Page 119 of Smith

“They’ve got approximately seven thousand images to go through that span almost thirty years. Dating profiles to examine and devices to dissect. With that, they’ll try to match any Jane Does or open files. But that’s their problem. Bottom line of it is, your woman’s home. Don’t buy more shit you don’t need so you can spend the next decade mentally torturing yourself instead of convincing your woman she made the right decision hooking her star to your dumb ass.”

One thing could be said about Zane Lewis—he was an asshole.

“You got anything else for me?”

“Don’t be a fool, cover?—”

“My woman’s father is listening. You might wanna rethink your next words,” I grunted.

“You might wanna get to know your soon-to-be father-in-law a little better,” he volleyed. “I didn’t make this shit up on my own.”

“We know. You plagiarized the internet.”

“What you mean is, Taylor did. Then he passed that shit down so we could warn our men off leaky dick.”

Christ.

“You’re annoying me,” I told him. “I’m hanging up now before I get the urge to kick you in your nonfunctioning balls the next time I see you. And for the record, Ivy was smart to get you neutered. The world already has two Lewis offspring to contend with. Any more would just be cruel.”

“My wife can verify?—”

Nope.

I disconnected before he could tell me what his wife could verify.

I tossed my phone on the counter.

“Want coffee?” I asked.

Instead of answering, he told me something I knew.

“I’m staying my full thirty-day leave.”

“Right,” I muttered as I pulled two mugs out of the cabinet.

“I’m staying here.”

“By ‘here’ I assume you mean here in the house.”

“The house?”

I set the mugs on the counter and turned to face Lucas.

“What?”

“The house. Not my house or my home.Thehouse.”

I had no idea where he was going with this so I had nothing to add.

Aria’s dad did.

“You gave me your history. I get the way you grew up, then being active duty, then going dark for ten years wondering, you never put down roots. Never settled in. Never made yourself a home.”

He wasn’t wrong. No place, even when I lived with Rie, felt like home.

Until Aria.

From the second she walked in the door, this place felt like home.

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