Page 182 of The Overtime Kiss

We answer the questions, then I circle back to the house one. I glance around the living room. “I was thinking…since this is a rental, why don’t we all go home shopping after my next road trip? We can all pick out a house together—for the four of us?”

They all say yes. Then I turn to the brilliant woman by my side. “What about…my better half?”

Sabrina laughs, then shakes her head and kisses my nose. “Call me whatever you want—it’s all the same. We’re together.”

And really, that’s all that matters.

A few weeks later, we venture into our 529th home viewing. Or something like that. Balancing the opinions of four people is no joke.

Parker wants room for a science lab and a foster kitten room. Luna keeps upping the ante, asking not only for a room big enough for a couple of disco balls, but also for a bigger yard to foster dogs too. I wouldn’t mind a weight room, to behonest. A big living room is a must for everyone. We have a huge couch, and we need the space for it and our movie nights, face mask parties, and, well, the mornings when I wake up with cardboard signs on my chest or raccoon eyes on my face. I’d like a big primary bedroom suite, with a huge shower and plenty of room for the emperor bed and the tiny sex diary with our brand-new list. Spoiler alert: I gave her the thing she told me she wanted that day on my couch. She gives it to me too. Our list keeps growing, and that’s the way we like it.

Sabrina’s the easiest, though, when it comes to houses. She likes, well, almost everything.

But that’s her. She’s not picky or particular about things. She learned how to make do with her own resilience, her notebooks, and her skates.

That’s why I want to find a place where she can do yoga—or where we can do it together—and where she has room for a desk and computer so she can edit her skating videos and run her skyrocketing coaching business.

The video of her at Cozy Valley? It took off and word spread. Her business has picked up even more at the perfect time since she’s expanding it to include girls’ nights out, couples’ lessons, and lessons for adults of any age who want to learn to skate for the first time.Skate With Joyis her new tagline, and it’s perfect.

When we walk into this home with a sky-blue door in Hayes Valley, in the heart of the city, not far from the Sea Dogs arena, she shoots me a sly smile.

“Your favorite color,” she says.

“Your eyes,” I say, then drop a kiss on her cheek.

And my shoulders relax. No more hiding—no more jerking apart. We’re free to kiss and hold hands, and that is its own type of lightning.

Once inside, Sabrina takes in the wide-open space likeshe’s drinking it in—the light filtering through, the gleaming surfaces, the blond hardwood floors. Her smile spreads like the morning sun.

Yes, I want everyone to be happy, but most of all, I want this woman to be happy. Because that’s what she’s done for me.

I hold my breath as the kids race through, then Parker declares it perfect, and Luna, never to be outdone, says it’s more than perfect. “There’s enough room for our new foster kittens,” she says, since we just picked up a pair of tabbies named Frick and Frack.

“Sabrina?”

“I love it,” she says, then clasps my hand. “It feels like ours.”

“It will be then,” I say, and I turn to the realtor and add, “we’ll take it.”

“I don’t have much for a down payment,” Sabrina says to me that night after the kids are in bed. “But I saved most of the money from the ring I sold. I never had to use it to live on. And I invested it—accounting degree and all. So I can contribute.”

I tug her close and drop a kiss on her forehead. “I love that you want to.”

“I do. I mean it,” she insists.

And part of being a good partner, significant other, or what-have-you, is knowing when it’s important to say yes.

“Okay then.”

But I have a plan too.

A month or so later, Sabrina and I head into the closing for our new home. Yes, we used her down payment, but I toldher I’d paid cash for the rest of it. After all, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

When the escrow officer sets down the paperwork, Sabrina’s eyes shine, and she whispers, “It’s our home now.”

“It is,” I say, loving that word, so I say it again. “Ours.”

But then the escrow officer hands her another set of papers, this one with just her name on it.

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