by Elise Faber
Footsteps echoed through the wooden panel and then the door was pulled open. She leaned against the frame, crossed her arms, and lifted one brow. “No doorbell ditch this time?”
“Nope.” I bent and kissed her. “Not when we have good cooking just minutes away.”
Anabelle grinned. “Fair point.” She inclined her head. “Come in, I just need to get my jacket.”
My phone rang just as I stepped into the hall, and I set the papers down in order to pull my cell from my pocket. “Hello?” I said, after swiping my finger across its screen and putting it up to my ear.
“Hello, Hayden,” the woman who interviewed me the previous day said.
“Dominique,” I said. “Hi, how are you?”
“Great,” she replied, not bothering to ask how I was doing in turn. Even if it was mostly an American thing to ask that question, Dominique was very much no-nonsense, to say the least. “A job offer is hitting your inbox shortly. If you accept, you start Monday.”
“I might need a little more time to get my utilities and computer set up.”
“Your house closed today, I’ll send a team over the weekend with the proper equipment and to take care of the utilities.”
Efficient, but I guessed I shouldn’t have expected anything less. “Okay,” I said. “I guess I’ll review the offer and be ready to start Monday.”
“Okay.”
“Great, thanks, Dominique,” I said, “Good—”
She hung up before I could finish the reply, but that was okay because I had a job. One that would keep me here with my sister, my friends, my Rocky, but one that allowed me to still help people.
And speaking of my Rocky, she was leaning against the wall that led into the kitchen, her arms crossed, a smile on her face.
I pocketed my cell, closed the distance between us.
“Is Dominique an ex-girlfriend?” she teased.
“No,” I said with a shudder. “I like my women strong, but I prefer that they have a little give.”
“What does that mean?”
“Only that I’m not sure that Dominique is anything but ice.”
Anabelle smiled and tsked. “Oh, you poor man. Have you learned nothing?” she asked. When I frowned, she added, “The ice is just there to hide all of the pain and insecurity.”
I froze. “Damn, you’re smart, Rocky.”
“Yup.” She let her body rest against mine. “So, you got the job?”
“Yeah.”
Her smile took my breath away. “That’s so awesome, Hay. I’m proud of you.”
“Your doing,” I said. “I wouldn’t have thought of it if you hadn’t suggested doing something remote.”
“Remember the whole smart thing?” she teased, rubbing her nose against mine. “Now, come on,” she said, tugging me toward the door. “Let’s go get fat at Iris’s house. I want to eat all the things.”
“There’s that smart again,” I joked, following her.
She snorted.
“Oh, hold on,” I said. “I just need to get my papers.”
She was closer to the table and turned to snag the folder, but I’d turned, too, and we ended up bumping into each other, the papers flying to the floor.
“Shoot.” She dropped to her knees.
I did the same, not wanting her to see, not when I had a whole speech I’d intended to give her, along with these papers.
Except . . . she’d already grabbed one, and it was the one that happened to be the most important.
The first page of the paperwork I’d signed the previous day, a meeting I’d rushed to after the interview with Dominque, one that meant I’d closed on my house much sooner than I’d planned.
Which was actually the house in front of this little cottage.
The address that I could see her lips forming.
“Your house?” she whispered and cut her eyes to the open front door. “That house?”
“Baby,” I began, “I was going to tell you. I wanted—”
She put her hand up, cutting me off, her chest rising and falling on a deep exhale as her eyes slid closed.
“Rocky.”
The only response I received was a shake of her head.
And that was the moment I realized I’d made a major miscalculation. I’d figured I’d tell her it was a way for us to get closer, but we could still have the space to take our time, that this way she wouldn’t have to move from the place she loved, that if things worked out (not that I had any intention of them not working out) then we would have an easy way to take the next step.
But I didn’t get a chance to say any of that.
Because she burst to her feet and darted out the front door.
The last thing I saw was the end of her long black ponytail flapping behind her as she sprinted away.
Stunned, raw, kicking myself six ways to Sunday, I let Anabelle run for far too long—okay, it was maybe half a minute at the most before I got my shit together and I realized what in the fuck I was letting her do.
Leaving the papers, I stood and hustled out the front door.
I’d catch up to her. I’d explain. I’d make it all right.
Hell, I could keep living with Brooke and Kace until she was comfortable letting me move in and—
I turned the corner to the front of the house and felt my heart seize.
Because she was running back.
She stopped two inches in front of me, opened her mouth.
I beat her to it. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I had a whole plan to explain it. This isn’t me trying to trap you. I just know you loved the house and it was in my budget and close to you and Brooke and Brent. And I didn’t want you to have to move and I wanted to surprise you and—”
She tossed her arms around my neck and kissed me.
“I know,” she said when she broke away, her breaths coming in rapid gusts against my lips. “I can’t deny that I freaked out. But I got to my car and realized that aside from not having my keys”—a wry smile—“I also didn’t have something else important.”
“Your backpack?” I asked lightly, heart thumping, but hope a growing thread inside me. She’d come back. She’d kissed me. Those pretty brown eyes were free of panic now.
“That,” she murmured. “And you.” Her hands came up and cupped my cheeks. “You wonderful, thoughtful, sweet, pushy man.”
“I didn’t mean to push.”
“You did,” she said, still smiling. “But that’s okay. Because we have something good and wonderful and incredible, and it needs to be pushed to grow. I want to find out what kind of happiness you and I can find together.”
“You do?”
She nodded. “I do.” A beat. “So, you’ll live in the front and I’ll stay at my place, and we’ll have regular sleepovers until you can convince me that you need a roommate.”
I chuckled. “I love you.”
“I know.” A grin. “Just like I know you’ll probably push me into the house so that you can use my cottage as an office.”
Now that was a thought.
She smacked me lightly on the chest. “Don’t even think about it,” she ordered, eyes narrowed. “I’ll only accept some pushy, not all of it.”
“You like my pushy.”
“Lies.” A sniff.
I didn’t call her on her lie. I didn’t tease her back.
Instead, I scooped her up in my arms, dropped my lips to hers, and kissed her with all the love and hope and need inside me.
The best part?
She kissed me back.
“I’m sorry,” I said a few hours after I’d carried Anabelle inside and had shown her just how much it meant to me for her to kiss me back.
We’d gotten to Iris and Brent’s late enough that they’d texted to say they were going to eat without us, and had, in fact, eaten without us. The only plus to Iris’s dark look, to her super-mean-glarey-eyes as Anabelle had deemed them, was that Iris had saved us plates, had even kept them warm in the oven.
I’d take gl
aring upon arriving two hours late to dinner if it meant I could have a happy and pleasured Anabelle at my side, along with Iris’s chicken pot pie in my stomach.
But a few moments ago, Iris had produced a pair of glasses very similar to the ones Anabelle had bought me then commandeered the bottle of whiskey I’d brought, telling me the girls were going to drink to my new house—and then she and Anabelle had shooed the “boys” out onto the back deck.
It was too cold for a BBQ, but I appreciated the females’ intervention. It was beyond time Brent and I officially hashed things out.
I needed to get through the grudge so we could move forward.
Hence the I’m sorry.
Brent shrugged. “We’ve always been square, dude.”
I shifted in my seat. “Then why have you been giving me the silent treatment?”
A roll of his eyes as the back door slid open. “Man, when have I ever given anyone the silent treatment?”
Iris emerged, carrying two beers and coughed at his words. To Brent’s credit, he didn’t even glance at his woman, just pointed a finger and shushed her.
She smacked a kiss to his cheek. “Nice try,” she murmured. “But that doesn’t work on me.” Her gaze flicked to mine. “He was upset. He got over it. He’s ready to move on.”
Brent sighed.
“Am I wrong?” she pressed.
He made a face. “No.”
“Exactly.”
She passed over the two beers. “Enjoy these then come into the kitchen in fifteen.”
“Sure that timer is set, darlin’?”
Horror in her blue-green eyes. “You didn’t.”
Brent just smiled evilly.
“So much trouble,” Iris said on a huff, hurrying inside.
“Did you mess with the timer?” I asked when the door had closed behind her.
“Fuck, no,” Brent said, opening a beer and handing it to me. “I learned my lesson the hard way.”
“What was the hard way?” I asked, genuinely curious.
A sigh as the other beer cracked open. “You really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
Another sigh. “You laugh, and I’ll punch you in the junk.”
“I’ll laugh if I want and block you if you try.”
Brent grinned, took a swig of his beer. “Bastard.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“Glad you’re back.”
My lungs froze for a heartbeat, but then I forced myself to nod as though I hadn’t been hoping to hear something like that from him for weeks. I hadn’t expected it, had still thought it would take a lot more time. But, fuck he was a good friend. “Me, too,” I said. “I missed you and your dumb ass.”
“At least my ass is nice and squeezable.”
“I resent that comment. Anabelle thinks my ass is perfect.”
“Can’t account for taste.”
I punched him in the shoulder. He punched me back.
Then Brent told me the story of Iris’s timers and her cherry pie.
I laughed my ass off . . . and successfully blocked Brent from punching me in the junk. But it felt good to be sitting with my friend, laughing about good memories, giving each other shit. It made the last ten years seem worth it, made me appreciate him and our relationship so much more than I’d ever thought possible.
And when he gave me shit about not knowing Anabelle’s favorite color, I just laughed and dished it back.
For the first time in my adult life, I had time to figure my life out. I had a future and plans and exciting things to learn and tackle. I was . . . just so damned glad I was back where I belonged.
Plus, when the timer went off fifteen minutes later and we all sat down to pie, I learned that Iris was right. Her cherry pie was the absolute shit.
Still couldn’t understand why Brent would want to burn it though.
Epilogue
Part One
Anabelle, Three Months Later
I still hadn’t said it.
Hadn’t said those terrifying three little words. I. Love. You.
Why? Stupidity.
At first, I’d been too scared. Then I’d wanted it to be special, to not just blurt it out, but to have it mean something and be poignant and romantic and—
Now, it was a huge elephant in the room.
I’d given up on romantic, on poignant, and so every day I was fighting the urge to just blurt it out and get it over with. But every time I tried, I got all tongue-twisted and nervous and instead said something else from nice to teasing to snarky to downright weird.
Hell, last night I’d actually all but shouted, “I love you . . . r banana!”
What the actual fuck, am I right?
I mean, I liked his banana, loved it actually, almost as much as I loved him.
Problem was, I was beginning to think that I would never be able to say it.
I’d just be yelling random things like “I love you . . . r shoelaces!” or “I love you . . . r wine bottle opener thingy!” for eternity.
Well, no. I wasn’t going to let that happen.
No ma’am. No way. No how.
I had a plan. I was going to say, “I love you” and he was going to . . . well, love it.
Just that easy.
With a determined lift to my chin, I strode through our backyard and onto the back deck. I hadn’t moved in with him yet, his office was still inside. Well, he thought it was still inside.
But that was part of the plan.
I’d packed my stuff. I’d finagled a phone call with the elusive Dominique. Brooke and Kace had distracted Hayden for the day.
And now, he had a state-of-the-art office in our backyard studio.
I juggled the box in my hands, carefully left it on the top step of the wrap-around porch he’d added onto the house.
Then I ran and hid.
He’d texted, saying he was only five minutes out, and I’d gotten my ass in gear.
Even now, I heard his car pull up in front of the house, the driver’s door slam shut, footsteps approaching the side gate. I’d been paying attention to everything about this man, knew his routine.
When he came home, he entered through the side gate, dropped his things on the porch and then always came to my studio to greet me properly.
Didn’t matter if he’d been gone for fifteen minutes or all day, if I was in the studio, he came to see me first. And I’d made sure to let him know I was in the studio . . . even though I’d run and hidden in the shadows of his favorite spying tree the moment after I’d dropped the box on his porch.
It really did give a nice view of our doors.
Rocks crunched, and Hayden appeared around the corner of the house. His eyes immediately went to the box, his stride faltering for a beat before smoothing out as he continued over to it. God, he was gorgeous, and even more so when I watched him smile and shake his head, heard him mutter something about a “troublesome, wonderful woman”—no clue who that could be, grin—and then I held my breath as he opened the box.
It was another doormat.
Only this one read,
The McAlisters
His eyes darted up, seeming to see me in my hiding place behind the tree, but I was already slipping out, already moving toward him.
Three steps away, and I could see the emotion blazing in the deep blue depths of his eyes.
Two steps. My throat tightened.
One step. My mouth opened, and I yelled, “I love you!”
Yup. Yelled.
Shouted it right in his face. No warning. Just silent to screaming.
Hayden set the box down, took me in his arms. “I know, Rocky,” he murmured, holding me tight. “I know. It’s okay.”
I sniffed, nodded, relief loosening my throat. “I love you,” I repeated, much more sedately.
“I love you, too, baby.” He leaned back, lightly brushed his lips over mine. “I have from the moment I laid eyes on you, and I won’t stop until my heart is no lo
nger beating.”
“Fuck, you’re good,” I whispered.
He laughed. I laughed, and then I kissed him, held him tight, tucked those words down and gave him the same words back over and over again, until we were both out of breath, until my mouth felt swollen, until need was coiled heavy and tight in my abdomen.
And just because I finally could, I said it one more time.
“I love you.”
His eyes were soft and warm, his expression adoring, and I felt so damned lucky to have him in my life.
Although, not so lucky as to not risk teasing him.
Because that was a different kind of luck, wasn’t it? Having a person you could be heavy with one moment, could joke with the next.
“You ready for a roommate?” I asked lightly.
He grinned, brushed his lips against mine. “I thought you’d never ask. When am I moving in?”
I snorted, smacked him lightly. “Come on,” I ordered. “I have some boxes for you to move.”
He chuckled and pinched my butt even as he followed me to the cottage.
And then I got to surprise him for the second time.
I opened the door and showed him his new office.
“Fuck, I love you,” he said a minute later, after he managed to find his voice. He turned, sweeping me up, holding me close, and carrying me to the only piece of horizontal furniture in the space.
The couch.
It was second-hand. It was a little hard and had the occasional sharp edge that would stab anyone who sat on it. But it was loved, and soft spots could be found. It might be a little damaged and a whole lot worn down, but it could be given a new life.
I wasn’t much for analogies, but damn if that wasn’t the perfect one.
Epilogue
Part Two
Dominique
I didn’t know what in the fuck I was doing in a bar at midnight on a weeknight.
Not sleeping.
Not getting drunk.
Not working.
Not doing anything aside from nursing the single beer that Hayden’s girlfriend had pulled for me several hours ago.