Page 67 of Undeniable You

I had faith that she would figure it out.

“You can bounce any ideas off me too. I mean, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’ll be honest with you.”

Larison grabbed the loop in my jean shorts and tugged me closer.

“Oh yeah? You’ll be honest with me?”

“Yup. I’m fully prepared to tell you when your ideas suck.”

She laughed before kissing me.

“Me! Me!” Every now and then Juniper got jealous when we kissed and demanded cheek kisses as well. It was really cute, and I didn’t mind. There were so many cute things she did now that I knew she was going to grow out of eventually. I planned on cherishing all of them for the day when she moved on.

“Okay, it’s time to let Mama get back to work, PJ. How about we go home and pick up so it’s all nice and clean when she gets home?”

Juniper wasn’t that enthusiastic about the idea, but she agreed to go with me and help.

We got the apartment looking nice and I made sure we had everything ready for dinner. Larison and I agreed that we’d both been ordering too much delivery, so we needed to cook more. I was also going to start contributing to the grocery bill since I was eating a hell of a lot of food here. I’d even brought some things over from my place so they wouldn’t go bad. If I kept staying here, I was also going to want to contribute to the bills.

I’d already signed a new lease to start in the beginning of September, but now I was questioning if I should try and break it. I might lose my deposit, but I’d lose more money paying for an apartment that I wasn’t living in.

I wished the timing wasn’t so close. It would be a more reasonable conversation for us to have if we’d been together for six months. We’d barely been together for a week.

But the idea of moving in with Larison wasn’t as scary as it should have been. It felt logical. Why wouldn’t we live together? I was already staying with her.

I wished I could have asked my mother for advice, but I hadn’t told her about Larison. I’d said that I had a job but had kept the details light and made sure to turn the questions back on her and make her talk about herself. It wasn’t hard. She did love to avoid any unpleasant or stressful topic.

I truly envied Larison with her moms. And she’d told me lots of stories about her Gram and I wish I could have met her too. Larison had showed me pictures and I could see where she got some of her features from.

It was so easy to let myself get absorbed into Larison’s world. It was warm and comforting and supportive. Her moms were desperate to have me over for dinner. They’d been messaging Larison about it, asking if we could come sooner. It was so cute. I was glad that I’d met them twice already so it wouldn’t be the first time. Still stressful, but not as bad. I was planning on making something to bring with me. Maybe a pie. I hadn’t told Larison about that yet. She’d probably tell me that I didn’t need to do it, but I wanted to. An apple pie? That was a classic.

Larison arrived home and greeted me with a kiss and twirled Juniper around. She was happy. Much better than last week. I’d been carefully watching her and hadn’t seen that pinched look on her face or those circles under her eyes. She’d smiled a lot more and I liked to think I had helped.

“Welcome home, dear,” I said. Every day I said that, and it made her roll her eyes, but I knew she secretly enjoyed it.

“I thought we could do a steak salad. I’ve already got it marinating and a lot of the veggies are ready to go.” I haddiscovered a passion for meal prepping that I’d never had before. It was fun to be in the kitchen with Juniper and wash and cut a bunch of veggies and fruit at once so we had them ready. Like living in a salad bar. It seemed like something I could do to contribute.

Larison leaned down and rested her chin on my shoulder from behind. “Sounds good.”

She let out a contented sound.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“Nothing. Just needed to hold you.”

Her body was so warm against mine and I sunk back against her.

“Mamaaaaa,” Juniper called from the living room.

Larison left a gentle kiss on my neck that made me whimper.

“Duty calls.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Larison

“Where are we going?” I asked for the third time. Jo was driving us out of the city, and I had no idea where we were going. I’d been worried that Juniper would be upset at us leaving her, but she’d been excited to hang out with Sophie and barely even said goodbye when we left.

---