Chapter 17
Seventeen
Two months later
Skylar
My bookstore is finally finished.
And today, I get to see it.
OK, it took a month longer to get it just right.
But the timing turned out to be perfect.
After our relationship became official, Finn forbade me from setting foot on the property.
He sent me away for a week-long stay at his Lake Norman house, letting me bring Iris with me. In early June, after everything blew up with the Wright wedding, Iris needed to get out of town for a while to put it all behind her.
Not because the bride, Rebecca Wright, had anything against her. The work that Iris did on the dresses for that wedding was top-tier. But the mother of the bride was gunning for Iris.
But that’s a story for another day.
When we come back to Songbird Ridge, Finn is waiting at my crappy rental house, with another crew up to some mischief.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Iris is curious, too.
“I had an idea,” Finn says.
That’s when I notice one of the moving crew workers is carrying a box marked “living room.”
“Finn! What did you do now?”
“I have another surprise for you.”
“It can’t be a birthday surprise. It’s too late for that,” I say.
“Fine. Our two-month anniversary surprise.”
The store is…
“Beautiful,” Iris gasps.
“Cool,” says Oliver, nodding as he looks around the room.
Me? I’m speechless for once. I run my hand over the hardwood shelves, polished to a high shine, waiting to receive the books.
The check-out desk has been handmade to my exact specifications.
There’s a chandelier that I’ve been dreaming about and bookmarked on my laptop, but I never told Finn about it.
“Did you break into my computer?”
“No,” he scoffs. “But I do read over your shoulder.”
I’m too overwhelmed to care. I’m too touched that he thought of everything I liked, from the fixtures to the shelves to the signage. Everything is exactly how I had envisioned it.
“There’s more,” he says.
I feel like one of those people on those renovation shows. “Does this have something to do with the movers touching all my shit?”
“Hard to say.”
“Don’t be coy, Finn. I prefer you straightforward,” I say.
He takes me by the hand and leads me upstairs. Thank god he doesn’t make me wear a blindfold to mess up my hair.
Iris and Oliver follow us up the stairs, and I can hear them whispering.
“Did you two know about this?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Oliver says flatly.
When we reach the top of the stairs at the back of the store, Finn pushes open the heavy oak door.
Inside is a spacious, restored flat with original Georgian windows, flooding the room with light.
And there, in the middle of the room, is my sofa. And Nirvana.
“What in the world?”
“You needed a new place to live. We needed a new place to live. Together.”
I don’t know what else to do, except cry.
“Did I do well?”
I don’t say anything at first. I have to take it all in. In the corner is a fully modern kitchen and breakfast bar. Down a short hallway are three bedrooms and a bathroom with a deep soak tub.
“One of those rooms can be your office, and one can be a guest room. We could turn those into a nursery one day, or I could wall off another room in here…”
He goes quiet when he sees my face.
I reach up and touch his face. “You smashed open the lock on my heart, and you left it better than you found it. Why? How? Why me?”
Finn laughs. “Why? Because I love you, Strawberry.”
My eyelids flutter, and I feel woozy. I have to lean into him.
So much work. So much labor, materials, time, and money. So much goddamn money. More money than I’ve ever spent in my life.
“You’re an absolute lunatic, Finn. I never thought flirting would lead to all this.”
“You failed at flirting, and instead, you got yourself a husband. That’s not a proposal. But you ought to know by now that’s the plan.”
I have to laugh, and I have to cry, but mostly I have to wipe my face on his shirt. I fist the material over his soft tummy. My favorite part of him. Well, my second favorite.
“You always have a plan,” I say.
Finn cups my cheek and dabs away a tear.
“I wanted you to have some place where you felt like home.”
He remembered everything. I didn’t say the words, but he picked up on how I felt. How I’ve never felt like I was home.
And now, I do. I roll up on the balls of my feet, and we share a kiss.
Finn made it happen for me. I could never pay him back in a million years. And the best part is, I’ll never have to.