Chapter 41
Greyson
I know Trouble is worried.
About me.
About us.
About how I’m going to handle all the noise.
The headlines.
The cameras.
The strangers who suddenly think they own a piece of my life.
My heart thuds heavy inside my chest just thinking about it.
She’s so damn sweet. So brave. So good.
But she still has doubts.
Not about loving me—I see that in her eyes every time she looks at me like I’m something solid.
No.
Her doubts are quieter than that.
They’re about whether I can stand in the light without resenting it.
Whether I’ll run again.
Whether loving me means living on shifting ground.
And that don’t sit right with me.
Because the one thing I’m sure of—surer than gravity, surer than the damn sunrise—is her.
So what I’m doing next?
Might look a little crazy.
A little unhinged.
But so did running off to live in a cabin on a mountain and refusing to let the world see me.
The sound of chuffing pulls my attention to the tree line behind the cabin, and I snort.
Scar stands there, massive and unimpressed, watching me like I’ve lost my damn mind.
“What are you looking at?” I ask him.
The old grizzly dips his head toward the clearing where I dropped the last pine weeks ago—wood I milled myself, dried, shaped, carved.
He bows down like he’s paying homage to the tree that gave its life for something new.
I grin.
“Yeah, good luck to you too, buddy.”
Because I’m not staying up here.
Not like before.
I close up the workshop, run my hand over the workbench that’s seen more of my soul than most people ever have, and look out at the mountain one last time this morning.
I’m not abandoning it. I’ll be back tomorrow to work, but I won’t be sleeping here.
Nah, I’m choosing something bigger.
I’m choosing her.
See, today I’m moving my stuff into Clara’s house.
Not because I need shelter.
Not because it’s convenient.
Because she needs to know I’m not halfway in.
I don’t do halfway anymore.
But I know it might take some convincing.
She’s careful. Thoughtful.
Determined not to lose herself in loving me.
God, I love that about her.
I pull my truck into the driveway and I swear to God, my blood is buzzing in my veins.
“I don’t need to live on top of the mountain,” I tell her when she comes racing out onto the porch and sees my truck full of boxes. “I needed it for a while. But I don’t need to be alone up there anymore.”
She searches my face like she’s looking for cracks.
“Below it is close enough,” I tell her. “I’ll commute up when I’m in a creating mood. But I come home to you. Every night. Because you’re where my heart is.”
Her breath catches.
She tries to play it cool.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Can I live with you, Trouble? Will you let me in?”
She sniffs and puts her hands on her waist like she’s weighing the odds. My stomach clenches.
Worry threatens to overflow.
But then she gasps and throws her arms around my neck.
“Yes! Oh, yes!”
She said yes.
And that yes means everything.
So yeah, I’m unloading the boxes from my truck and thank fuck I had the balls to drive down the mountain and ask her to be mine.
Hell, I’m feeling like a man who’s finally figured out what the hell he’s been building all along.
Not just furniture.
Not just art.
Not just a brand.
A life.
A real one with her in it.