32. Paige
Paige
Aiden is waiting beside a door that did not exist the last time I stood on this ranch.
I park near the new porch and turn off the engine. He stays where he is while I collect my purse and step outside, giving me the distance to decide whether I want to cross it.
The porch light makes the exhaustion around his eyes stark. I have missed his face, his hands, and the steady weight of his presence. Seeing him makes every carefully managed day apart feel useless.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
His gaze moves over me, lingering on details nearly two weeks have denied him. When I reach the porch, his hand lifts slightly, then falls to his side.
My hand wants to reach for his, to close the last few inches between us. But the part of me that spent nearly two weeks on guard is grateful that he’s letting me choose.
“You added an entrance.”
“Yes.”
The porch extends around the west side of the building. Empty hooks wait beneath the overhang for a hammock, and the open view beyond them stretches across dark pasture toward the mountains.
“This doesn’t face your house anymore.”
“No.”
“Was that intentional?”
“Every change was.”
He unlocks the door, then steps aside so I enter first.
Warm light spills across deep green trim and floor-to-ceiling shelves.
A wide window seat overlooks the mountains, and an electric fireplace glows softly.
My eyes land on a reading chair waiting beside a lamp, a soft gray blanket draped over the arm.
He built a room from my quietest thoughts, placing the desk so it would face the view, not block it.
It’s not just a room with shelves; it’s a room built for reading.
Dangerous. It feels like me.
I walk slowly around the desk. There are no family photographs waiting to claim the shelves. No hooks for Josie’s backpack. No cabinet filled with space for my clothes. The room assumes no one else has a right to be here.
An envelope rests at the center of the desk with my name written across the front.
“What’s this?”
“Every key to the lock.”
I look at him. “Every key?”
“The contractor gave me four. They’re all in there.”
“You didn’t keep one?”
“No.”
“Aiden, this building is on your property.”
“And if you accept it, the room is yours.”
My fingers settle against the envelope. “And if I take it?”
“You can say no.”
The answer comes without hesitation, although a muscle pulls tight along his jaw.
I glance toward the separate door. “What exactly am I accepting?”
“Space.” He keeps several feet between us, his hands loose at his sides. “You can use the room whenever you want. Read, work, sit on the porch, or lock the door and ignore every Slade on the property.”
“Including you?”
“Especially me if I deserve it.”
A small laugh escapes me. His expression softens at the sound, and the longing in his eyes is a physical pull, a quiet ache deep in my chest.
I run my palm along the empty desk. “What does this have to do with your house?”
“Nothing unless you decide it does someday. Your cabin stays yours. This gives you a place here without taking away the life you chose.”
“And if I never move in?”
“Then you never move in.”
“You’d really be okay with that?”
“I’d rather have a future we design together than lose you because I assumed mine.”
The quiet here is different from the silence at my cabin. It’s a shared space, a silence that holds both of us instead of just me.
He moves closer, stopping on the other side of the desk.
“I thought loving you meant making room everywhere and proving you belonged,” he says. “I made a key, cleared a closet, and answered questions about our future because I believed wanting you gave me permission to decide for you.”
My throat tightens. “You were trying to include me.”
“I was planning around you instead of with you. Then I ended us because you wouldn’t live inside the plan I made.
” His voice roughens. “I’m sorry, Paige.
You deserved questions, choices, and enough room to give me an honest answer.
I should have trusted what you were offering instead of trying to make it look like what I expected. ”
He comes around the desk, close enough that I can feel his warmth. He still does not touch me.
“I know what I want,” he says. “I’m done treating that like it answers for both of us.”
He watches my face, his own stripped of everything but the question.
“What do you want?”
The question is simple. It has taken me two miserable weeks and one completely redesigned room to understand the answer.
“I want you.”
Aiden’s shoulders loosen, although he stays silent.
“I want Josie. I want our Fridays, my books on a shelf beside hers, and the ridiculous debates you start with fictional men who cannot defend themselves.”
“They know what they did.”
My laugh comes out unsteady. “I want dinners at your house and mornings at my cabin. I want to be part of Josie’s life without anyone deciding what my role should become before she and I figure it out together.”
“You already have a place with her,” he says. “You earned it by being exactly who you are.”
“I want to keep doing that. I also want my cabin, time alone, and the freedom to close this door without either of us treating it like I’m halfway gone.”
“Then that’s what we build.”
I search his face for the impatience that used to appear whenever my answer stopped short of the certainty he needed. I find hope, restraint, and enough fear to prove this costs him effort.
“You might hate it sometimes,” I say.
“I probably will.”
The blunt answer startles a smile from me. “Suspiciously honest.”
“I’m trying something new.”
“It looks good on you.”
One corner of his mouth lifts, and the familiar heat in his eyes reminds me exactly how long it has been since he touched me.
I force myself to finish. “When I need space, I’ll tell you. I won’t use it to avoid hard conversations or leave you wondering whether I’m coming back. I need you to believe that alone doesn’t mean gone.”
“I’ll believe you. If I’m afraid, I’ll tell you instead of fixing a problem you never agreed existed.”
“That sounds almost healthy.”
“Don’t spread it around. Axel will become unbearable.”
I cross the distance between us and take his hand. His fingers close around mine with deliberate pressure, careful enough to leave me in control of even this.
“I want to be your girlfriend and your partner,” I say. “I want us to be exclusive and committed, and I want everyone to know we’re together—even if the entire town becomes insufferable about being right.”
“They’ll be insufferable quietly if I threaten enough people.”
“Aiden.”
“Fine. Moderately.”
The last tight place beneath my ribs finally eases.
“I may move in someday,” I say. His hand flexes once. “Because I want to, after we talk about what that life would look like. I won’t do it as proof that I love you enough.”
“I won’t ask you to prove it.”
“And you’ll ask before clearing another closet?”
“I’ll submit a formal request.”
“Typed?”
“Signed and dated.”
“Then I’ll consider it within six to eight weeks.”
His laugh is low and rough, breaking on an emotion neither of us can hide anymore.
“I love you, Paige.”
The words land without a plan attached. No expectation. No future I have to accept before I can hold them.
I step closer. “I love you too.”
Aiden closes his eyes briefly, then brings my knuckles to his mouth. The kiss is soft, restrained, and devastating.
“I still want forever,” he says. “I want years of Fridays. I want you beside me when Josie grows up, and I want to know every version of you that comes next. You don’t have to promise all of it tonight.”
“What are you asking for?”
“Only what you’re freely giving me. You, me, Josie, and a future we keep discussing before either of us starts assigning furniture.”
“Good answer.”
“It took an expensive renovation to get there.”
I look around the room he changed because he finally heard me, then back at the man who would let forever arrive one choice at a time.
I cross to the private entrance. Aiden watches me close the door.
Then I turn the lock with both of us inside.
His eyes move from the locked door to me. He has spent the entire evening holding himself back and letting me choose how close he comes.
I’m done with distance.
“Stay there,” I say.
His eyebrows lift. “Bossy.”
“You like me bossy.”
“I fucking love you bossy.”
I walk toward him. His hands curl at his sides, but he doesn’t reach for me. Even now, after everything we’ve said, he’s waiting.
When I reach him, I slide my palms beneath his jacket and push it from his shoulders. Then I open his shirt one button at a time.
He remains completely still until I take his hands and place them on my waist.
“You can touch me now.”
His fingers tighten as I kiss him.
Nearly two weeks of missing him destroy every bit of patience I intended to have. I grab his shirt and kiss him harder. He tastes like coffee, and his skin still holds a trace of the cold from outside, but his mouth is hot and hungry against mine.
Aiden grips my hips and starts turning us toward the desk.
I press my palm to his chest. “I’m leading.”
He stops immediately, although his breathing is already rough. “Then lead.”
I back him against the desk and push his shirt from his shoulders. My hands move over his chest, relearning every hard line I’ve spent nearly two weeks trying not to think about.
“I missed this,” I say.
“My body?”
“That too.” I flatten my palm over his heart. “Mostly you.”
Something naked and vulnerable moves across his face.
“Paige.”
“I’m not finished.”
“I’m trying very hard to let you be.”
I reach for his belt. “Try harder.”
By the time I free his cock, the desk is creaking beneath the force of his grip.
I wrap my hand around him and stroke once.
Aiden’s hips jerk forward.
“That’s what nearly two weeks did to you?”
“That’s what you walking through the door did to me.”
I tighten my grip and stroke him again, slower this time. “Did you think about me?”
“Every fucking night.”
“What did you think about?”
His jaw flexes. “You want the honest answer?”