Page 85 of Escaping Our Reality

I don’t know about that.

Those are things I’m thinking about on this Saturday afternoon as I sit on the patio, sketching a rudimentary drawing of a house. I shift in my chair, trying to make my bottom half a little bit more comfortable. Last night’s adventure left me sore, so Ry hasn’t been able to lavish attention on me like he’s used to. That’s quite okay; I’m more than eager to make up lost time focusing on him.

It’s definitely the first time in my eighteen years I woke a guy up in the morning by sticking my hand down his underwear. Of course, Ry is the only guy who’s ever spent the night sleeping next to me, so I haven’t been afforded the opportunity of fondling someone’s morning wood before, but I know in my heart that it’s one of my new favorite pastimes.

Spring is in full force now, and the grass around the homestead needed mowing. When we went to shower this morning, Ry loaded up a push mower and weed-eater from the garage, and he has been doing yard work most of the day. Without his shirt. Sweat pouring down his muscles. Ballcap shading his brilliantly translucent green eyes. And that’s why,twenty minutes ago, I just finished giving him a blow job. He was too damn sexy to resist.

He’s sitting in a chair opposite me right now, drinking bottled water to cool down. I steal a glance at him. He’s watching me, rubbing two fingers against his chin in thought.

It’s illegal. Inhuman. No one has the right to look that good.

He clears his throat. “What are you doing?”

I smirk. “Nothing.”

“Nothingmeans you’re sitting there, twiddling your thumbs. You’re not doingnothing; you’re obviously doingsomething.”

“I’m just sketching.”

“Sketching? Like drawing?” He doesn’t wait on me to answer. Instead, he walks over, standing behind me. “Lulu, that’s amazing. You didn’t tell me you could draw.”

“I can’treallydraw. I can only do buildings. I can’t draw people, landscapes, nothing. I don’t know why buildings come easy to me. They just do.”

“Is this why your parents want you to become an architect?”

“Well, that, and they determined it to be a money-making profession. They want me to get every degree known to mankind and open my own firm one day.”

Knowing that’s not what I want, Ry doesn’t even comment on it. “Whose house is that? Is that a pond out front?”

I always do what I shouldn’t do. Always.

I shouldn’t have started this drawing. And I definitely shouldn’t be opening my mouth to tell him about this drawing.

I flick the pencil back and forth on the page and lift my chin in the air. “Well, that’s our house.”

“Excuse me?”

I try to crawl out of the big pile of shit I just jumped in. “Well, I’ve just been spending so much time out here lately, and you talk about living here, building a house like Grandpa wanted. I just thought I would draw something. For fun.”

His features darken, but I can’t exactly read his expression because his ballcap is pulled too low.

Lifting my feet, he sits next to me on the loveseat, settling my legs between his. He wraps his arm around me and pulls me closer. “So, do I get to know what our house is gonna look like, or is it supposed to be a surprise? You’re the one who likes surprises. Not me.” He points to the drawing. “Our front porch faces the pond?”

My heart bursts open, pouring all the love I have for this man into my body. Filling every cell. Filling every organ. Filling every fiber. I’m drunk on pure happiness. This is what life is supposed to feel like. I don’t need the love of my parents. I don’t need the camaraderie of friends. I just need him.

“Yeah. I’ve always been attracted to front porches more so than back porches. It’s like looking at the future instead of the past. And I love the historic old farmhouse look.” I point out all the details on my drawing. “White wood siding. Green shutters. Stone veneer around the front door and around the crawl space. I want a crawl space and not a slab, because I wanna walk up a set of stone and wood steps to get to the wraparound porch. And I want it to wrap completely around the entire house, except the left side here, where the garage will be. Front porch swing. Rockers. Dining table. We can sit on the porch to eat our supper, watching the sun set over the pond. And hydrangeas all in the front flowerbeds.”

“Pretty damn nice, Lulu. What about the inside?”

I flip to the finished sketch of the downstairs. “First floor. Open concept for the kitchen and living room. Huge living room on the right side when you walk in the front door. Kitchen on the left. Next to it a mud room where you come in from the garage. Laundry room next to the mudroom. Then you walk down the middle hallway, there will be a half bath on the right, and then a large office on the right. That can be your office. The left willhave a corresponding room, just larger. It will have a full bath connected to it.”

“So, you’re saying it’s a bedroom.”

I shake my head. “No. I was thinking it could be a joint office and… rec room, maybe.”

I am so stupid.

He catches the trepidation in my voice and holds onto it like a kite blowing in the wind. “A rec room for whom?”

---