I lean back to look up at him. “Possibly.”
He gives me a pointed look.
“Yes, I missed you so much,” I admit.
He grins. “Come on. I have something to show you,” he says.
“Oh, uh.” I turn to say something to Roxy and Drew, but they are gone. I roll my eyes. They are probably giving us privacy. I’ll go find them in a minute.
“OK,” I say as he grabs me by the hand and leads me to the back porch. It, too, has little lights hung overhead and big rocking chairs. There’s even one of those daybed swings. I grin. It’s lovely, even more so than I imagined.
He opens double doors, and I follow him inside. He stands behind me and turns on the lights.
My breath leaves my body. Giant bookshelves line one wall with one of those rolling ladders. So many books are on the shelves, and most look like romance novels. I walk straight to it and run my finger over some spines.
“Try it out,” Hutch says from behind me.
I step on the ladder and do my best impression of Belle in Beauty and the Beast as I roll it along the shelves.
He chuckles, and I grin at him.
“You had one of these and never told me?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I built it for you.” I frown. He motions around us. “I redid all of this for you.”
Slowly, I spin in a circle and see the rest of the cabin. There’s a small hall with three doors off it. Probably the bedroom, bathroom, and maybe a closet or something. This half of the building is all open to the beams with a small “L” where the kitchen is. It’s redone and beautiful. There’s a desk space in front of giant windows that look out at the rolling countryside. It’s right between the shelves and a wall where a fireplace made of stone goes all the way to the roofline. A cozy sofa sits across from it, and a few chairs by the front window. It’s perfect, a perfect escape.
I notice the curtains are down, around the front entry that I just decorated. And Hutch is standing there, having walked over while I was looking around. He’s not moving as he looks at the wall of his football memorabilia.
“How…when?” he stammers.
I walk up beside him. “I wanted to give you a grand gesture,” I say as I wrap an arm around his waist. “You should want these things out where you can see them, Hutch. I know you miss football, but it’s still part of you. Don’t hide it.”
He turns with tears in his eyes and cups my face. “I thought I was the one giving you a grand gesture,” he whispers as his thumbs wipe tears from my cheeks. When the hell did I start crying?
“I thought you needed one,” I protest.
He smiles. “I guess we were thinking the same thing, huh?”
I nod. “I was stupid. I don’t know why I thought we needed to wait. We don’t. We need each other. All these things would be so much easier to conquer together. If we can trust each other, then maybe, eventually, everything else will fall into place,” I say in a rush, my words running together as I desperately make my case.
“I agree,” he replies, and I take a breath.
“What do we do now?” I ask.
“I haven’t had a happily ever after before, but I’ve read a few of them. And I’m pretty sure they go something like this,” he says, and he leans down and kisses me.
I lose myself in his kiss. His lips claim mine, his tongue telling me exactly what he wants to do later.
“Get a room!” Drew yells, and I pull back and lean over to see around Hutch.
I start laughing as I find Drew, Roxy, Kasen, Bray, Gray, Piper, Al, Cam, and Fletcher standing by the back door.
“Did you all know?” I ask them. Hutch turns to face them, wrapping a protective arm around my shoulders.
“We might have known you guys are hopeless romantics and planned dueling grand gestures,” Roxy says with a smirk.
“I swear, you guys suck. And here I was going to start getting over my trust issues,” I joke.
