“Good. ’Cause I already got us a toaster.”
Tru wore the key on a chain around his neck for the rest of the week. He showed it off on FaceTime as proof. Like I’d proposed or something. And when I picked him up at the end of the week, he ran to me like we hadn’t just survived another one of the hardest summers of our lives.
But we had.
And this time, we got to stay.
On the long drive back home, it occurred to me that missing someone didn’t mean I was incomplete. It just meant I’d finally found the part of me that fit.
CHAPTER 45
TRU
We were still learning how to love each other right. But for once, I wasn’t scared of what came next.
There were boxes everywhere,packing tape stuck to my sock, and a half-eaten sandwich sitting on a speaker Dare had sworn we didn’t need to bring.
We’d officially moved in.
Well, somewhere in the sweaty, paint-splattered middle of it. We were twenty-one now—somehow adults, allegedly—but it still felt like we were playing house.
The place was small. The furniture had come in boxes with instructions written in a foreign language. The air conditioner hummed louder than our TV. But it was ours. And I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.
The entire soccer team was crammed into our new apartment, loud as ever, arguing about whether or not we’d fit a king-sized bed through the stairwell.
“Y’all better not scratch the paint,” I called from where I was kneeling by the wall, sketching the outline of a mural.
Dare leaned over my shoulder, peeking. “You’re doing the skyline?”
“I’m doingourskyline,” I said. “Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Manhattan… even that janky little rest stop where we hooked up the first time on our drive back from New York.”
He snorted and kissed the top of my head. “You’re such a sap.”
“Your sap.”
He disappeared into the bedroom again, where I heard him opening a box labeledDo Not Open Without Me. Seriously.That was our version of romance, emotional landmines with permanent marker warnings.
Hours passed. Friends cycled in and out. Someone brought beer. Someone else knocked over the thrifted lamp. We’d hit six furniture stores in one afternoon looking for the perfect bed, and all we’d gotten was heat exhaustion and a fight about firm versus soft mattresses.
By evening, the place was quiet. We were curled up on the living room floor, surrounded by empty takeout containers and sleeping bags since the bed wasn’t arriving until tomorrow. Dare had his soccer medals spread out on the coffee table, trying to figure out which ones were worth hanging up.
He surprised me by picking the two state championship medals—the ones he never bragged about. “Coach said I earned ’em,” he said, brushing his thumb over one. “Might as wellown that shit.”
I nodded, proud, and leaned into him, my fingers still paint-streaked from the mural.
He set them aside, plopped down cross-legged on the floor, and grabbed the instruction booklet from our IKEA cabinet, which meant I got to watch my sexy-ass boyfriend assemble furniture shirtless.
Later, while unpacking a final box labeledTru’s Ancient Stuff,I found something that knocked the breath out of me—a folded sheet of lined paper, the edges worn soft. Inside was a sketch of two boys on a soccer field, facing each other with flushed cheeks and messy hair. One had a scratch on his knee. The other bent over to kiss it better.
I’d drawn it shortly after we met as kids, and I’d never thrown it away. It was our beginning, the one he’d almost convinced me I’d dreamed up. While Dare was swearing at the tiny bag of hardware and the Allen wrench, I popped online and ordered a frame for the sketch.
I’d hang it near the front door, and on the mat I’d write,We Made It.
When I came out of the shower, the apartment windows were open. A storm was rolling in, slow and low, thunder muttering somewhere behind the skyline. The smell of rain drifted in with the breeze.
Dare was on the couch in gym shorts, flipping through a sketchbook he’d stolen from my bag. I slid down beside him and wound my arm around his back, running my fingertips over his smooth, warm skin.
“Stop snooping.” I pressed a kiss behind his ear. “That one’s not finished.”
