CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
DAPHNE
I’m movingin with my boyfriend.
Two months ago, I had a stalker. Somehow, he graduated to boyfriend, and you know, I’m happy about that. It’s nice having someone who cares about me—not about how much money my family has, or who my family is, or what I can offer. Tristan is intome.
And even though the morning was a shock, I’m grinning like an idiot as I roll up the last of my t-shirts into a cardboard box I found in the basement. From our first explosive time together to moving in, all in the course of a day. Dating coaches should take note: Don’t ever accept a man who’s hesitant to spend time with you. Take it from my stalker boyfriend.
Tristan pokes his head around my bedroom door with a smile that matches mine.
“I’ve finished with the dresser.” I nod to the open drawers—no more busted Ikea dresser with a sticking bottom drawer.
Tristan eyes the furniture like there’s a bomb hidden inside. “Great. I packed up your books. I’ll get thosetomorrow when I drive up here with my truck. Did you want the bookshelf?”
My bookshelf is in worse condition than my dresser. “Do you have one I can use?”
Tristan tries to hide a smile as he rubs the back of his neck. “I might have already set up a library for you.”
“You what?”A library? He means bookshelf, right?He set up abookshelffor me.
“I saw your Pinterest,” he starts.
Oh. My. God.
“And they all had a similar look, so I had a library room built.” His hand falls to his side. “It could be a good backdrop for your videos. You’ll have to arrange it how you want, but there are already sixty-two new books in there.”
“Sixty-two? That’s, um, oddly specific.”
Tristan nods. “I bought a book off your Wishlist for every day you’ve been in my life.” He gives me a sheepish grin. “It’ll take a few years, but you’ll have your own library.”
He’s been buying me books? I’ll have my own library?
My throat tenses like someone’s jammed a rock in there. I can’t speak.
Tristan gives me a sheepish grin. “I even installed one of those rolling ladders.”
A library with a rolling ladder? I get to live out my Beauty and the Beast fantasy?
Emotion overwhelms me, and I can’t speak. So, I fling my arms around Tristan and tug him down to my level to press my lips to his.
He laughs from closed lips as his arms encircle my waist, bringing me flush against his hard chest.
Pop!
Crack!
Glass shatters behind me, and I jump in Tristan’s arms.
Spiderweb cracks stretch from a hole in a windowpane.
A round, small, bullet-sized hole.
Tristan grabs my arm and drags me out of the bedroom and into the windowless hallway.
“Where’s your gun?” His breath bursts out like he’s expelling all the air from his lungs, his eyes wide and panicked as he looks me over.
“Still in my room.” It’s locked in a safe with one of those annoying spinning-wheel combination locks that takes forever. That wasn’t my smartest home defense purchase, but I refused to leave the gun store without an order for a safe, too.
