Page 177 of All The Happily Ever Afters

“It can wait until you tell me you want to stay.” He readjusts and adds, “I know you like the apartment, I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Are you thinking we could keep it? And have both places?” I ask him, noting his every moment as I fold a sweater I’d pulled out of the suitcase before he came in here.

“We have options,” he answers and I huff out a sarcastic laugh.

Options. I have to stare at the plush cream sweater as I toss it onto the sofa and then retrieve the next piece of clothing from the suitcase. It’s an old shirt of mine, but one of my favorites that readsCarpe Diem. I have never felt so much betrayal from a shirt before. Even this garment has taken Sebastian’s side.

“With you writing, we can go anywhere, do anything. Remember how you told me that?” he reminds me.

“I didn’t mean you could drag me along to wherever you wanted to go against my will,” I answer him flatly.

“You said you’d go wherever I wanted to take you. Change your mind?” he says, and the tone of his voice changes. The way the words float in the air longer, needing more attention and wanting to be heard so much more than any other words… the way he says them makes me pause.

Tick. My heart’s counting the seconds. That’s what it’s been doing. Savoring each one and recognizing that they matter.

“I came here, didn’t I?” I ask him, leaving out the emotional damage threatening to spill into each syllable. I remember the way I felt when we were first together. Counting each day and waiting for the one where we inevitably said goodbye.

I don’t want that. Ever.

It’s quiet, too quiet. The kind of quiet that turns to nights filled with loneliness and heartache.

I focus on the room and change the subject as I ask, “You had someone decorate this place?” It’s a bitch move to cower away from the argument because I’m afraid to lose him. I hate myself for it.

This is the exact reason he thinks he can keep secrets from me. He knows I don’t want to fight. Not with him.

He stares at me hard for a moment, reading into every detail of my expression the way he always does. I wish he wouldn’t.

“Yeah,” he answers and his single word tests the tension between us.

It’s still there, smoldering, but I don’t add fuel to it. I don’t want to fight with him, ever. Not when he’s the only hero I’ve ever had. The only knight in shining armor I’ve ever wanted. Even if he’s all dinged up and damaged but pretending he’s not.

I can pretend too.

“I like it,” I tell him as I toss the shirt onto the pile, folded nice and neat even though I’m debating on finally donating it now that it’s taunted me. Taking in a slow breath and releasing it, I say, “I really like the whitewash on the furniture with the light woods. And the cream walls, it’s very calm and relaxing.” All the while I talk, I fold another sweater and toss it down, making my pile lean a little. “It needs some pops of color I think, but I really like it.”

It looks like I could have plucked this house straight from the pages of aGood Housekeepingmagazine. I attempted something like this at the apartment, but it wasn’t quite right. It was just items I bought and put in the rooms, but they didn’t fit the way I thought they would. “I think I may even love it.”

“Is that right?” he asks me easily, and even his lips tick up into an asymmetric grin. My heart recognizes something powerful between us: I love to make him happy and make him smile … in turn, he wants that for me too.

It’s still just ticking along though.

I don’t know how long my smile will last here.

“Yes, that’s right,” I answer, avoiding the unknown and focusing on the here and now. On the fact that if I’m not ready to fight, I want to love him. It’s only one or the other, with no happy medium. Because either way, we’re together.

Knock,knock,knock. The three timid knocks save me from a strained breath.

Bastian makes a move to get the door and turns to walk out of the room, letting me return back to this new reality.

It is my reality and it’s already better than I anticipated, but I can’t shake the nervousness. “I’d like it better if you’d tell me the truth,” I whisper lowly under my breath, knowing that’s exactly why the ticks are being counted.

“Chlo,” Bastian calls my name from the foyer, a gorgeous foyer with whitewashed floors and an iron lantern chandelier. I wasn’t being complimentary for the sake of a truce; whoever decorated this place knew what they were doing.

My bare feet pad on the floor as I make my way to the front entrance, following the sound of a feminine laugh.

“I hope so,” the woman says as I enter. That ticking turns to something else when I see her. Something like a war drum being beat with the handle of a machete.

I’m in shapeless pajamas and feeling the heaviness of the bags under my eyes and she’s… put together and chic and beautiful. And a woman I don’t know.

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