Page 12 of Love You Too

Ren moves ahead of me to open the front door, extending his arm toward the foyer. His large frame leaves little space in the doorway, and our bodies brush against each other accidentally as I slide past him. A frisson of awareness lights up my nerve endings, and my pulse skyrockets, sending a whoosh of warm heat through my veins.

Ren’s eyes fall on mine. The earlier smirk is gone. He’s just…looking.

My heart beats so loudly I’m sure he can hear it. Ren clears his throat and glances away, but a lick of electricity hovers in the space between us.

I follow him around as he points out various nooks and corners in need of help. Mostly, I’m staring at his ass, but I hum and nod as he gestures around the place.

“Ren, this house is…interesting,” I say. Actually, it’s not. It’s a disaster in need of repairs, renovations, and possibly a bulldozer. But I’m impressed that he bought it with no more than a tape measure in his pocket and a dream. “It kind of reminds me of the barn in that Carraway Farm series. Have you seen it on social media?”

“Nope.” His hand grazes my elbow as he shows me into a dilapidated library. I shiver and try to play it off with wild hand gestures.

“It’s this awesome place this woman bought years ago. It was run-down, kind of a disaster, and she turned it into a working farm. Now, it’s the cutest thing ever and she has like a million followers watching her play with baby chickens and pick onions.”

“Um, okay. The only takeaway was that you think my house is a disaster.”

I tilt my head from side to side. “I didn’t say that.”

It’s worse than a disaster.

We walk the premises—broken, ancient appliances here, cracked moldings and scratched wood floors there. I catch him watching me as I take in each room of the house, and his gaze feels like a breeze kissing my skin.

I pull up some old carpet and send dust flying a foot into the air. He points to a doorframe, and it comes off in his hands. We walk into the kitchen, which has broken cabinets and smells like a combination of mildew and rotting wood. Ren calmly escorts me out, his hand brushing the small of my back. “Don’t think weshould linger in there.” His breath feathers over the back of my neck, and I melt a little.

When we’ve finished walking through, I turn to him, hoping the pity doesn’t show on my face.

“Okay, not beyond hope, but it’s a project, that’s for sure. The place has good bones, and it doesn’t need any real rebuilding. Mainly TLC for the surfaces. Paint, wallpaper, floors, fabrics. If you’ve hired a contractor, you’ll be able to get subs working on several things at once, but everyone wants to be last. Painters, floor people—they all want the last pass at the place, but you just have to tell them to work together. It can be done. What’s your timeframe? Because even if it’s short—and trust me, I know short timeframes—you can still get people to hustle when things need to get done. Furniture, floors, lighting, all of it can be installed like a movie set. Bam, bam, bam.” I motion with my hands like I’m firing a gun even though there’s no weaponry required in renovations. He probably knows that.

Or maybe he knows nothing at all because right now he gapes at me until I wave a hand in front of his eyes.

“You okay?”

He shakes his head as though coming out of a stupor. “You’re…different than I remember you.”

“Yeah? How so?” I have a feeling I know what he’ll say. I’m not the impressionable girl who was too naïve to understand that hot hockey stars don’t stay with their college girlfriends. Now, I’m cynical and wise, just looking to satisfy my physical needs without strings attached.

“I guess, more driven and goal-oriented? Tightly wound?” It comes out like a question, but he doesn’t seem to be searching for a more apt way to describe me. “Like you’d only choose to get a cup of coffee if you needed a caffeine boost, not for the company.”

I could be insulted by his assessment, but it’s not untrue. I can barely recall the time in my life when I was different. I nod.

I’m this way because of you, I want to say. I’d never actually utter the words out loud, but they’re the truest truth. Perhaps it’s unfair of me to lay the blame for who I am now entirely at Ren’s feet. But when the love of your life sees you as an impediment to his bright future and discards you like dirty gum on his shoe…it tends to leave an indelible mark.

Ren may have been the catalyst for the protective barriers around my heart, but years of isolating myself solidified them into place.

My focus, my commitment, my success—all of them are a product of my relationship with Ren. More specifically, they’re a result of the way Ren walked away without looking back, leaving me to pick up the pieces of myself and figure out what to do next.

The idea that someone could want me and then…change his mind… That was a formative life lesson.

I’ll never do something like offer to follow a guy when I know now that love doesn’t mean forever.

“And what about you? Are you different than you were ten years ago?” There’s an edge to my voice, and he catches it, flinching at the implication that he was not a great guy back then. The jury’s still out on now.

He doesn’t answer right away. I start to wonder if he didn’t hear the question, but then he lets out a long exhale.

“I want to be.” He stares off into the distance. “I want to incorporate more into my life, which is why I started work on this house. To test a theory.” I want to know why he came to this particular town and bought this particular winery, but I try to keep my mind from wandering and focus on the conversation at hand.

“What’s the theory?”

“That I can have balance in my life if I work hard at it. It’s never been a priority before.”

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