Page 117 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

“Hey…” Gage held a spray can in his hand, and I saw now that he’d been placing markings on the floor. Fuzzy white lines criss-crossed the cracked lino.

“What is this?” I stepped around the blocks he’d drawn and then came closer. “Is this a new renovation you guys are working on? You don’t usually do commercial property, do you?”

“No, not usually,” he replied with a nod, going to wipe a smudge of dust off his nose, but his hand was even dirtier. I reached up and brushed it away for him. “We’re doing this for a special client.”

“So you’ve started on a new job already?” They were close to finishing the job they’d been working on when we reconnected and had planned on taking a week off to recover, so I glanced around, seeing the place with new eyes. “Who for?”

“Well, you see there’s this girl.” I turned around and frowned, but he just smiled and moved closer. “This really amazing girl.”

“Have I said I am not cool with you calling other girls amazing?” I replied. “Because I’m not, just so we’re clear.”

“That’s cool because I’ve got no intention of describing any other woman that way.” He reached up, hesitating when I glanced at his dusty hands, then he set the spray can down and wiped them clean on his jeans. “Just you.”

“I don’t understand…” I took in the peeling paint on the walls, the ancient flooring and all I could see was neglect.

“One of the agents I work with to find properties to renovate suggested this one to me,” he explained as he glanced around the shop. “While he was telling me how easy it would be to get this rezoned as residential, all I could think of was this.” He pointed to one spray painted rectangle. “A display case full of your creations there.” His finger shifted to another. “A coffee machine. A bunch of tables there.”

And out of the air, he created miracles.

The space was transformed from grimy to gleaming, the entire shop transformed to meet my requirements. Every thought I’d had about the way the different bakeries I worked for came rushing up.

“The display case would need to be closer to the window,” I said. “Probably running this way.” I demonstrated it running at right angles from the window, deeper into the shop. “You could have people looking straight at your offerings as they walked past, bringing them in.”

“Nice…” he said. “We could line that up with the doorway so there’s an easy walkway between the oven and the display cases.”

“It would need to be pretty wide,” I said. “Lots of people working behind the counter and…” I frowned, suddenly realising what we were talking about. “So…” My eyes searched his face. “Did you buy this for me?”

“I don’t have a ring.” Gage’s smile faded and he looked somewhat embarrassed by that. “I went and looked at some jewellery places, but… I don’t know what kind of ring you’d want to wear, but this? It’s gonna take some time to get done. The shop needs a lot of structural work completed before we can even start on the interior, but as soon as I walked in, I could see it. A future, for you, for me. I know it’s not real romantic, but this made sense to me in a way a ring didn’t.”

“Why… do you need a ring?” I asked.

“Van fucked it up, just blurting things out, but that’s what he does.” Gage shook his head. “But I wanted to do it right. Get you a ring, propose properly.”

My heart thudded way too loudly in my ears as I watched Gage sink to one knee.

“Will you marry me, Kendall? I don’t know if you want a gold, or silver, or platinum band, but this I see so damn clearly. When you finish your apprenticeship, you can run your own bakery. I’ll get up early with you, go for a run once I’ve dropped you off at work, and you can spend the quiet hours of the morning making beautiful things for people to eat. I wanted to just work on this on the sly, get it all done for you, but…”

He shook his head, which had me taking a few steps towards him.

“I knew that you’d want to be here, making decisions the whole way through. Working together to make it just the way you want it and…” He raised his hand and offered me a key. “Us building a future together. That’s what I want, what I’m trying to say. Do you—”

“Yes.”

I rushed forward and kissed him hard because it was either that or burst into tears. I hated ditching Barbie, but this… The big, beautiful man. My big, beautiful man, I realised as I pulled back.

“You know I was always going to say yes, and I don’t need a ring.” A little growl from him made clear maybe that wasn’t the way it would work. “You could get me one of those plastic ones that come from a bubble-gum machine, if that’s what you wanted. I just want…”

I couldn’t put it into words, not while I stared into his strong, proud face. He was so fucking beautiful, the symmetry of his face somehow enhanced by the dust.

“This is perfect. You’re perfect.”

“We’re perfect,” he corrected, standing up and pulling me close. “So what do you think? You want to build a future here? It’ll be tough work.”

“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”

Chapter 59

Connor

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