“I don’t know how to not check email.”
“Learn.”
He’s at the door when I find my voice. “Tom?”
“Yes?”
“What if I say no? To the partnership?”
He turns and studies me again. “Then you say no. And we figure out what you actually want. Either way, take the time. She must be something special if she’s got you volunteering for a cross-country move.”
Special. That’s one word for the force of nature currently disrupting my calm existence.
“Yeah,” I say. “She really is.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Partner
Poppy
Dean’s on the floor with Muffin, and I’m trying not to melt into a puddle of goo.
“Mommy’s being mean,” he tells the dog, who sprawls across his lap like she owns him—which, let’s be honest, she does. “She won’t let me hire movers. Says she wants to ‘do it ourselves’ like we’re pioneers.”
“I can hear you.” I lean against the doorway, watching this ridiculous scene unfold.
“Good. Maybe you’ll see reason.” He looks up at me from the floor, his hair mussed from Muffin’s pawing, tie loosened, and the first two buttons of his shirt undone. He looks nothing like the terrifying lawyer who just got offered partner at one of Manhattan’s most prestigious firms. “Professional movers, Poppy. They have trucks, equipment, and insurance.”
“We have a truck,” I counter, crossing my arms stubbornly.
“We have a U-Haul reservation,” he corrects.
“Same thing.”
“It’s not remotely the same thing.” He turns back to Muffin, scratching behind her ears. “Tell Mommy she’s being stubborn.”
My heart does something stupid at ‘Mommy.’ He’s been doing it all week—casual references to Muffin being ‘our’ dog, to me being her mom, to us being her parents. Like we’re already a family. Like this thing between us has moved past the ‘whatare we doing’ phase into something involving joint custody of a clinically anxious dog.
Like this is real.
Like this is forever.
I’m trying not to be terrified that this will all blow up in my face, but honestly? I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.
“I want to road trip,” I explain, joining them on the floor and folding my legs beneath me. “The full moving-across-the-country experience. See the landscape change, eat terrible gas station food, play horrible music you’ll hate.”
“I already hate your music.” But there’s no bite to his words.
“Liar. I caught you humming Taylor Swift yesterday.” I poke his shoulder.
“Lies and slander.” But he’s smiling, that soft grin that crinkles his eyes and makes him look younger. “Three thousand miles, Poppy. In a U-Haul.”
“With you.” I say it simply, as if that settles everything.
He’s quiet for a beat, absorbing that. “I don’t do road trips.”
“You don’t do a lot of things.” I crawl into his lap, displacing a disgruntled Muffin who shoots me a look of pure betrayal. “You didn’t do goats, or weddings, or feelings, or Italian food that wasn’t from that place on 48th. Look at you now.”
