I motion for him to follow but he keeps staring at the house like it’s the Mona Lisa. “What are you looking at?” I ask.
He shakes his head like my voice popped his reverie. “Nothing. It’s just—it’s funny.”
I stare at him, urging him to go on in my silence.
“I just—” He waves a hand, looking sheepish all of a sudden.“I’ve looked at this house a thousand times through my window. Never thought I’d be walking through it with you.”
My eyelids flutter, like blinking will fix my hearing. “Oh.”
Moving past him as quickly as possible, I walk up the gravel path. I already have a key, so I open the door, gesturing for Declan to enter. “Well, here it is. We can take a look around while we wait.”
Declan bows his head before ducking inside, his work boots causing the wood flooring to creak as he moves through the living room.
He walks the space as if he were at an art museum, looking around with a gleam of grandeur and reverence in his eyes. It’s like he’s living in equal parts awe and disbelief. “Wow.” He exhales. “This design style is one of my favorites. Very 1920s.”
“Yeah. That’s the first thing I said when I saw it too,” I deadpan.
Declan offers me a smirk. He keeps peering around, brushing his finger along cracks in the wall. “I imagine it must be difficult to take it all in.”
“What is?”
“This house? The arched doorways.” He gestures at them. “That tile in the kitchen? A desk with a bookshelf? It’s just like you always wanted. And now it’s just… yours.”
He moves into the bedroom, tracing every square inch with his eyes.
I swallow, but it goes down slowly, the familiar lump of grief forming in my throat.
Yours. I don’t want to let that word sink in. To let it make Lottie’s death feel permanent, let it settle into my bones.
“Yep,” I confirm, following him. “It is kind of freaky.”
He pauses his inspection of the bedroom to look at me. “How so?”
“Just, you know, I don’t know. How accurate it is to what I dreamt of having one day as a kid,” I confess.
I keep my eyes trained on the sliding doors from the bedroom, scanning the garden through them. Declan follows my line of sight.
He looks back at me with wide eyes and the ghost of a smile blooming on his lips. “Like that?”
I smile before I can hide it and nod.
He opens the sliding glass doors, stepping into the garden and gesturing at the bed of lavender. “A garden right outside your bedroom? Are you kidding me right now?” He makes an exaggerated “can you believe it” face and the sight of his boyish excitement feels like someone shivved me between the ribs.
It was as if he’d kept my dreams safely tucked away next to his all this time. Like whether or not I achieved them was just as precious to him as it was to me.
“Man,” he says, gaping, brushing the lavender with his fingertips, the sunlight painting his wavy hair gold. “This is ridiculously beautiful.”
I know he’s talking about the garden, but he keeps his eyes trained on me when he says it. A warm swath of awareness tingles the back of my neck.
What do you see when you look at me?
He waltzes back into the bedroom, his eyes scanning every inch of the floor, walls, and ceiling once more. The scruff on his jaw, the muscles in his back, and the way he surveys the space make it seem as though he could have built this house with his own hands.He’s so grown up, I think as I watch him.
“So,” he starts. “You want to sell this place? Rent it?”
“Yeah, something like that. I didn’t expect to beresponsible for a home until I was close to thirty, so I don’t really know my options, honestly.”
“But you know you don’t want to stay?”
