Page 94 of Tameron

He pulled back and raised a single brow. “It might.”

Cupping his jaw, I shook my head. “No, Tam. It won’t.”

He stared at me for a long second, then his shoulders relaxed. “You actually mean that, don’t you?”

‘Yes,’ I signed. ‘I do.’

He bit his lip. ‘This will never annoy you either.’ He tapped his ear.

I laughed. “Not in the way you think. I might get a little annoyed when you leave the blender running or the water on?—”

He flushed, and I could tell he’d done that before.

“—or when the TV is too loud. But I will never be annoyed by you.”

He let out the breath he was holding. “Okay. I believe you.”

I wasn’t sure he did. Not yet. We had a long way to go. We had years to build up the trust he was hesitant to give, and wehad years for me to have real faith that I deserved something this good. But the point was, we had those years.

Him and I.

This was it. He was mine, and I was his.

And we were home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

TAMERON

“Welcome to our home!”

Bean straight-up beamed as he gestured for us to come in. He blinked a few times as Dayton walked past him, his telltale sign that he was trying to remember a name.

I bent to hug him. “Dayton,” I whispered.

He hugged me back. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

I meant it. Helping Bean remember had become part of our routine. We’d all learned to pick up on the signals that he was lost, and one of us would step in and help him. And we usually attempted to be subtle about it. No need to constantly remind the guy he needed help, right? It had to be frustrating enough for him as it was.

“Your home is lovely,” Dayton said as he handed Jarek our housewarming gift, a cute little cactus that even Bean couldn’t kill if he forgot to water it for a few weeks.

It had been Dayton’s idea, and I loved him for it. The man was unfailingly thoughtful. Wasn’t it funny how something that had annoyed me mere months ago now made my heart swell with warmth and this strange, still unfamiliar tenderness? Love really did change people. Even me.

“Thank you,” Jarek said. “Most of the renovating work was done by my brother, so if you ever need someone for that type of thing, make sure to reach out to him.”

“Oh, that’s good to know. We’ve been thinking about redoing our kitchen,” Dayton said with a look at me.

Yup, there was now an official “we” and “our,” and I still wasn’t used to it. Every time Dayton used it so casually, my heart skipped a beat.

I hadn’t officially moved in with him, but somehow, most of my clothes had found their way into his bedroom, and I spent far more time at Dayton’s than I did back with Nash. I cleared my throat. “Yeah, erm, we could do that. I mean, if Dax agrees.”

The house was Dayton’s, and technically, his brother paid him rent. And by technically, I meant he didn’t because Dayton said he didn’t need the money and wanted Dax to focus on building his business. The man was a goddamn saint…and he was mine.

Creek and Heath’s arrival was the distraction I needed to compose myself again. I’d been unusually emotional the last few weeks, ever since officially entering a relationship with Dayton. That part, I didn’t care for at all. It was like being with him had changed some core setting inside me, and now I suddenly got all teary-eyed at baby animal videos. Like, what the actual fuck? Not one of the side effects of being in love that I was particularly thrilled about.

“I brought my brother,” Creek said. “Hope you don’t mind, but he was sitting around by himself, moping.”

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