Page 125 of 10 Rings I Hate About You
Then I held out my hand.
She stared at it so long I started to get self-conscious.
“I don’t know what this is between us.” She threaded her fingers through mine. “But I like it.”
I lifted our joined hands and placed a kiss on the back of hers. “Me, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
DELANEY
The dishes were done—Marc had insisted, which meant I stood in his kitchen handing him plates while he rinsed and stacked them in the dishwasher. Chaos watched us from the doorway, the small, horned supervisor deeply invested in our technique and finding it lacking.
It was the kind of ordinary that shouldn’t have felt significant, but it did.
Marc dried his hands and poured us both a glass of wine. I took mine and glanced down at Chaos. “Seems like he’s a house goat now.”
Marc grunted—a sound that wasn’t quite agreement and wasn’t quite denial—which was basically his version of “you’re probably right.” He led me toward the living room, and I followed, glass in hand, actually seeing the space for the first time instead of just moving through it.
This entire room was beautiful.
The ceilings were high, the trim original, and the floors a warm honey oak that I was fairly certain hadn’t originally beenthis color—too even, too perfect, with none of the scuffing that came from years of use. The light was good in the way that didn’t happen by accident, the kind where someone had thought carefully about where the windows would maximize the most light. The space was open, and each section felt cozy.
But.
I turned slowly to take everything in as a whole. Couch. Coffee table. Dining table. Kitchen island. An expensive lamp or two. Barely any photographs in sight. No stack of paperbacks with broken spines. No mail piled up on the counter. No evidence that a person lived here in the messy, accumulating way that people did.
“You live like a monk,” I teased.
Marc raised his eyes from where he’d settled on the couch. “I live minimally.”
I scrunched up my nose. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up.
I gestured at the crown molding, the built-in shelves flanking the fireplace which were clearly custom, clearly made for this room. “These are beautiful. Who made them?”
“I did most of it. Hired out the parts I couldn’t do.”
Of course he had. Such a typical Marc response. If he wanted something a certain way, he learned to do it himself.
I turned back to the shelves and really took them in this time—the joinery at the corners, the way the proportions fit the room exactly, the fact that he’d thought about the fireplace and built it so the pieces all blended together seamlessly.
“Marc.” I turned back to him. “Youbuiltthose?”
He shrugged, not in a dismissive way—it was just how he was. How he did things quietly, without making them a big deal. “I like working with my hands. It’s different from the clinic. Slower. You can actually see what you’re doing take shape. See the finished product.”
I sat down beside him, tucking my foot up under me.
Chaos, who had entered the space right after us, was already investigating the large dog bed in the corner with suspicious thoroughness.
When Marc laid his arm along the back of the couch, I snuggled in. “It’s a good thing you’ve got me now.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yup,” I took a sip of wine. “You need to hype yourself up more. People should know about the incredible things you can do. And I’m great at that. You built yourself a stunning house, and you’re just sitting in it like a normal person instead of doing backflips or patting yourself on the back.”
“I don’t do backflips.”
