Page 78 of Your Place or Mine

She came in with big ideas and stubborn eyes and that damn smile that showed up just when I’d convinced myself she was nothing but trouble.

She got under my skin.

Fast.

And the thing is, she hadn’t even reallydoneanything. Not really. She wanted to fix the wiring. Paint a hallway. Replace a fridge that sounded like it had been possessed by ghosts from the '70s.

She wasn’t asking to raze the place and build a city-slicker juice bar.

Lydia just wanted to help.

But the moment I felt that pull toward her—that magnetic, impossible thing—I panicked.

And I did what I always do.

Lashed out. Shoved away.

Because it’s easier to push people back than admit you’re scared they mightstay.

Or worse… that they might leave.

I rubbed the back of my neck and let out a groan.

“I’m such an ass,” I muttered.

Drew, if he were here, would’ve said,“Finally. A breakthrough.”

He wasn’t wrong last time, either. I’d been acting like she was a threat instead of what she actually was—a woman trying to build something just like I had when I took over the Stag.

Lydia had that same look in her eye when she talked about restoring the building.

Like it meant something.

Like it mattered.

I saw the same look in my wife’s eyes, which scared me.

And I couldn’t tell if I was drawn to that because I understood it… or because I was jealous of the fire Lydia still had in her.

I slumped onto the couch by my fireplace, elbows on my knees, and stared at the family room. Just like the bar, it hadn’t changed much over the years. The leather couch and two accent chairs had been picked, used, and never moved. That kind of summed up my life. It never moved.

The thing I kept coming back to wasn’t the kiss. Though, yeah—God,thatkiss was carved into my bloodstream now.

It was what came after.

The look in her eyes when I said those words. Not anger. Not even shock.

Just… hurt.

Like I’d confirmed the worst suspicion she had about me.

That I wasn’t someone who knew how to make room for her.

And maybe I didn’t.

But damn it, Iwantedto.

That was the part that scared me the most.

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