“Baby boy, I know you’re worried about me, but I need you to understand that I really don’t have a preference for how the condo’s decorated. It can be colorful and funky or neutral and minimalist. All I care about is that you’re happy there.”
“But—”
“No, mouse. No buts. If there’s anything here that you want to take, we’ll take it. Or if you don’t want to bring your stuff but you don’t like mine either, that’s fine, too. We can get rid of it all and start fresh.”
Hawk’s ex might not have decorated the condo in a style that worked for me, but he had good taste. Everything he bought was such good quality. It seemed so wasteful to get rid of it just because it didn’t fit my aesthetic.
“But what would we do with the stuff we don’t want?” I asked.
“We have ten empty apartments on the ninth floor. We plan on using a couple of those as safe houses for clients. Trust me, we can put anything we don’t want to good use.”
“Okay, so we just take everything, and anything we don’t use in the condo can go downstairs.”
That sounded like a good compromise. My couch was comfortable, but it wasn’t big enough for Hawk, and his kitchen stuff was much nicer than mine. The furniture in Hawk's condo wasn’t the problem. The problem was the décor, and that, I could fix. Not all at once because his condo was twice the size of my house, but I’d make it feel like a home and not a hotel a little at a time.
“Exactly.” He kissed my temple, and I sank back against him. This man was everything I’d ever wanted, and sometimes, I wanted to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. “The only question is, do you want to pack everything up, or do you want me to take care of that for you?”
“Take care of it for me? Like you would come pack all my stuff?”
“Well, not me literally. But I’d be happy to pay someone else to come pack it all up and move it across town.”
“No, Daddy. You’re already paying for me to get out of my lease. I couldn’t ask you to pay for movers.”
“Baby boy, we talked about this. I have the money, and I can’t think of a better use for it than to make your life easier.”
I’d known Hawk wasn’t hurting for money. He was part owner of a very successful security business. But when we’d been talking this morning, and I’d commented on how much it was going to cost me to get out of my lease, he was so casual about paying it that I’d finally just asked him about it. He hadn’t given me an exact dollar amount, but he made it clear that if he lived a frugal lifestyle, he could walk away from Three Bears and never have to work another day.
But knowing that didn’t make me feel better about him paying my way.
“We can hire movers, but I’ll pay for it. I have some money in savings. Mary Ellen pays me well.”
“How about this… I’ll pay for the move, and you buy yourself all new shelving for your craft room?”
“My craft room? You were serious about me having a craft room?”
“Baby boy, you aren’t hearing me. That condo has been a nice place for me to sleep, and I’ve been very grateful that it allowed me to share space with my men. But that’s all it was until the day you walked in. You’ve made that condo a home for me, and as far as I’m concerned, you can do anything to it. Paint all the rooms pink if it makes you happy.”
I looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “I don’t even like pink.”
“Thank goodness,” he said, winking at me, and I laughed.
“I do hear you, Daddy, but I want it to be our home, not my home. I’ll take the third bedroom as a craft room, but only if you promise to work with me on everything else. That’s what would make me happy.”
“Okay, sounds like a deal. But I have one more thing today that I think will make you happy.”
“What’s that?” I had pretty much everything in life that I might want, but he sounded so sure that I couldn’t help but be curious.
“It isn’t here, and I’m not telling you because it is a surprise. Let’s take all this”—he motioned to the boxes and bags I’d packed up earlier—“and then I’ll take you to see.”
“Have I ever told you I love surprises?”
He chuckled. “No, you haven’t, but I kind of figured you did. Now, are you sure this is everything you want to take for now?”
I looked at the bags we’d left sitting by the door.
“Yeah, that should do me until we get the movers over here.” I wasn’t taking much now. Most of my things would be dealt with in the actual move. “I guess I need to make some decisions on what to have taken to the condo and what to put in one of the apartments.”
“We can have everything taken to the apartment, and then you can take your time to figure it all out.”