Page 118 of Loathe at First Sight

“I’m not going anywhere,” she reassures me. “Honestly, I knew what my decision would be the day after Mitch came to see me.”

“And what have you been doing the rest of the time? Ignoring me?” I joke.

“There you go again. Thinking it’s all about you.” She grins. “I needed to get my ducks in a row.”

“Do you care to share what your ducks decided to do?”

“Well,” she begins. “I decided to buy the inn.”

I find it hard to hide my shock. “You bought the inn?”

“Well, I’m in the process of buying the inn. But yes. With some of the money that Mitch gave me and some help from a couple of investors, known as my parents, I am going to be the new owner. It’s going to get a facelift, and it’ll be mine.”

When she sees that I’m too stunned to speak, she goes on. “It’s the place I called home since I got back. And I didn’t want to see it go to some corporation.”

“You’re amazing,” I tell her.

“Well, I’m not done yet, so hold your applause.”

“There’s more?”

She nods. “I’m renting a house over on Bleaker Drive. As much as I love the inn, I figure that I can’t live there forever. I went ahead and paid for a whole year of rent.”

“Wow, princess. I guess you just have it all figured out, don’t you?”

“Not quite.”

“What are you missing?”

She runs her fingers through her hair to push it out of her face. It seems like the longer she stays in Lilly Leaf Falls, the wilder it gets.

“See, I have this cute house that seems to be just a little too big just for just me. And it has this great fenced-in backyard. But you know, I don’t have a dog. I was thinking that maybe you and Ellie could come help me fill it up a bit.”

Confused, I ask, “I thought you said you didn’t want us to live together.”

She points her finger at me. “What I said was that I didn’t want to move in here with you and that I needed to figure things out on my own—which I have done. It can be somewhere that we can call ours…together.”

I stand in stunned silence. I was so worried that she would go running back to LA, yet here she was asking me if I want to move in with her.

“Jack, say something,” she prompts.

“Well, I mean, I’ll have to talk it over with Ellie. You know, she’s pretty set in her ways.”

Liz rolls her eyes and smiles. Walking toward me, she says, “Oh, shut up.”

“Yes, princess, I would love to move in with you.”

Looking up at me, she says, “Are you going to kiss me, or what?”

I hold up my still-greasy hands. “I’m all nasty.”

Without warning, she wraps her arms around my neck and jumps up to link her legs behind my back. Instinctively, I grab her, holding her up by the ass.

“Eh, that’s alright. A little dirt never hurt anybody.”

forty-three

A New Normal

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