“For longer than you know,” I answered, which was as close as I could get to saying “I love you” without choking on it.
He didn’t say anything for a while, but I felt his hand on the back of my neck, thumb stroking the short hair there. It settled me, like a counterweight.
Eventually, I rolled up the blueprint and tapped it on the table. “Ready?”
He nodded, and we headed out, locking the shop behind us. The walk to the farmhouse was quiet, the sky fading from gold to blue and the first bats already skimming the edge of the orchard. Neither of us talked, but every few steps Levi would look over, catch my eye, and smile like he’d swallowed a sunbeam.
The main house was alive with noise—Ma in the kitchen, Bodean wrestling Harlow in the front yard, even GrandmaMinnie cackling from the porch as she called out Jeopardy questions at the TV. But Pa was easy to find, parked at the head of the dining room table with a legal pad, a pencil, and his battered old laptop open in front of him. He looked up when I came in, eyes crinkling at the corners, but didn’t say anything until I set the rolled plan on the table.
“What’s this?” he asked, eyebrow raised.
“Our new house,” I said. “Down by the creek. We’re breaking ground next week.”
Pa unrolled the plan, weighed down the edges with his mug and the butt of a pocketknife. He studied it in silence for a good five minutes, tracing the lines, squinting at my notes, even flipping it over once like he expected blueprints to have a back side.
He looked up, gaze flicking from me to Levi, then back again. “So, you’re really keeping him then?”
I didn’t flinch. “I am.”
Pa nodded, slow and thoughtful. “Good boy,” he said, not looking at Levi, but making sure he heard it anyway.
“He’s mine,” I said, because there was no point in pretending otherwise.
Pa smiled, just a little. “Guess I’d better clear the land then.” He rolled the plan back up, handed it to me, and went back to his legal pad.
That was the entire ceremony. Nothing more was needed.
We left the house, neither of us speaking until we were a good twenty yards away. Levi exhaled, loud and shaky. “Did you just out-butch your own dad?” he whispered, giddy with disbelief.
I shrugged. “It’s easy when you’re right.”
He shoved me, just hard enough to show he meant it, then grabbed my hand and laced our fingers together. We walked the rest of the way to the shop like that, Levi humming under his breath and me pretending not to notice how fucking good it felt.
The next day, Pa handed me a manila envelope over breakfast, no words exchanged. Inside was a printout: the deed to the stretch of land by the creek, with my name and Levi’s scrawled at the bottom. I ran my thumb over the signatures, felt the roughness of the paper, and knew it was real.
That night, I showed Levi. He looked at the deed, at me, then at the open field through the kitchen window. He said nothing. Just came over and wrapped his arms around me, holding tight like he might never let go.
I let him.
It was the only blueprint I’d ever need.
We broke ground on a Friday. The air was still sharp, holding on to the last scraps of night, and the grass by the creek was slick with dew. I arrived early, tools slung over my shoulder and stakes rattling in a five-gallon bucket. By the time Levi got there, the sun was just cresting the far ridge, burning off mist in slow swirls.
I’d marked out the foundation the night before, using string and stakes and every trick I’d learned from Pa. You could see the bones of the house already: a rectangle in the wild grass, lines crisscrossing to show where the walls would run, little flags of orange tape at every doorway and window. I’d even tied blue ribbons to the porch perimeter, knowing Levi would spot them first.
He jogged up the path, out of breath, hoodie unzipped and hair even wilder than usual. “You started without me,” he said, but there was no accusation in it—just the edge of a smile.
“Figured you’d want to see the sunrise from the bedroom,” I said, gesturing to the east-facing corner. “Come here.”
He followed me down the gentle slope, feet crunching through wet grass. The creek was loud today, swollen from rain upstream, and the old oak by the bend had dropped half itsleaves overnight. I stopped at the threshold—where the front door would be—and made a show of bowing him in.
He rolled his eyes but went along, stepping carefully over the string like it would trip an alarm if he broke it. Inside the skeleton, the air was different—warmer, somehow, and already humming with a sense of belonging. Levi turned slow, arms out, pirouetting in place as he tried to take it all in.
“It’s bigger than I thought,” he said, surveying the space. “I thought you said ‘modest footprint’?”
“Perspective is everything,” I replied. “Wait until there’s a roof on it. Then you’ll see how much room there is for making a mess.”
He grinned, then drifted toward the line that marked the edge of the living room. He crouched, ran a finger along the string, then looked back at me. “Is this the fireplace?”
