Page 112 of ILY
“How bad is the house?”
That’s the question I don’t want to answer. “It’s going to need some work.”
He groans and falls into my arms. “I don’t have money for that. Fuck. I had that bag of cash my aunt left under a mattress, and technically, I can take a loan out against my 401(k), but I really,reallydo not want to do that.”
I tilt his head up with the tips of my fingers and kiss him soft and slow. It begins to sprinkle on us, but neither of us is in a hurry to move. “You won’t have to take a loan out. We can figure it out. Even if we have to rebuild it with our hands.”
He shakes his head. “No. If we try, Michael will come and chew up all of our wood and tools.”
Shit. I nearly forgot about Michael. “There are still those plants.”
Leaf sighs and glances off to the side.
“What?”
“Nothing, just…he kind of solved the crime? You know? So, like, is it fair to kill him?”
I burst into laughter. “He didn’t solve the crime.”
“Yeah, he did. He found the tooth. Then he found the hand. He even waved it at you. All you had was a muddy shoe before that!”
I had more than a muddy shoe, but Leaf does have a point. “I suppose we can spare him an execution. So long as he leaves your tomatoes alone.”
Leaf drops his cheek against the top of my shoulder and lets me rock him gently from side to side. “I wouldn’t count on it. But maybe we can come to an agreement.”
“A truce,” I say. Maybe Michael is willing. He literally led me to the hand, after all. Maybe he was just trying to tell Leaf something this whole time.
Or maybe I’m losing it and now anthropomorphizing a fucking groundhog the way Leaf had been doing. It’s a slippery slope, so I kiss Leaf again to distract myself.
“We’ll figure it out, okay? I’m going to sell this place?—”
“Seriously?”
I lean back and meet his gaze. “I want to be with you. If you’re not ready to move in and be together full-time, I understand?—”
“Whoa, let’s not be hasty. I didnotsay that.”
I grin. “Well, my point stands. However you want to take this—us—I want to be near you. I’m on vacation until my official retirement, and I’m ready to move. So I’ll put this place on the market and use whatever I can get out of it to buy something else. Or…invest in the farm.”
“That’s…a lot. We just met. You can’t possibly take that kind of risk on me, Thorne.”
“I can.” I cup his jaw with both hands and hold his gaze. “I want to. I’ve spent my whole life calculating every angle of every move I made. It saved me from pain sometimes, but my life was very quiet and very lonely, and I never took risks. For the first time, I want to close my eyes and jump.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
I shrug. “Just tell me you love me, then kiss me and say we’ll figure it out together.”
He groans as he grabs me by the front of the shirt, slams me into the glass door so hard I can feel it rattle, then kisses all the breath from my lungs.
“I fucking love you. So much. And we’ll figure it out together.”
I stroke another touch down his jawline with my thumbs. “Now, go inside and make a list of everything you want to see and do while I’m on vacation.”
He grins. “That could be dangerous.”
“I trust you.”
He hums and gives me a slow look up and down. “Does seeing and doing you count?”
