I shift my hand so I can reverse us out of the parking spot and drive to our new home.
“Maybe if someone generously sucked your cock before we left, you might mellow out a little.”
Kai’s deadpan delivery makes me snort. “Yeah, that would definitely seal the deal.”
“Done. We will unpack the furniture and unload you, all before dinner.”
It takes exactly eleven minutes to drive home. It’s at the end of a short, single-lane rural road. The only other property on the road faces ours, and its gutters are clogged with weeds. What was once a white picket fence is now a flaking mess with missing spindles. At one end, it has fallen over and hangs precariously close to the ground.
According to our real estate agent, the owner died, and there’s been a challenge to the will. Who knows if it will ever get resolved.
But on the other side is our home.
In need of some work, although not as much as our neighbor’s place does. And we have the skills, time, and money to fix it right up.
We picked up the keys six days ago on our way to Arizona, and as I reverse up the driveway, placing the rear doors of the van closer to our porch, I wonder how long it’s gonna take to set up a place to sleep because as much as we can head back to our rental property tonight, I’m ready to call a place home.
“You got a plan for where all these things are gonna go?” I ask as Kai pulls the keys to the house out of his pocket.
“I thought it might make sense to just make a few rooms really comfortable with what we picked up and the stuff we have at the rental while we furnish the rest.”
“Makes sense,” I say, pausing on the steps up to the porch. A faint flicker of excitement sparks, as if it wants to explode, but like always, I struggle to keep hold of it.
Kai looks around and puts his hand around the back of my neck. “You okay?”
I pull him to me and kiss him, acknowledging that the very reason we picked this spot is because we have total privacy, for now. “This feels big, Wild. Important.”
His mouth smiles against mine. “That’s because it is. Welcome home, Bear.”
I steal the keys from his hand, then drop my shoulder, taking the man I love by surprise when I put him over it. It’s not the easiest, because while I’m six foot two, Kai has me beat by two inches. But, while he has the lean build of a runner and the shoulders of a swimmer, I’m a solid, unwavering block of bones and muscle.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Kai asks, trying to fight his way out of my hold.
I slap his ass. “Stay still. I’m gonna carry you over the doorstep.”
“For fuck’s—” He sighs. “That’s actually romantic.”
And I grin as I let us into our new home.
2
ISLA
“It’s finally mine,” I say to myself as I run from the vet’s office, where I work as a receptionist, to my car with a grin so huge that the guy parked next to me is looking at me weird.
Optimistically, I just put on a thin leather jacket when I got dressed this morning to go to work, and the weather has cooled drastically since then. But none of that stops me from dancing in the parking lot after getting a call from the executor with the good news.
Seventeen weeks ago, my nanna died. The only one I had. The only relative I loved, because the rest of my family set a low bar on what it means to be human.
Sixteen weeks ago, I found out that Nanna not only took the time to write a will, but she left pretty much everything she owned to me. And while her house is old and needs repairs I can’t afford, it’s mine.
At least, it was.
Until Uncle Kevin contested the decision. In the weeks since, I’ve learned terms I didn’t know existed.Formal testacy petition. County probate court.
I remember crying when the executor told me that I could move in if I wanted, but it wouldn’t mean the title was mine yet. And that we had to wait until the contested issue was resolved. And that the ongoing costs for the property were mine, until a judge or someone told me the property was or wasn’t mine.
I debated moving in, just to make a point. I spent a lot of my childhood living in the house with Nanna, and even as an adult spent plenty of time there. But I’ve never had my own home. It was tough enough to know I was so close to owning one—the risk of moving, falling in love with it, making it mine, and then being told to leave was more than I could handle.
