“I can,” I said. “If I have to stand at the door of this house every day until I die, I will. She’s not getting close to you. Not unless you say she can.”
He swallowed, lips quivering. “You mean that?”
I nodded. “With everything I’ve got.”
We sat like that, breathing in each other’s air, the light shifting through the open frame of the window, specks of dust turning gold in the slant. His hands found their way around my neck, tentative at first, then anchoring me to him with a force I didn’t know he had.
“I know it’s not real—she can’t just show up and claim me. But all my brain knows is what it learned as a kid: that I don’tget to keep anything good.” His eyes flicked up to mine, wide and glassy. “I keep waiting for it to end, for you to realize I’m too much trouble, or that I don’t really fit. And then I think about the tattoo, the bracelet, the house, and it feels like a joke, like I’m pretending, and someone’s about to call my bluff.”
The rawness of it hit me square in the sternum. I couldn’t stand to see him doubt what we had, not after all the miles it’d cost us to get here. So I did the only thing that ever worked: I told him the truth, even if it hurt to hear it out loud.
“Sunshine,” I said, voice steady, “you’re the first good thing that stuck in my life since before I went into combat. I spent years figuring I’d just be the guy who fixed things for other people, never built a single thing for myself. Then you showed up and fucked all that up, and I’m never letting you go.”
He searched my face, like he was looking for the part where I’d break, but I didn’t. I never would.
I drew him in, held his head against my shoulder, and for a long time we just sat, the sound of the river filtering through the new window, the smell of pine and fresh wood everywhere. My hands never stopped moving: tracing the shell of his ear, the nape of his neck, the inked skin of his wrist. Proof he was real. Proof he was mine.
When his breathing slowed, I said, “There’s a way to make it so she can’t ever touch you, you know. Legal, in black and white.”
He stiffened, pulled back just enough to search my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I said, forcing the words past the iron lump in my throat, “we can go to the courthouse tomorrow. Apply for the license. Get married three days after that. Doesn’t have to be fancy—just me, you, and the judge. Then Ma can have her damn wedding when the house is finished. But nobody can say you’re not mine. Not after that.”
He stared at me, frozen. Then his mouth worked, but nothing came out.
I smiled, rough and probably a little stupid. “You in or you want to keep waiting for the other shoe?”
He let out a single, shell-shocked laugh, and his whole body went soft. He buried his face in my chest again, voice muffled but clear enough. “Do you really want to marry me?”
I lifted both wrists, the leather band on one, his name inked on the other. “I always have,” I said. “We’re just making it legal.”
He looked up, grinning like he couldn’t help it, and his eyes were bright again. “I think you might be the biggest sap alive,” he whispered.
“Only for you,” I said.
He kissed me, hard and messy, and when we broke apart, the world felt like it’d righted itself by a degree or two. Outside, I could hear Knox and Bo shuffling around, pretending not to listen, pretending the rest of the world wasn’t on fire.
I held Levi tighter, memorizing the feel of him in my arms, and promised myself I’d never let anything pry him loose, not for a second. Tomorrow, we’d start the paperwork. Tonight, we’d just be us, safe in the house we were building from scratch. And if the ghosts came calling, they’d have to get through me first.
We stayed there a long time, Levi wrapped around me like he might drown if he let go. His pulse thudded under my palm, and every few minutes I checked the tattoo, just to make sure the black hadn’t faded or rubbed away. When he finally let up, he didn’t pull far—just enough to wedge his chin onto my shoulder and look around the empty room.
“It’s weird,” he said, voice soft and raspy, “but this is the first place I ever felt safe. Even if it’s not done.”
I squeezed his waist, feeling the jut of bone and the strength hidden under it. “It’s ours,” I said, and meant it.
He blinked a few times, then twisted in my arms so he could scan the bones of the house. Sunlight sliced through the open studs, making lattices on the floor, and the air was full of wood-smoke and the faint musk of sweat from the morning crew. He nodded at the stretch of plywood where the window seat would go.
“You want to try it?” he said, half a smile on his face.
I didn’t say no, even though my knees bitched as I sat down. He curled up beside me, folding his long legs until his feet rested just over the ledge. We faced the creek, the water glinting through bare beams and a tangle of wild rose.
“If you could see it finished,” he said, “what color would the walls be?”
I thought for a second. “Something warm. Gold, maybe. Not that gray shit you see on HGTV.”
He grinned. “And the shelves?”
“Full of your books and whatever you want to show off,” I said. “Maybe a fossil or two. Something weird.”
