Page 107 of Not Catching Love

They swap a look between them.

“Hey,” I say to Manny. “Don’t look at him. I’m talking to you.”

“Well … I don’t see why not.”

Thanks to people liking shitty art and my overheads at Bertha being low as fuck, I’ve saved a lot of money over the last few years. It’s not enough to buy land and build a place, but it is enough to do half of that.

“How long does a house take to build?”

“Xander, what are you doing?” Derek asks.

Manny answers me. “I think it all depends. I haven’t done it myself, but you’d need to get all the supplies connected to the block, then find a builder, sign contracts … a year? Probably two?”

“Two years.” I turn to face Derek. “What if we did it together?”

“Uh—”

I wave away what I know he’s going to say next. “Yes, it’s super soon. Like we’ve-been-together-for-a-whole-day soon. Iknow. I get it. But I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you, plus we can draw up contracts for a fifty-fifty split, then if, two years down the line”—my throat does that thing where it’s trying to close over, but I push on—“things aren’t, well, great and we’re not ready to live together,thenwe sell.”

I’m trying to ignore all the things I said and focus on what could be.

“I’m …” There’s still something holding him back.

“You’re what?”

“Well, maybe I like living here.”

“Do you?”

“I … don’t hate it. It’s a good size, convenient location, close to work …”

Work.

Very, very close to work. “You’re holding on to this place because of me, aren’t you?”

“No, I?—”

“You what?”

The way his eyes dim tells me everything I need to know. Instead of feeling dejected, or like he thinks I can’t do this, or frustrated that he feels the need for a backup plan in case I derail, I steamroll all those emotions. “If you think you’ll still need this place in two years, we’re going to have a lot bigger issues than building a house together. Sure, I’m never going to be fixed, I’ll always need help, but we’ve both established that the help won’t be coming from you. I trusted you to come back; now you have to trust me to handle my shit. So if you’re holding on to this place because of me, well, well, you just … stop it.”

His lips twitch. “Stop it?”

“Yes, stop it. It’s insulting.”

“Okay. Fair point.”

“Aww, am I witnessing your first lover’s tiff?” Manny asks.

“Quiet, you,” Derek says, then drags a chair over to sit nextto me. “You know what you’re saying? That you want to buy a place, with me, and that once it’s built … moving in with me would mean moving out of Bertha. You understand that, don’t you?”

Well, I fucking didn’t until he said that. My natural reflex is a big, fat no. No, I won’t go. I won’t leave my brothers and the safety of the house. I won’t let any of them leave either. But realistically, I know that Derek would never live there with the rest of us.

So one day, if this is forever, I’ll have to move out. I’ll have to say goodbye.

“I … Seven …”

“I know. That’s what I mean. You need to be sure about this.”

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