenly, I feel like I might have more energy that I did just minutes ago.
“I don’t need to be spoiled, just the occasional home-cooked meal and gelato. Oh, and lots of coffee.”
His nostrils flare and that hungry grin widens, putting those dimples on display. “I think I can manage that.”
He turns the key in the lock, and pushes the door wide open. He leads the way in, his arm wrapped around me. That’s when I hear it—the sound of thundering paws against the hardwood floor and a jingling collar.
“Oh shit,” he barks out in a surprised laugh.
I look up just in time to see Felix leaping through the air right at Sutton. Before I can react, Felix plants two paws square on his chest and Sutton tumbles to the ground, taking me down with him. He immediately grabs me and cradles me in his arms as we fall.
Sutton’s eyes flash with worry before he sees that I’m laughing while Felix stands over the two of us, taking turns licking Sutton’s face, then mine.
“I think he missed us,” he says, stilling holding me tight in his arms.
“No, just you. He never acts like this for me.” I roll my eyes in mock annoyance because I can’t blame my dog for being obsessed with the man that takes my breath away every time he looks at me.
Still lying on the entryway floor, I get lost in his eyes—endless blue pools—when a weird, wet, and scratchy sensation on my cheek brings me back to reality.
“Would you look at that? Someone did miss you,” he says, almost cackling to himself.
That’s when I hear the telltale purring sound of Oscar, followed by the pressure of two little paws kneading my shoulder. That silly, tiny, witchy cat is greeting me.
I can’t even pretend to be annoyed with any of them now. Just like the night we met when he snatched me out of the street, I’ve never felt safer and more at home than I do in his arms.
I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this fullness, this much happiness in my life. I’m in the embrace of the man I love, surrounded by our weirdo fur children, and I can’t think of anywhere else I would want to be in life.