Page 87 of Your Place or Mine

But the spell was broken.

Not in a bad way.

Just… postponed.

We went back to working, quieter now, both of us flushed and pretending we weren’t seconds from kissing again.

But something was different.

For all our bickering, the stubbornness, the emotional landmines, we were building something.

And maybe, just maybe… it wasn’t just the garden.

Chapter Twenty-One

Callum

Lydia had dirt on her cheek and a chunk of moss sticking out of her hair like she’d just crawled out of a woodland diorama.

And I still wanted to kiss her more than I wanted air.

She didn’t seem to notice either thing, too focused on dragging a cracked flower pot across the patio with the same determination she applied to everything, as if fixing this little patch of Reckless River would somehow fix everything else, too.

And maybe it would.

We’d been out here for hours. Moving benches. Sweeping leaves. Untangling old twinkle lights and unspoken tension.

It should’ve been awkward.

But it wasn’t.

It was… easy.

Natural in a way that caught me off guard.

Every now and then, our hands would graze. Our shoulders would bump. And each time, that buzz under my skin kicked back to life, stronger than it had any right to be.

The weird part?

She didn’t try to fill the silence.

She let me work beside her without demanding a conversation or a confession, and I appreciated that a lot.

Still, I couldn’t stop glancing at her.

Couldn’t stop noticing the way the sun caught the gold strands in her dark hair, or how she bit her bottom lip when she concentrated, or how her hands moved, steady and sure, when she was in her element.

I didn’t know when I started to feel like I wanted her here. Not just on this project, not just temporarily.

Just… here.

Beside me.

Around me.

Part of the life I’d worked so hard to keep simple.

Which is exactly why I was about to do something that made absolutely zero sense.

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