“I guess they are,” she agreed. “I have you to thank for that, huh?”
“Nope. You have me to thank for great food suggestions, epic movie recommendations, and toe-curling orgasms,” I told her, pulling her against me. “Your friendships are all your own.”
She leaned back into me, her voice low.
“The clubhouse is full of kids,” she said, her mind on the same thing mine was. We could barely brush without being desperate to get naked.
“I got a motel room paid up for eleven more weeks,” I reminded her.
Her smile was devilish as we took our bags and made our way to the door.
Then we drove our asses to the motel like every other couple having daytime affairs. And we became the fellow guests she’d hated while living there, with our headboard knocking, dirty-talking, begging, and screaming sex.
Lula - 4 months
“Which room is this again?” Raff asked as we stood in the weather-tight frame of the first home build.
Not my home. Our home.
We’d batted around that idea for a while before ultimately deciding we were happy temporarily with living at the clubhouse while I got my new business venture up and running. Besides, we’d taken a road trip across the South once each month since moving in, which was almost half the month on the road, so it wasn’t like we were even there long enough to get tired of it.
I had everything I needed there: a private room, a huge closet, a clean bathroom, a working kitchen, and a gorgeous new handmade desk. And, of course, Raff.
The house could wait.
Now that I’d spent so much time planning, I really wanted to see the first house go up and go for sale. I wanted to be sure my expectations were realistic for the market. And that I would enjoy the process.
So far, so good.
“This is a flex room,” I told him.
“And a flex room is…”
“Whatever you need it to be. When I was doing research on what people really wished houses had more of, the list was mostly simple: more outlets, more—and bigger—closets, a pantry, and built-in storage. But almost everyone said something like: a guest room, a home office, a craft room, a home gym. No one agreed onwhatkind of room they needed, but everyone needed an extra room for… something. So we worked a flex room into the plans. It has a closet, so it can be a bedroom. It has enough wall space to put in storage for crafts or office supplies. It’s big enough for some home gym equipment. It can be whatever the buyer dreams up.”
“You’re a genius.”
“So you have said. Daily. For four months.”
“It’s been true. Daily. For four months.”
“It’s really looking like a house now,” I said, moving back into the main space. “I can see a family moving in here. Having kids. Hosting Thanksgiving dinner…”
“I can see us doing all those things too,” he agreed, moving in behind me and wrapping his arms around my stomach. “Eventually.”
We agreed on that whole ‘eventually’ part. Yes, we both wanted a house, we wanted the kids, we wanted the big, crazy, family parties. Eventually. Right now, we weren’t in a rush. We were enjoying living together, traveling together, making plans together. Everything else would come at the right time.
“So, did you decide on what to do with the lots?”
“We’re keeping them each at two acres,” I told him. “I mean, we do want to scale a business, but we also love this town. So all the investors agreed that preserving the small town feel was important to us. The town could use more housing and more people. But we don’t want it to become too built-up either.”
Technically, the Murphy brothers were the only investors right now. I had discussed with Cillian the potential to scale up, but he’d understandably asked to consider only working with them for the Shady Valley project.
I was, after all,theirbookkeeper. And he claimed they had more than enough money to fund the project in the town.
He was open to me expanding eventually, but wanted to get to be the first investor.
And since I was still just a little insecure about the whole thing, I was happy to agree to keep working with people I trusted—and who had faith in me.
