“I know. I should. Maybe when Wednesday goes to Audrey’s house for a sleepover. I don’t mind slipping out for an hour or so when she’s home, but I can’t stay long.”
He sighs heavily. “If only there was a way to solve that problem.”
I shoot him a curious look. “Like build an underground tunnel between our homes?”
“That or move in together,” he says, flashing me a you know you want to grin.
“But I have a house,” I say, though, even as I say it, I do love the idea of being with him every day and night. After all, that’s what we both said we wanted.
“Yeah, so do I,” he says, tapping his chin. “Hmm. I like mine. And you like yours. Fine, we’ll build a concourse between them, like two terminals at the airport.”
I laugh. “Are you really asking me to move in?”
“Woman, I told you I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Yeah, soon I’d like it not to be in separate homes.”
The thought should scare me.
But it doesn’t.
Not at all.
Not in the least.
I want all of that with him, with all of us.
I tap his nose. “Why don’t we look for a place that’s ours, then?”
“That sounds like a brilliant plan from a brilliant woman”—he takes a beat—“who wants to get in my trousers every night.”
I roll my eyes. “Duh. You are good in bed.”
“As advertised.”
“And in the kitchen.”
“Admit it, I’m a catch.”
I kiss him again. “You’re a man-i-corn.”
“That sounds dirty and sweet at the same time.”
“Just like you.”
He gives me yet another kiss. “And just like you too, love.”
Love.
Yes, that’s what he calls me in and out of bed, and I love it all the time. Because it turns out he’s the right person in the right place and at the right time.
31
Liam
The next few months fly by in a blur.
I treat patients, spay cats and dogs, administer shots, and tend to both broken and full hearts at my practice. All in a day’s work as a vet.
I visit my dad a lot. He’s making the best of things, with laughter and jokes and lots of long conversations.
Not only with me, but with Ethan, though Ethan is often distracted by the need to ringmaster his three-dog circus, taking Steve Trout into the backyard with the musical girls, tossing Frisbees to all of them, and inviting lots of face licks.
So the conversations fall to Mum and me, or January and me, or to Wednesday.
Funny thing I didn’t see coming—Wednesday gets on great with my dad. She reads articles to him on new trends in website design, then blog posts on ethical hacking trends, and she likes to describe the sites she’s working on to him. It helps her design, she says, to have to give them words so he can visualize them.
And he likes hearing about it.
And likes weighing in too, offering her tips now and then.
Some of them she takes.
Mum paid January to fix the cupboards.
She was determined to win that battle, but January won too, giving the money immediately to a reading-for-the-blind charity.
We do other things together, like go to parents’ nights at both the elementary school and high school, and to dinner at the sandwich shop we all like, and to the bowling alley.
January beats us all at bowling.
She’s good with her hands.
And those skills intrigue Ethan, it turns out. He asks her to help him build a doghouse for Steve Trout, so one day in November, they go to the hardware store run by his friend’s dads and pick up the wood and other supplies, then she spends the day teaching him how to build.
Honestly, it’s the best thing I’ve ever seen. In my entire life. Especially since Steve seems to dig the doghouse.
For about a minute.
Which makes us all laugh.
The next day, Wednesday asks me to teach The Hacker a trick.
“Cats aren’t very good at tricks,” I say.
“I know that. But how about a high five? I have a potential client who makes cat toys, and I want to send a video to impress her to win the deal.”
“By all means, then, let’s do it.”
A few days and several thousand pieces of tuna later, and The Hacker can work a high paw like no one’s business.
By the time the holidays roll around, the woman I love begins work on a new expansion project.
Not that.
She hires some additional contractors and begins expanding the attic in my home.
In the end, we decided we liked this house.
The pool helps a lot.
But teenage girls need more space, so January devised the brilliant idea to make this home bigger, and then rent hers next door. As for that accent wall she wanted, she painted one wall in the living room pink.
My bachelor-pad vibe has been crushed, julienned, and chopped to pieces, and I couldn’t be happier.
