42. Buzz #3
Lucy’s expression changed. The teasing softened. She shifted onto her knees on the couch and touched my jaw. “Hey,” she said. “I mean it.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I nodded.
She searched my face anyway, because Lucy had learned the hard way that I could say fine and mean breaking. She had learned me when we were kids, then had to learn the adult version too, and somehow she still wanted the whole complicated map.
“This house already feels like home to me,” she said again, quieter. “Not because it’s yours. Because we’re here.”
“I want our life.” I turned my face into her palm. “Not you fitting into mine. Not me asking you to make room around the edges. I want our mornings. Our dog. Our mess in the kitchen.”
She laughed, but the sound broke a little.
I leaned closer and rested my forehead against hers.
The rain softened against the roof, steady now instead of fierce. The fire was lower, red at its heart. The house felt still around us, but not empty. Not waiting.
Lucy slid her fingers into my hair. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
The words were not new anymore. They were no longer a confession torn out under a summer sky at a wedding, no longer something bright and terrifying that changed the ground beneath us.
They were part of the house now. Part of the furniture. The fire. The rain. The bowl by the door with Dottie’s name on it. The overnight bag in the mudroom. The future reaching for us with both hands.
Lucy kissed me. A brush of her mouth over mine. A breath of laughter when I reached for her too quickly and she murmured, “Easy, Burns,” against my lips.
I pulled back just enough to look at her. “Burns?”
“You were getting smug.”
“I just asked you to move in with me.”
“And I said yes. Don’t ruin it by becoming pleased with yourself.”
“I am extremely pleased with myself.”
“I can tell.”
I kissed the corner of her mouth. “How?”
“You have a face.”
“I do have one of those.”
“It is currently very smug.”
“It is currently very in love with you.”
She smiled against me, and then the kiss changed.
She moved closer, and I let my hands settle at her waist, then her back, then the warm bare skin where my borrowed shirt had ridden up.
She made a small sound that went straight through me, and then she laughed because Dottie snored so loudly from the rug that the entire romantic atmosphere briefly took a hit.
I dropped my forehead to Lucy’s shoulder. “Our dog is ruining my moment.”
“She is enhancing it,” she corrected, breathless with laughter.
“She sounds like a chainsaw.”
“She feels safe.” Lucy’s fingers moved through my hair again, slower now.
I lifted my head. Her eyes were soft behind her glasses. Her cheeks were flushed from the fire, from kissing, from everything we had said and everything we had not needed to.
“She’s not the only one,” Lucy whispered.
I forgot how to breathe for a second.
Then I kissed her again. Lucy came into it with me, warm and sure, her knees pressing into the couch cushion beside my thigh.
I took her glasses off carefully and set them on the table beside our wine.
She smiled like she noticed. Like she loved that I knew to do it now.
Like every small act of care was another plank beneath our feet.
Her hands found the hem of my shirt.
I caught her wrist lightly, smiling against her mouth. “Is this you moving in already?”
“This is me assessing the property.”
“Thorough inspection?”
“Very.”
“I should disclose defects.”
“You have many.”
“I meant the house.”
“Oh.” She kissed my jaw. “The house is fine.”
“Fine?”
“Potential.”
“You wound me.”
“You’ll recover.”
“I might need assistance.”
Lucy laughed again, and I stood with her in my arms because I could, because she trusted me, because she wrapped herself around me like being carried through the house by a man in love was not embarrassing if the man was me.
“Ty,” she snickered.
“What?”
“I can walk.”
“I know.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Probably.”
“Dottie is watching.”
“Dottie does not pay the mortgage.”
“She lives here now.”
“So do you.”
I carried her into the bedroom while the rain kept falling and the fire glowed behind us and Dottie snored in the living room like she had personally approved the whole thing.
Lucy’s overnight bag was still by the door.
Her books were on my table.
Her sketch pad was in my kitchen.
Her dog was on my rug.
And Lucy was in my arms, laughing when I nearly bumped my shoulder against the bedroom doorway because apparently I was not as smooth as either of us had been led to believe.
“Professional athlete,” she said, giggling.
“Low ceiling.”
“It is a standard doorway.”
She was still giggling when I laid her on the bed.
I followed her down, and she caught my face between her hands, smiling up at me with rain-soft hair spread across my pillow and forever written all over her face.
“Welcome home, Shortcake,” I said.
Her smile trembled. Then she pulled me down to her.
And this time, when the rest of the world fell away, I did not feel like I was losing anything. I felt like we had finally, finally arrived.