I can picture my wildfire pregnant with my baby. I’ve been able to picture that for years. Maybe we have a second chance for that. We’re not too old yet.
I don’t even know if she wants babies.
I don’t even know if she wantsme.
“I have a crew on the way,” Connor says as he walks back inside. “They’ll remove everything that’s ruined and start replacing it with new materials. Does she want it to stay the same as it was, or does she want to take this opportunity to change anything up?”
I blink at him. “Connor, I can’t pay you?—”
“Fuck that,” he says, shaking his head. “You’re my family. Jules is important to all of you, and we love this restaurant. So let’s get it back up and running and worry about the rest another time. Like never.”
Have I mentioned how much I love my family?
“We’ll have to ask her what she wants to do as far as materials go,” I reply. “I expect her to come in here this afternoon.”
“Good. We can get the rest of this emptied out. How’s the upstairs?”
“Worse than this, but we’ll need her permission to go up there. She was living up there, and her personal things are there.”
Connor nods, and Blake’s face transforms into a scowl.
“Wait. She doesn’t know that we’ve been in here all morning, ripping up her floor?”
“No, but it’s not like she’d stop me. This floor has to go.”
“Jesus, she could call the cops and have us arrested for trespassing.”
“She’s not going to do that.” I shake my head at my brother. “Don’t be stupid.”
Beckett’s eyes shift to the doorway and narrow. “Ask her yourself.”
I turn around to smile at my girl, but she’s scowling.
“What the hell is going on in here?”
Chapter Thirteen
JULIET
Brooks: Whenever you wake up, there are coffee pods in the kitchen and cream in the fridge. I’ll be at your restaurant all day today, pulling out the old floor.
Istare at my phone in disbelief.
Brooks is at my restaurant. Without me.
Shaking my head, I sit up and take a deep breath, and just like that, I can smell him. I fell asleep with him surrounding me, his scent anyway, and I love being here among his things.
God, I missed him.
Years ago, when I got the tattoo on my side, I told myself that was the end of it. The closure I needed. I needed to put my relationship with Brooks and the future I’d planned to have with him to rest. Because he wouldn’t respond to any of my messages, and I really had to move on for my own mental health.
But now, here I am. In his house, in hisbed.And I think we might have something resembling hope happening between us for the first time in so many years. The spark of something new that I’m so fucking scared to trust but also want with everything in my body.
His eyes softened. He smiled at me. Heheld me.God, it felt so amazing.
Except now he’s at my restaurant without me.
So I need to set him straight.
