Slowly I turned to face him. Confusion twisted my brow. “What do you mean?”
“Where you can draw… set all your stuff up in here.” He waved his hand toward the window. “Look at the lighting in here, Aly. You could work in here all day, looking outside. It’s big enough that we can put a couch up in the corner where you could sit with a sketch pad on your lap…” Soft laughter rolled from him, feeding me a picture I knew he saw so clearly. No doubt, it was the way he saw me when he caught me drawing, my sketch pad balanced across my crisscrossed legs.
“It’ll give you enough space for a desk and whatever else you need.”
I reeled, struggling to make sense of what Jared was saying. An upheaval of ideas flitted through my mind, all the dreams of my childhood clashing with reality. “Jared, I don’t —”
“Yes, you can,” he cut me off, his voice hard. His eyes flashed with something that almost looked like anger. Then he softened and closed the space between us. He pressed himself to me, one hand tangled in my hair and the other held firm across my back.
He whispered into the top of my head, “Yes, you can, Aly.”
Emotion squeezed my chest, my heart too full. I melted into his warmth, shuddering through the breath I tried to draw into my lungs.
He pulled back. The force of his blue eyes bore down on me. “That night… when I came back and you finally showed me what you kept hidden in your sketch pads all those years…”
Jared brushed his knuckles down my jaw. A rush of chills skated down my spine.
“Other than this face, I’ve never seen anything more beautiful, Aly. You see things the way no one else can and you somehow make it come to life on paper.” His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he frowned, searching for an answer. “And I don’t know what or exactly how to make this happen for you, but you can’t settle.”
He brought both of his hands to my face, holding me tight, breathing his own belief into me. “I can’t fucking stand the thought of you settling. Not for one second. Not for anything.” He blinked rapidly, hard and insecure. “And if this house is settling, I want you tell me and I’ll find something better. I will, Aly, I’ll make it right. I promise. You just have to be honest with me.”
Emotions slashed the deepest lines into his face, fear and doubt and that lingering shame. And I knew what he was thinking, that a part of me was settling by being with him.
It gutted me, him believing for even the flash of a second he wasn’t worthy of me, when this man had been created for me.
He crushed my face in his hands, almost painfully, his fingers digging into the skin behind my jaw, silencing my own insecurities on my tongue. “Can you picture it, Aly… us here? Raising our family? Together?”
And I could. I could picture the perfection. Blood bounded through my veins, rushed to my head and tingled in my fingers. I stepped back, pressing my hands over my heart, feeling overwhelmed by the moment, by this man who knew me better than anyone, who saw the desires hidden in my heart when I’d never even spoken them aloud. “Can we afford it?”
He smiled a little, nodding slowly. “Baby, I already told you… it’s yours if you want it. I still have a ton of money saved up from back when I was working in Jersey and I’m making enough now that keeping up the mortgage on this place will be no problem.”
“Is this what you want? To rebuild this place?” I asked.
And I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear him say it. Wanted him to feel it. And I felt certain it wasn’t just this house. There was so much inside Jared waiting to be freed, to be discovered underneath all that self-hatred, more beauty in this man than I could have ever imagined.
I suppressed the emotion that pricked behind my eyes, watching as Jared struggled through the shame that was always there, as he fought against the chains holding him down.
He took one tentative step forward and pulled me back into the safety of his arms. His hold was soft, and he rocked us slowly in the middle of the room. “Aly.” I felt the weight in his swallow, the hard beat of his heart where it thundered against mine. “I didn’t think I’d ever get this. Any of it. One day spent with you is a dream… a gift. Living here, with you…” He tightened his hold. “I want it more than I could ever tell you. Nothing would make me happier than building this for you, building this for my family.” His voice cracked on the word, as if saying it aloud could curse him and steal it away.
I clung to him, silently promising that was never going to happen.
“Then I can’t imagine a better place to spend my life with you.”
ELEVEN
Jared
I dipped a roller into the pool of beige paint that lapped in the tray. Mine butted up against Aly’s as she hurried to dive in, trying to beat me to the punch, launching us into a latex-fueled tug-of-war.
“I was here first.” I nudged hers back and my roller disappeared deep into the thick pond.
Aly giggled and vied to take position. “And I picked the color, so I win.”
A wave of contentment and a thrill of excitement played a contradictory beat on my heart.
I didn’t think Aly had stopped smiling since I brought her to this wreck of a house more than two weeks ago.
And God, if I didn’t love seeing my girl happy.
With one last playful prod, Aly straightened back up, pushing her roller up the length of the wall, crisscrossing it as she smeared a coat over the textured surface.
Doing the same, I peeked over at her, watching her while she worked. Her hair was piled on her head in the messiest knot, pieces falling all around her. Streaks of paint coated a few errant locks where she’d been careless and brushed up against the wet wall.
A couple of them were compliments of me.
I just couldn’t resist, messing with her, seeing her get all flustered and trying to fight back. Like she could ever sneak up on me, mark me in the paint marking up our walls.
But this girl sure as hell had marked my heart.
A wide smudge of paint was branded across my chest.
Yeah, I’d let her get one in. Just because I wanted to see her victorious smile, the way she’d giggled and run away as she anticipated my retaliation.
So fucking cute.
And that’s what she did to me, turned me to slush, liquid on the inside.
Megan, Aly’s best friend since high school, and Christopher had shown up early this morning to help, and the two of them were across the room working together, chatting and laughing and pretty much making more of a mess than they were helping with. Megan painted in a slow sway beside Aly’s brother, dancing to the music that pumped from the small radio that sat on the floor.
Lowering my voice so they wouldn’t hear, I sidled up to Aly, our strokes keeping time. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be painting.”
Sure, it was the same complaint I’d given her about a thousand times. Didn’t make it any less valid.
Aly scoffed. “Jared, how many nurseries do you think pregnant women have painted over the years?” Lifting on a challenge, her eyebrows disappeared behind her bangs as she waited for my answer.
My voice dropped even lower. “Well, maybe those men didn’t care about their women as much as I care about mine. And this isn’t a nursery… It’s a family room,” I pointed out, as if that was going to make any difference.
Of course she’d picked out paint for the small bedroom down the hall, too, and I was pretty sure there was no chance in hell I could keep her from painting it.
I knew I was stretching, grasping at nothing because it seemed just about impossible to get Aly to concede.
But fuck, a man could try, couldn’t he?
Maybe it was irrational, but I wanted to erase anything that could possibly harm her, anything that could harm the baby.
“What if it’s like one of those news stories?” I continued, dipping my roller back into the paint and bringing it back to the wall. “Like when they release a new miracle drug that’s going to sa
ve the world and find out five years later it’s burned a hole in your heart.”
And, yes… stretching. I knew it. Aly did, too.
She rolled her eyes, but amusement played all over that gorgeous face. She leaned in and pecked my lips. It was just an innocent little kiss, but it was enough to awaken the desire lurking in the deepest places inside of me.
I could have Aly every second of every day and it still wouldn’t be enough.
“Stop worrying,” she commanded on a whisper, her nose brushing mine. “I’m pretty sure my mom painted my room when she was pregnant with me.” Aly stepped back and lifted her arms out to her sides, putting herself on display. “And I turned out just fine.”
My eyes raked down her slender body and back up to meet those green eyes. I lifted an appreciative brow.
Uh, yeah, I’d have to say she turned out just fine.
But I sure as hell didn’t have to say I wouldn’t worry.
Couldn’t help it, and there was no chance I could stop it.
These two were the only things I did worry about.
Obviously Aly caught my thoughts, and she huffed out a little breath. “You’re kind of ridiculous, Jared.”
I cocked my head. “And you’re kind of stubborn.”
From the other side of the room, Christopher laughed, all raucous and like the asshole he was.
Fucker was a disaster, paint all over his shirt and splattered in his hair. A river of it coated his pant leg where he’d spilled the can. The drips that hadn’t clung to his clothes dotted the cement floor.
Thank God the new carpet didn’t go in until tomorrow.
Christopher dunked his roller into the tray, sloshing paint over the side. “I seriously don’t know what’s wrong with you, little sister. You have a perfectly good excuse to cop out on all this work, and here you are, making arguments to be a part of it.”
Aly pointed her roller at him. “That’s because I’m not a lazy-ass like you.”
Wounded, Christopher smacked his hand over his heart. “Are you really calling me lazy when I got up at the butt crack of dawn on a Saturday to come and help turn this dump into something halfway decent?”
“And it had nothing to do with me bribing you with free beer?” I asked, teasing, unable to stop from jumping in with my girl.
“Oh, I’d make bets that has a whole lot to do with it.” Megan didn’t even look over her shoulder, just kept her body rocking with the motion of her roller.
“Fuck you, guys,” Christopher said, laughing under his breath. “This was one hundred percent out of the goodness of my giving heart. This shithole would be nothing without all my selfless efforts. But since we’re talking about beer…” He dropped his roller to the tray. Kicking off his paint-laden shoes, he headed toward the kitchen in his socks, dodging droplets of wet paint.
I laughed, outright and loud, and Aly giggled, watching her brother with all that affection pouring from her, that goodness radiating from her as she looked around the room that was taking shape, this slow transformation turning this shack into a home.
When I first brought Aly over to see the little house, my nerves had wound me tight. I had wanted her to see what I saw when I first walked through the door, the pure potential that lay in wait.
I had seen a home.
Dread had struck me hard when I first pulled up in front of it with her and realized she might not. I couldn’t stomach the idea of letting her down. All I wanted was to provide for her and the baby. To give them something good when I didn’t have all that much to offer.
But I should have known better, should have known she would see what was buried beneath the rubble. And I thought maybe Aly had seen even more than I had. Deeper, further and farther into the future, imagining the things that were still so hard for me to see.
Hope. It’d shown prominently in her eyes.
She’d been the only one who’d ever been able to give that to me.
Now the place was hardly recognizable.
My crew had worked their asses off the past two weeks, heading over in between jobs, tearing shit out and installing new. We hit the kitchen first, knocking out all the old cupboards and countertops while we waited for the new ones to be delivered.
Aly had picked out almost black wooden cabinets. And damn, if my girl didn’t have good taste, a natural eye for beauty, for flow and continuity.
I had been right about the mis-cut granite. It had fit perfectly and looked even better. Pair that with the brand-new appliances and the kitchen had turned into some kind of gourmet’s retreat or some shit.
Aly had actually cried when she saw it. She blamed it on hormones, but I knew her better than that. She was just fucking thankful and overwhelmed by the drastic change in everything.
Slowly everything had begun to come together. There was still a lot of stuff to do. The carpet was being installed tomorrow, thank God. The huge task of laying tile in the kitchen and bathrooms awaited me. But mostly I was itching to sink my fingers into the finishing details, things that would make the home unique, adding the depth and character and beauty it’d lacked when we started.
But other than that?
Pride simmered around the edges of my consciousness as I took a glance around the little house that was becoming our home.
Yeah. The place was turning out better than I ever could have imagined.
We hadn’t really meant to, but Aly and I had moved in. I’d been here working so late every night that one night a week ago, Aly had shown up with an air mattress. She pumped it up in our bedroom and we’d slept on it ever since. She said she couldn’t stand falling asleep without me, couldn’t take one more night of me crawling into bed with her not long before dawn, exhausted after I’d spent hours getting this house ready for my family.
I didn’t even try to dispute it. I’d missed her like crazy, all those nights here alone, without her. Still, I’d been all too happy to sacrifice that time, knowing what I was working toward.
Turned out I’d just accomplished getting Aly into the new house a little earlier than I anticipated.
Christopher ducked his head into the brand-new fridge.
“Bring me one of those,” Megan called, ticking up the music a little louder.
“Grab one for me, too.” I knelt down and saturated my roller.
“What do I look like, a fucking maid?” Glass clanked as he dug around, pulling out three beers.
“What you look like is a fucking disaster,” I tossed back, laughing under my breath.
“Ha! Have you looked at yourself, lately? Pretty sure you have zero room to talk, my friend. I don’t know how my sister can even stand looking at you.”
“Oh, I have no problem looking at him.” Aly’s voice was all tease, dripping with innuendo.
Somewhere along the way, making her brother uncomfortable had become Aly’s favorite game.
“So gross,” Christopher muttered. But he was all grins when he sauntered back into the family room. He divvied out the beers before he slid down to the floor, leaning against the front door. He twisted the cap, drained half his beer while he surveyed the room. “Not half bad,” he said in slow appreciation, turning to meet my eye, like maybe he got just how much fixing up this place meant to me.
I looked around the room.
No, not half bad at all.
Two hours later, Aly and I walked Megan and Christopher to the door.
Christopher clapped me on the shoulder. “Take care, man. I’ll come by tomorrow after class and help you get the furniture moved in.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
He wrapped Aly up in his arms. “Didn’t know I could miss you so much, little sister. The apartment is boring as fuck without you there.”
“Well… thanks,” Aly drew out, all sarcastically offended as she squeezed him back.
Christopher cracked a smile and stepped outside. “What? Here I was thinking you were nothing but a complete pain in my ass, and it turns out I kind of liked having you aro
und.”
“You are such a jerk.”
He winked, and a true smile curved his mouth.
Aly smiled back. “I miss you, too, Christopher.”
Christopher eyed Megan, who was hugging me good-bye. “Well, since I’m so lonely, maybe Megan can come over and keep me company tonight.” The edge of his words and the gleam in his eye reeked of suggestion. The asshole couldn’t stay serious for more than two seconds.
“Not on your life,” Megan shot back. Laughter rumbled around in her chest as she hugged me closer, wishing me good-bye.
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