Page 47 of Ready or Not
“What is this?” I asked again, quieter this time.
His arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the doorway, his face unreadable. “Open it.”
I untied the gold ribbon, the silky texture slipping through my fingers, and carefully peeled back the black wrapping paper. My heart thudded as I opened the small box, revealing a keycard and a silver key.
Did he just…
“It’s for here. Well…” he cleared his throat. “The keycards’s for the building, and the other one's to this place… to my place.”
Oh shit,he did.
I blinked at him, unsure if my heart was racing from excitement or sheer panic—or both in equal measure.
“I… a key?”
He took my hand into his. “I want to show you something else.”
Guiding me back into the room, we stopped in front of his dresser, a modest oak piece covered with his usual clutter—his designer watch, a half-empty bottle of cologne, a few forgotten coins.
“What are you?—”
He opened the second drawer down, and I gasped.
“I…” he rubbed the back of his neck. “I know it’s kinda soon, and the last time we talked about it was when we were joking around and all but… I-I made some room for you.”
Inside the drawer, half of it was completely empty. The other half held a handful of my things—small, familiar items I hadn’t even realized I’d left behind. A silk hair tie, a tube of my favorite lip gloss, and one of my favorite scarves from the night we had a wine picnic on his balcony. My black Prince hoodie that I thought had disappeared two months ago was neatly folded.
My throat tightened at the sight, warmth pooling in my chest despite myself. He must have gathered them piece bypiece, quietly storing them away without saying a thing while he waited... for what?
Me to notice?
The right moment?
“I—uhm…” he started, running a hand through his curls in that telltale way he did when he was trying to play it cool but failing miserably. “It’s just a drawer. You don’t have to like… move in or anything. I just figured—y’know—you always leave stuff here anyway and you’re here so much so why—I don’t know—I thought it’d be... nice for you to have some stuff here so you can feel more at home when you’re here,” He trailed off, his voice softer now. “My mamá loves to say that a man’s space says more about him than his mouth ever can, so…uhm… yeah…”
I stared at the drawer, then at him, then back at the drawer.
My fingers tightened on the keycard and key in my hand, the metal pressing into my palm like an unspoken question.
A drawer.
A key.
His place.
He had made space for me—not just physically, but in his life. For the past five months of us being together, Desi had been so full of surprises, equal parts playful and intentional. He’d put his heart into everything in ways that always left me breathless.
But this?
It surpassed the court-side seats to the Yankees game?—
No… this was right up there with the grand gesture of asking me to be his girlfriend.
Though it was done casually, this was him saying, without actually saying it:
You belong here.
With me.
