And frankly, that loss was bothering me less and less with every passing moment at the dinner table with so much of my extended family. Hard to miss a grandfather I’d never really had, especially when I already had another sitting right there, looking like a boy-band breakout star.
Yep.
Life was pretty darn good without him.
CHAPTER 35
Ilooked around the giant empty main bedroom, and turned back to Davin. “Are you sure about this? I mean...you know what a pain I am. And I never go to sleep on time. And I?—”
“I know you, love. I know when you go to bed and how you wake up looking just as befuddled and fluffy as the kitten. I know you’re going to have ten kinds of hot sauce in the fridge, and put it on everything from eggs to sandwiches. And you don’t need to explain to me how delicious it is, I’ve heard it. Why do you think I buy you every random kind I see in the store?” He leaned in the extra wide doorway, looking more bemused than anything else.
It was kind of his permanent expression, when he was looking at me.
“A condo is kind of a big thing, though,” I pointed out. “I know it’s not...out of our budget or anything. But it’s not exactly like renting a place, where it’d be super easy to walk away after six months or a year, if I’m insufferable.” The light filtering through the blinds over the balcony door showed it was nearly sundown, all the warmest shades of red and pink and orange that the sun over the Pacific could manage. I wandered over and flipped them open, to find a stunning view of the sunset over the water.
A balcony big enough for a chair and tables, overlooking the ocean.
The price was...well, it was a lot. But business was booming, and the first few rent payments from Arthur and Amelia had actually been shockingly impressive. Enough to cover the mortgage and then some, actually. Yeah, Davin would tell me that was my money, but if we were buying a condo together, was anything really my money or his money?
I was the waster between us. Buying a guitar on a whim and then giving up on playing it when I wasn’t immediately good? Me. A new hobby at least once a month? Me again. Davin’s idea of waste was a gorgeous enormous condo that overlooked the ocean, because it was an expense we didn’t technically need.
We could totally get an apartment miles away from the shop.
Or we could just settle in and spread those roots we’d already been anchoring deep in this one tiny beach neighborhood, in the city that was ours.
“Olive’s daughter-in-law says there’s probably a lot of repair work that needs done,” he said, completely ignoring what I’d been saying. “Apparently she was off...doing whatever it is Marines do most of the time she lived here. Hardly ever spent time in the place. Then came home from deployment overseas and immediately met Olive’s son, got married, and bought a house.”
“Can you imagine owning this place and not living here? Buying a house all the way up in the hills?” I leaned my face almost right up to the glass and pointed. “Look, you can see the corner of our building from here.”
“Apparently it’s how your mother met Olive. When she was...vetting the neighborhood for you to move in.” Davin sounded entertained and honestly, I wasn’t too surprised. Of course my mother had bothered the people who lived in the area before giving me the building and letting me live my life there.
She’d been insisting we come to dinner three times a week since we’d come back from our unfortunate adventure. Not that it was a trial. With Davin and Twist at my side, I found that I didn’t mind dinners with my mother at all. She hardly ever complained about what I was doing with my life anymore. Only my T-shirt collection, which I usually had to explain to my father.
The night before I’d had to explain to him who Green Day was.
Arms wrapped around me from behind, and Davin rested his head on my shoulder. “It’s a lovely view, don’t you think? Wouldn’t mind waking up to it every day, right next to you two sleepy kittens. Even if you are insufferable. Fortunately for both of us, I already know it. And you put up with the ways I’m insufferable too, so it all comes out in the wash.”
I let myself lean all the way back into him and imagined it. Us, sleeping in a brand new bed—because neither of us owned a sleeping apparatus big enough to properly share—against the opposite wall. Waking up to the ocean and each other every day, for the rest of...well, who knew how long? If Davin had taken on my dragon-ness, then it could be a very long time, regardless of what the deal was with his daywalking vampiric characteristics.
Besides, his vampiric brother, Eren, had visited us from Turkey. It turned out he was also a daywalker, and hundreds of years old with no indication of aging. We were pretty sure it had to do with becoming a vampire in the daylight. Or maybe the unfortunate bloodline they’d been reborn into. Both? It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing one tested out.
“Let’s do it,” I said, sighing into the perfect sunset. “Let’s buy a condo together.”
“Only need one more thing to be sure,” he agreed, then turned his head. “Plot Twist? What do you think?”
Twist sauntered into the doorway, in her still-kitten-clumsy way, looking around. “You promise you will cut a hole in the door for me? No locking out?”
“No locking out,” I agreed. “They’ve got, like, cat door kits and stuff. And Davin’s way more mechanically inclined than me. I’m sure he can do it.”
“Easy,” he said.
Twist came over to look out the glass door with us, then sat down, looking a little like a kitten trying to mimic an older cat, with that perfect Egyptian cat statue pose, that didn’t quite fit her still kitten-shaped body entirely right. I wondered how long it would take for her to grow into her body properly...but I wasn’t in any particular hurry.
The longer she stuck around, the better.
“Then I agree,” she said. “I like this place. But it needs many things. Plates for my dinner. A water bowl. A box.”
Naturally, those were the things she would concern herself with. That was okay. We all had our priorities. My first concern had been whether my shirts would all fit in the closet. No problem there: it was a walk-in.
