Okay. Just like that.
Thank fuck, because I wasn’t above pulling a Bane and kidnapping her ass.
Twenty minutes later, Hattie was pressed against my back on my sled, her arms locked around my waist and her thighs squeezing my hips as we cruised through the quiet streets of Odin.
When I turned onto Ladybug Lane, I felt her stiffen behind me.
I knew what she was seeing.
The white farmhouse-style two-story sitting on three acres at the end of the lane. The wraparound porch. The red front door glowing under the porch light.
THE house.
When we were kids, we must have ridden our bikes past this place a thousand times. And every single time, Hattie would slow down, staring at it with stars in her eyes, and tell me that one day she was gonna live there. That we were gonna live there. With our six babies, ten dogs, and five cats.
I used to tell her that was a zoo, not a family.
She used to tell me to shut my trap and start thinking of names for all of our babies.
I pulled into the driveway and cut the engine.
“Oh my god,” she breathed, pulling off her helmet. “You bought our house?”
I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly feeling like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “When it hit the market a few years ago, I couldn’t let anyone else buy it.”
That was the simple version.
The full version was that old man Nicely had passed, and his kids listed the place on a Tuesday.
By Friday, I’d emptied out my savings and taken a loan from the club to close the deal before anyone else could even schedule a walkthrough, because the thought of anyone else living in Hattie’s house was just wrong.
She slid off the seat behind me, her eyes never leaving the house.
“Can we go in?”
I laughed. “Yeah, Songbird. We can go in.”
I unlocked the red door and pushed it open, flipping on the lights, then stepped back and watched her walk inside.
She barely made it through the front door before she was stopping dead in her tracks. “Weston,” she whispered.
It was everything she’d dreamed of when we were kids. The dark oak floors she used to describe in detail while we lay in the bed of my truck, staring up at the stars. The creamy tan walls. The big sectional sofa facing a massive TV—the exact setup she said she wanted so we could pile up with our kids and watch old movies on rainy days.
Everything she’d ever said she wanted, I’d done. Every conversation, every daydream, every “one day” she’d ever whispered against my skin—I’d built it all. For her.
Years of loving a ghost, and this house was my shrine.
She moved through the living room slowly, her fingers trailing over the back of the couch, her breath coming in little hitches. Then she wandered into the kitchen, and her hand flew to her mouth.
The big farmhouse table sat in the middle of the room. Two chairs at each end, bench seats down both sides. Big enough for a family of eight.
“It’s beautiful,” she sobbed, tears spilling down her cheeks.
Fuck.
There went my heart, cracking right down the middle.
She pushed through the back door onto the porch, and I followed her out into the night.
