She settled on a window seat in the living room. “I don’t know why I bought this house,” she said, her words rushing out in a gasp. “The room dynamics are odd. The structure needs work. It’s a nice piece of land and…itfeelslike a good place, but I can’t remember what I wanted when I was negotiating this deal.”
“Do you always know?” I asked.
“Yes,” she cried. “The one thing I can do with any consistency is look at a property and know how to sell it, but…” She stood, shaking her head, and propped her hands on her hips. “The last time I was here, I loved this place. It seemed perfect for…I don’t know. For something.”
“Let’s keep walking around,” I said. “It’ll come to you.”
We climbed the stairs and walked through all seven bedrooms. She stayed quiet, occasionally making notes or running her palm down the walls.
“There’s something about this place,” she murmured from the center of a large bedroom that would surely bathe in the warmest morning sunlight. She held out her hands and turned in a slow circle, and it was right then, with her face tipped up and her green eyes wide, that I felt my forever winding around me. “I can’t explain it, but it feels like people were happy here. It feels like ahome. Is it just me? Do you get that vibe?”
“I think you’re right,” I said, and it wasn’t without effort that I kept my voice steady. “It is a home.”
But that sentiment owed nothing to the four walls and roof. This was about permanence.Ourpermanence and it was possible this was where it would start.
Our eyes met across the room, and Shannon sensed it too. She didn’t know it yet, but she felt it.
“I know what to do, technically-speaking,” she said. “Or, I know what the boys would do. Patrick would get rid of all the wallpaper, paint, carpeting. Anything that wasn’t original. Matt would reinforce the foundation, pop out the dropped ceilings, and open up the layout. Sam would hit the sustainability features hard: rainwater catchment, solar, and tons of organic insulation products. Riley…” She looked around, her eyebrows pinching together as she thought. “He’d figure out how to replace the missing tiles in the entryway mosaic.”
“And what would you do?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “I have no idea, and right now, I’m tempted to leave and not worry about this until spring.” She leaned against the wall, her hands open and falling to her sides. “We have enough going on with the wrap up on Turlan, and starting Mount Vernon, and we still have the freaking Castavechias. And a dozen others on deck. My pet project doesn’t need to consume everyone’s time and energy right now. This can wait. I can wait.”
Of course that was her reasoning.
She wandered out of the bedroom and toward the stairs leading to the third floor. Her fingers traced the intricate woodwork on the banister as she ascended. The rooms were narrower up here, but the views stretched off into the horizon for miles. There were small, rocky islands in the distance, and the faint outline of sailing vessels.
“It’s a nice place,” she said. “There’s a lot of potential here. I just don’t know what to do with it.”
We’d share this home for the next seventy years. We’d celebrate holidays and birthdays and everything in between here. We’d grow a family here. This was our escape.
I pointed out the window, drawing her attention to the grassy yard that rolled straight down to the beach. “Plenty of room for commando drills. Running, jumping, climbing. And those trees?” I gestured to the ancient oaks on the far edge of the lot. “They need tree houses, and a zip line. And down there? That old patio? We’ll have barbeques and parties, and Lo will manage to pass out with a bottle of tequila every time.”
It was bait, pure and simple, and I wanted her to take it.
Shannon’s expression morphed from confused to curious to pained within seconds.
“You don’twantto be here,” she said. “You want to live in San Diego. You’re going to get bored, and then you’re going to resent me, and you’re going to leave, and I probably won’t survive it this time. So please, let me have rightnow. Don’t give me a story about us, and zip lines, and barbeques. Don’t play with me. Don’t pretend.”
Fuck. That. Noise.
“I’m not leaving,” I said. “I’m not getting bored, and there’s no way in hell I’d resent you.”
Shannon pushed away from the windows and paced the length of the room. It was small, the ceilings vaulted, and it didn’t give her much space to work out that nervous energy. “But you will!” she cried. “You’re going to hate spending your days behind a computer screen when you’re used to blowing shit up and being a badass.”
“I knew I was ready about a year ago,” I said, watching while she continued pacing. “I didn’t acknowledge it, not really, but I knew I needed a change. I always thought I was career military, but I never saw a life beyond running special operations. That last tour was brutal, just fucking brutal. I’m ready, and even if all I do is cook you dinner, I’ll be happy. I don’t require much.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” she asked, stopping on the other side of the room.
“Because I needed to get it straight first. I needed a plan, and before you tell me that you would’ve helped, I know. I know you’ll do fucking anything for your people, and sometimes it’s crazy, but I love that about you—”
“You think you’re one of my people?” Arms crossed over her chest, she marched up to me, her lips twisted in a smirk and eyebrow cocked.
“I’d like to be,” I said. “You’re one of mine.”
“You might get bored,” she countered.
I reached out, grabbing her ponytail and wrapping it around my palm. Tugging, I lifted her gaze to meet mine. “Shannon, I don’t need much. Most of my possessions fit into a rucksack. If necessary, I can survive off the land for weeks. Maybe longer. All I really care about is being near the ocean and waking up beside you. I’ve had plenty of time to think this over, and I know there’s nothing else.”
