Page 84 of Because of Them

I freeze, pushing open the door to the bare, eggshell white room. It’s notsmall,but it is technically the smallest of them all, designed as a toy room or spare room.

“And this is my bedroom,” I mumble. I shuffle my feet, opting to change the subject before my chest explodes withanticipation. “So, that’s your house, it’s ready. Whenever you are.”

“Michael, why do you need your own bedroom?”

So much for changing the subject.

My chin drops to my chest.

“Because it’s your house. Not mine. We said I would stay while the boys were little. So I could help. And at the old house there’s nowhere else for me to stay, so I share with you. But here, there’s space. So … my room. Because as much as I love you and want us to be together, I don’t want us to keep being forced into taking steps we don’t need to unless we both want to take them.” I gesture into the room without looking up at her, too scared to see what’s on her face.

Because I know what we said in the hallway no more than ten minutes ago, and okay we’ve been sharing a room for over a month, and okay she says she loves me and wants to be with me, but there is no reason for our relationship to keep moving at the speed of a formula one car. I don’twantus to slow down, but I can understand if she does.

I stare down at the floor, waiting for her response. I hear her take two steps, and her feet enter my line of sight, right in front of mine.

“Oh, you big dummy,” she says.

She pushes my chin up and brings her mouth over mine.

AUDREY

“So … my room,” Michael mumbles after his little speech about not sharing a bedroom. He gestures around the tiny white room and somehow everything clicks into place.

All the times he corrected me under his breath, every time I said this was his house orourhouse and he would murmur “yours” and I would pretend not to hear it. The flowers in the front yard, despite his claims to hate gardening and have whatever the opposite of a green thumb is. The way he added pot drawers to the kitchen after I said they would be helpful and he questioned their purpose over a standard cupboard. How he let Maisie choose the paint for her walls and took the boys’ blankets to the paint shop to match the colour for their rooms. And the stunning sunroom, the painting room. So cleverly designed, just for me.

He was never building his house. He was building my house. And he told me so, but I never really listened. I never believed it. I always brushed it off.

But here he is, shuffling his feet and worried that I’m going to make him sleep in this tiny spare room.

“Oh, you big dummy,” I say with a sigh. Stepping towards him, I grab his chin with my hand and drag his face away from the floor. His forehead wrinkles as he clears his throat. I watch his Adam’s Apple bob as he swallows down his uncertainty.

Stretching up onto my toes, I press my mouth against his. He freezes, for only a fraction of a second, before wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me closer.

I break the kiss, and he whimpers. “Michael, did you really think I would make you sleep in here?”

“I … I didn’t know,” he admits. “Everything between us has moved so fast, mostly because it was forced to. I didn’t want to assume it would continue that way. I didn’t want you to feel like I was forcing your hand. I realised, about halfway through building this house, that I’ve taken a lot of choice from you. The choice of who would be the father to your kids—if you ever wanted more kids and even though I didn’t mean it. And then the choice of what your house would look like, what suburb it’s in. I had to give you as much choice back. So, I am.”

He reaches up between us to drag a hand over his face as he rolls his neck. “This house is yours, but you don’t have to live here. If it’s not what you want or where you want, you can sell it, and buy or build whatyouchoose. If you do want it, you don’t have to move in right away. You can rent it out until you’re ready. And if and when you do move in, you don’t have to let me stay. I’m willing to, I want to, for as long as you’ll let me. But the choice is yours. I love you Audrey, and it will kill me to sleep in another room and it will kill me even more if you don’t want me here. But I will respect that.”

I wrap my arms around his shoulders, hanging some of my weight there and letting his arms support me. This burly young man with his heart of pure sunshine, and he’s mine. He might get some things wrong, but he gets more things right than he gives himself credit for.

“It would kill me if you weren’t here, Michael. It would kill me if you were here, but in this room. I want that wonderful master bedroom to beours,not mine. I want thishouseto be ours.”

He picks me up, and with my legs wrapped around his waist I plant another kiss on his mouth, then another on his neck. He groans, squeezing at my ass. The pressure builds through me, my heart starting to race. My back hits the wall as Michael pushes me against it, grinding his hips into me.

“Say it again,” he moans, his mouth hot against my ear.

“This house is ours, Michael. It always was and it always will be.”

He drops his head over my shoulder, resting his forehead on the wall. “I was so nervous. You are everything, you are perfect. I know when we met I wasn’t even a fraction of the man you deserve. I’ve spent the past year learning and growing and just hoping to come close to that man, but always fearful you’ll wake up one day and realise I’m not him.”

His voice is a whisper in my ear, but his words echo through me until tears well in my eyes.

“Michael, the only man I want is you. Always. I love how carefree you are. I love your goofy smile and how your jokes bring light into even the darkest of rooms. I love how even when you had no idea what you were doing, you were nurturing and caring and you put everyone else first. You don’t need to become the man I deserve, because you already are him. You just need to trust in yourself.”

He carries me out of the room, giant footsteps racing down the hall. Reaching the open living space, he pauses, turningback and forth as he presumably realises there’s no furniture. Nothing other than the easel in my art room and the stool—that yes lets me cross my legs underneath the seat but is far too small for what I’m thinking. For what Michael’s thinking too, because he grunts as he carries me to the kitchen. The marble of the wide island bench is cool on my ass, but heat is pouring around us from every place my body is pressed against Michael’s.

With my weight safely out of his arms, he lets his hands roam all over my body, palming at my breasts, grabbing at my hips. He touches me like he owns me, and he does. He owns my body, my heart, my soul. All of me. It’s his.

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