Page 172 of Texting, Trouble & Touchdowns
I groan. “Why do I feel like I’m about to regret this?”
“Because you have excellent instincts.” He shifts beneath me until I’m flat on my back and he’s hovering above me like a Greekgod with the world’s worst attention span. “Question one: how do you feel about holiday-themed dog sweaters?”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“Sarah. She needs one for the clinic’s soft opening. I’m thinking something that says, ‘I’m a working woman but I also love nutmeg.’”
I laugh, half in disbelief. “That’s not a sweater, that’s a novel.”
“Question two,” he continues. “If I offered to be your receptionist-slash-maintenance-man-slash-cheerleader, would you pay me in peanut butter pretzels and mild praise?”
“You already do that,” I point out.
“Correct. I just wanted to hear you say I’m underpaid.”
I roll my eyes, grinning.
“Question three,” he says, voice softening. “What happens now?”
I pause.
“What do you mean?”
“With us,” he says, tapping my chest with one finger. “You, me, the house, the clinic. This thing we’ve been dancing around like we’re afraid to name it.”
I look up at him.
His hair’s a mess. He still has a smear of Sarah’s fur on his sleeve. He smells like sun, cedarwood, and the candle I made fun of him for but now light when he’s gone.
He’s mine.
God help me. I think I’ve known it since he licked peanut butter off his thumb while explaining his fantasy football league like it was a sacred text. Maybe even before, but I just plan on looking forward.
“I don’t know,” I say quietly. “I never get past the three-week mark.”
He nods.
After a long pause he says, “Okay, how about this.”
I brace myself. Because with Lucian, “this” could be anything from a kitchen renovation to a spontaneous road trip to Idaho.
He sits up, tugging me with him, then grabs his phone from the coffee table. “I need you to listen carefully. This is important.”
I squint. “Is this where you ask if I want to share a Costco membership?”
“Better.” He opens the notes app, scrolls, and then clears his throat. “I’ve been working on a thing.”
“A thing,” I repeat slowly.
“A plan,” he says. “Like a rough draft of . . . our next chapter.”
I stare at him.
“I’m not proposing,” he adds quickly. “Not yet. I know you’d panic and hide behind a houseplant. But I wanted to show you I’m thinking about the future. Our future. Not just in a ‘I’ll sleep on the couch when we argue’ kind of way, but in the ‘I want to build something with you’ kind of way.”
He reads from his phone. “Item one: I keep making you breakfast until you admit my eggs are better than yours.”
I scoff. “They’re not.”
