Page 73 of Saving Her Heart
"Storage unit?"
"For whose stuff?"
"We'll take turns. Monthly rotation."
I look at him. "You want to rotate our belongings?"
"Or we could get a bigger place, eventually. Our place, not yours with my stuff or mine with yours."
"Our place," I repeat, liking how it sounds.
An hour later, I'm standing in my apartment watching Jax arrange his collection of vintage police badges on my—our—bookshelf for the third time.
"They need to be chronological," he insists, moving a 1950s Miami-Dade badge to the left. "It tells a story."
"They're badges, not a novel."
"They're history. Look, this one's from 1892." He holds up a tarnished star. "First police badge issued in Hibiscus Harbor."
"And it needs to be displayed prominently because...?"
"Because it's cool."
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. We've been having variations of this conversation all morning. His baseball memorabilia ‘needs’ the entire hallway wall. His grandfather's fishing trophies are ‘essential’ décor for the living room. And don't get me started on the neon Budweiser sign he claims has sentimental value.
"We can't put a beer sign in the bedroom," I tell him for the fifth time.
"It's vintage. From the bar where Hudson and I watched our first Super Bowl."
"It's tacky."
"It's meaningful."
"It can be meaningful in storage." I argue.
He gives me the look—the one that probably works on suspects but just makes me want to kiss him. "What about a compromise? The badges get one shelf, the baseball stuff gets the hallway, but the neon sign goes in the closet?"
"And the fishing trophies?"
"Guest bathroom?"
"We don't have a guest bathroom. We have one bathroom that guests sometimes use."
"Then that's where they go."
I watch him carefully arrange each badge, his face serious with concentration. It's such a small thing, but it represents something huge—Jax Masterson, Mr. By-The-Book, is making my space his space. Our space.
"Tell me about them," I say, sitting on the couch. "The badges."
He lights up. "Well, this one from 1892 belonged to Officer Patrick O'Brien. He was the first official law enforcement in Hibiscus Harbor, back when it was just a fishing village."
"How do you even know that?"
"Research. I collect the stories, not just the metal." He picks up another one. "This is from 1943. Officer Sarah Williams, one of the first female officers in Florida. She worked here during World War II when all the men were overseas."
"That's actually interesting."
"You sound surprised."
