Chapter 30 #3
She expected him to step away, but he didn’t.
Instead, he stayed there with his hips against hers and his fingers tracing an absent path along her side through the fabric, the easy intimacy of it landing somewhere deeper than the heat still humming through her body.
There was no urgency behind it, and no desperate need to steal something good before the next disaster arrived.
For once, Glenna could stand in his arms and know there would be another kiss later.
Another night. Another morning when she woke with his arm around her and Kelsey somewhere nearby probably plotting a way to convince Gunnar they needed another animal.
The thought made her smile.
Tyrone caught it. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Your face says otherwise.”
“Apparently both our faces talk too much.”
“Yours definitely does.”
Glenna slid her hands around his waist and rested her cheek against his chest. “I was thinking about going home.” His hand stilled against her back, and she felt it immediately.
“Home?” There was enough careful restraint packed into that one word to tell her he wasn’t going to assume anything, and Glenna loved him a little more for that too.
“La Spezia.”
Tyrone went completely still around her.
Glenna felt the words register between them and stayed exactly where she was, listening to his heartbeat beneath her cheek while he worked out what she had said and, more importantly, what she meant.
“You sure?”
She lifted her head. “Yeah.”
“Kelsey?”
“Do you seriously think she’s going anywhere without Zombie, Chaos, and her cat?”
“Zombie and Chaos aren’t hers.”
“Have you told her that?”
“No, because I enjoy living.”
“Smart man.”
Glenna stayed tucked against him, because this was the part they did need to talk about even if neither of them had to solve it in a dusty storage unit. “Kelsey and I still have time before the ninety-day thing becomes a problem, right?”
“Roughly.”
“And after that?”
“We figure out residency.”
“How?”
Tyrone rubbed the back of his neck. “There are options.”
“Such as?”
“Work visa.”
“I don’t have a job.”
“You could.”
“Doing what?”
“Whatever the fuck you want.”
She folded her arms. “Next.”
“Other residency routes.”
“Very specific.”
“Glens.”
“Next.”
His jaw shifted and Glenna knew what he was thinking, but she needed to hear him say it anyway.
“Marriage.” His gaze locked onto hers.
Her heart gave one hard, ridiculous thump. “That would work?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
His expression changed instantly. “No.”
She blinked. “You literally just said yes.”
“I said it would work. I didn’t say we were doing it.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not marrying you for fucking paperwork.” The force behind the words startled a laugh out of her. Tyrone didn’t smile. “I mean it, Glenna. When I ask you to marry me, it won’t be because some asshole behind a desk says you’ve got thirty days left on a stamp in your passport.”
Something warm unfolded low in her chest. “When?”
His eyes narrowed.
Glenna smiled. “Dangerous word, Ty.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I think I do.”
He stepped closer until barely a foot separated them. “Do you?”
She could have teased him. A few days ago she probably would have, because jokes were easier than admitting she wanted anything badly enough for losing it to hurt.
Instead, she looked around the storage unit containing the remains of the life she had spent years desperately trying to rebuild and realized she didn’t want it back.
She wanted Kelsey. She wanted mornings with too many dogs and Gunnar bitching about kittens he secretly fed when nobody was watching.
She wanted Jorja barging into rooms without knocking and Serena appearing with food and everyone, treating privacy as a loose fucking concept.
She wanted the vineyard, the mountains, the ridiculous compound full of people who had somehow become hers while she was still trying to convince herself she didn’t belong there.
Most of all, she wanted Tyrone, not because he could provide a house or pay attorneys or because he had flown halfway across the world to help her when nobody else would, but because somewhere between the arguments, the terror, and the moments when neither of them had known what came next, he had become the person she wanted beside her when they found out what ‘When’ meant for them.
“We have time,” she said. “We don’t have to solve every legal thing today, and we don’t have to decide what forever looks like because some visa clock is ticking.”
Tyrone’s hands settled against her hips. “I already know what I want.”
Glenna knew, too. She felt it all the way to her soul. She looked beyond him toward the open storage-unit door and the ordinary Portland afternoon outside, then back at the boxes containing the few pieces of her old life she wanted to keep. “When we go home, those can be shipped.”
His chest expanded beneath her hands. “Home.”
“La Spezia.”
This time he didn’t ask whether she was sure, he just bent his head and kissed her slower than before, without the heat that had nearly gotten them arrested for indecent behavior beside a stack of Kelsey’s baby clothes.
This kiss felt different, quieter without being less intense, and Glenna understood why before his mouth left hers.
He believed her.
She thought maybe she believed herself, too.
Sullivan was still waiting and he wouldn’t know what hit him upside the head when Tyrone shattered his world soon.
But Glenna knew enough about the man in her arms to understand exactly what that confrontation was going to cost him.
She refused to allow Sullivan to stand between them anymore.
Oregon, the dependency court, a visa deadline, or the remnants of the life she had once been so desperate to reclaim were all memories or matters they could figure out a way to fix together.
When she opened her eyes, Tyrone was watching her.
“Ready?”
She looked around the storage unit one final time and realized there wasn’t a single thing inside it she was afraid to leave behind.
“Yeah.” She took his hand and started toward the sunlight spilling through the open door. “Let’s get you to your friend’s retirement ceremony, then we can go home and get our baby girl.”