Page 182 of The Path to Loving Him
“I’m just saying, you don’t always have to focus all your energy on everyone else. You can focus that energy on yourself, too. You can create a space for yourself that allows you to sleep better. I know you struggle with it.”
“I don’t need decorations in my room to sleep better.”
“Then what do you need?” she asks.
I pull out onto the main road and head north toward Jackson’s, which is outside of town. “It’s not anything you can buy at a store,” I answer.
“What is it?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Ryland,” she says as I can feel her eyes on me. “Tell me.”
Feeling ridiculous, I say, “The best sleep I’ve had in a long while was the night we spent in San Francisco. So it seems to me what I need in my bedroom . . . is you.”
“Oh,” she says, growing silent.
I glance in her direction and spot the blush on her cheeks, which makes me smile. She might be confident and strong and can put me in my place when she wants to, but the moment I toss her a compliment or the truth in her direction, those cute cheeks of hers turn pink.
“So unless you know where I can buy one of you in the store, I think it’s a lost cause.”
“Hmm,” she says. “Maybe I can google it.”
I chuckle. “Good luck with that. Pretty sure the one and only is sitting right next to me.”
“This coming from the guy who didn’t want to be in a relationship.”
I shrug. “What can I say? I’m a changed man.”
“I guess you are, but I still would like to make your room into something more.”
“I have decorations packed away. When I was at the farmhouse, sleeping on the couch, Hattie actually redidCassidy’s room, took care of all of her stuff and turned the room into something for me, so I have all those things she did packed away. Just need to put it together.”
“Then let me help you,” Gabby says. “Because I promise, once you get things set up, you might find that you sleep better because you’re more comfortable.”
“Or you can lend yourself to me, and that will make me sleep better.”
She chuckles. “Or that.”
I squeeze her thigh. “If you want to help me with my bedroom, then I guess we can put it together, but I do have one request.”
“Let me guess, you want me to decorate your place naked?”
I laugh because I didn’t expect her to say that. “Not what I was going to say, but now that you suggested it . . .”
“I’m not walking around your house naked.”
“Says the girl who spread her legs on my dining room table.”
“You were the one who spread me.”
“Ehh, I remember it differently.”
“Of course you do.” I can practically hear her eye roll. “All clothes will remain on because we have a task to do.”
“Shame, I was willing to decorate with the willy out.”
Her laughter fills the cab of the truck. “Willy out? Seriously?”
