Page 182 of Falling for the Grumpiest Protector

You survive?

I smile.

Barely.

His reply follows.

Worth it?

I look around the kitchen I built. At the scarred cutting boards. The stove. The prep counters. The doorway leading into a dining room Julian and I once stood inside when it was nothing but an empty shell and an unreasonable idea.

Yes.

I hesitate. Then type:

I miss you.

His answer comes quickly.

I miss you too.

I hold the phone for another moment. Then I look around the kitchen again. Yesterday I came back to New York because I had to.

Tonight, for the first time, I remember how much I wanted to.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Madison

The first two weeks disappear faster than I expect. Lease revisions become permits. Permits become construction schedules. The wall comes down on a Wednesday morning while Julian and I stand ten feet away wearing hard hats neither of us looks particularly good in.

By the third week, I've stopped checking flights back to Oakridge. Not because I don't want to go. Because every time I find two days I might be able to steal, something lands on the calendar that needs me here. An inspection. A kitchen decision. Interviews. A delivery that arrives wrong. Nothing catastrophic. Just life. So I stay. And New York becomes mine again.

Mom calls on a Sunday night while I'm eating takeout at my kitchen counter. "Tell me that's not dinner."

I look down at the carton. "It has vegetables."

"So does ketchup."

"Ketchup is a fruit."

"I'm hanging up."

I laugh. God, I miss her. "What are you making?"

"Spaghetti."

"Garlic bread?"

"Obviously."

I close my eyes. For one second, I can picture her kitchen so clearly it hurts. The old wooden table. The blue dish towel hanging from the oven handle. Noah's backpack dropped beside the stairs despite being told approximately four thousand times not to leave it there.

"Is that Aunt Maddy?"

His face suddenly fills the screen. Sideways. "You're sideways."

"You're old."