Page 94 of Twice as Tempting

“Eventually. Yes.”

Kelly was still in a state of shock, so she didn’t immediately reply.

“C’mon. Let’s take a look around and see what we think.”

Kelly set her purse and jacket on the bench in the foyer and followed Damian through the house. He rattled off some figures to her as they went from room to room, and she tried to take it all in. The house had twenty-five hundred square feet, with three bedrooms on the second floor and two and a half baths. Kelly found the floor plan on the first level particularly appealing, with the living room, dining area, and kitchen all blending together across the entire length of the house. There were also plenty of windows overlooking the wooded backyard, which Damian said was about five acres in size. Since the trees were now bare, Kelly glimpsed a house in the distance, but there was still plenty of space between them. She liked the home more and more with each room they went through.

When they stepped into the master bedroom with the vaulted ceiling and very generous his and hers walk-in closets, Kelly sighed. “Finally, a space for all my clothes!” The words slipped out without her permission, but Damian just chuckled and dragged her into the attached master bathroom.

“Here’s what I like,” he said, pointing to the large, jetted tub. “Plenty of room for two!”

The nervousness that Kelly had felt earlier was beginning to morph into excitement, but she still held back. She wanted to be clear about Damian’s plans first. After they toured the inside of the house, including the basement and the garage, Damian suggested they walk outside to the pole barn.

Kelly donned her jacket again and held Damian’s hand as he led her around to the backyard and down another brick-paved path to the barn. If he was excited before, his enthusiasm rose a few more notches when he unlocked the double doors and slid them open.

“You wanted space for your clothes, and I want space for all my toys,” Damian said as he walked around the interior of the barn. The pole barn was large enough to house a car and some additional “toys,” such as Ray’s riding lawnmower, a motorcycle, and a snowmobile. Shelves lined the walls, and they were filled with tools and gadgets that Kelly could only guess at the use of. To her, it was just an oversized garage, but to Damian, it was obviously much, much more.

“But you don’t have any toys right now,” Kelly ventured.

“That’s because I don’t have any place to put them. If I had this space, it would be filled in no time!”

After Damian was done peeking around at things that Kelly didn’t understand that had to do with electrical outlets and wiring, they walked back up to the house and stood on the front porch.

“Well, what do you think?” Damian asked expectantly.

Kelly’s head was spinning, and she even felt a little light-headed. “Can we talk about this over lunch? I’m starving.”

“Of course,” he said.

They ended up at their favorite Mexican restaurant, where they dug into the chips and salsa right away. After they placed their orders, Damian leaned across the table and said, “Kell? Are you ok? You haven’t said much this entire time. If you don’t like the house, just say so.”

“No, Damian. It’s not that. I actually like the house—a lot. I’m just…this is so sudden. I’m not sure what to make of it all.”

“I’m planning for our future, Kell. I love you, and I want to be with you, and I’m trying to make things good for us.”

“Things are good for us. You don’t have to do this just for me.”

Damian sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you honestly think that I would be content to live in that tiny apartment forever? To creep in an out of your place like a thief in the night? If you know me at all, you would understand how much I would love to have a place of my own, with room to move and a garage to putter around in. A place where I could invite the whole family over for dinner, where Gracie and Ava could run around and play, and eventually my own kids too.”

At the start of his soliloquy, Kelly had taken a bite of a tortilla chip loaded with salsa, and now it stuck sideways in her throat. She hurriedly grabbed her glass of water and chugged it down while Damian stared at her with an amused expression.

“What? You don’t want kids someday?”

“Well, yes, I do, but…”

The waitress came over and set down their plates, and seeing that Kelly’s water glass was empty, she offered to come back with a refill. After she had left the second time, Kelly started over from a different angle.

“About us living together…your lease is up in the spring, but mine isn’t up until one year from right now. What do you propose we do in the interim?”

“I would move in and get the house ready. In case you didn’t notice, it could use a few updates. The structure is sound, but I don’t really care for the cranberry-colored carpet in the bedrooms, do you?”

Kelly giggled. “I noticed that too, but I didn’t want to complain.”

“Never stopped you before,” Damian teased.

“What else would you change?”

“The wood floor in the kitchen and foyer needs to be refinished, and the whole place could use a fresh coat of paint. Maybe some new window treatments too.”