Page 80 of Long Road Home

My mind was already running with possibilities.

“Think you have the space? Know it’s a lot to ask.”

“No, man. This is cool. An awesome idea actually. When are you thinking?”

“Next Spring. Summer. Whenever fits your schedule and we can make it work.”

I’d cancel a wedding for this. Excitement flooded my veins.

“We’ll figure it out. Give me a week or two to check schedules, see what we have going on. This would be what, a long weekend thing? A day? We could make it as huge as we wanted. And there are overflow hotels up in Lawrence that could hold everyone who didn’t want to stay.”

“Damn. Sounds good, J. I didn’t expect you to jump on this, but the more I think about it, the more exciting it could become.”

“It’s going to make me a rich man. Of course I’m excited.”

“Asshole.”

“Always. Now tell me how Claudia’s doing.”

We chatted and caught up until I couldn’t ignore my work for any longer and he had to get ready to head to the arena in Belgium with a promise to talk soon.

After our phone call, I spent an hour looking into our schedule, making a list of guys I knew on teams from different sports, seeing first who’d be interested and who I could call personally. Then I pushed away the excitement of Liam’s idea and dug into current work…sort of.

Mostly I spent time thinking when I could get Destiny naked and beneath me again.

Or on top.

I wasn’t picky.

Twenty-Six

Destiny

“Thanks for all your help,Marissa, I really appreciate it.”

“It’s not a problem. Give me a call when you have the timing down, but if there’s anything you need from me on this end, let me know. I’ll get the documents ready and email them later. You can sign everything electronically and once you know your timing of coming back, we’ll figure out when to get the house listed.”

My heart sped like a thoroughbred horse on a race track. We were doing this. Across the kitchen table from me, Toby’s grin shook. “It’ll be a couple weeks, but I’ll let you know once I have our flight back scheduled. Thanks again.”

“My pleasure. Have a great day and if you have questions once you get the email from me, call me and I’ll walk you through them.”

“Will do.” I hit the end call button on my phone.

Toby and I had spent the rest of the day making an endless pro/con list for the move.

Allison had already told me it’d be a few weeks before she could know for sure if I could telecommute, but I’d thoroughly inspected my finances. Once I sold our house in Friendswood, I’d have enough savings in the bank to not have to worry about work for a while. Before then, it might be tight financially, but Tillie’s house had been paid off for twenty years so outside of taxes, moving back would cost us very little. I was still sure Allison could swing something my way, but if she didn’t, I’d be able to get settled, maybe spend more time volunteering at Toby’s school and not have to work as hard. Or I could go freelance. I’d thought about it several times over the years, but the need for stable finances always held me back.

Without a significant house payment and taxes a fraction of the cost, I now had the freedom to give it more serious consideration.

The list Toby and I had might have had fewer pros in the column, but they held the most important ones.

“You sure you’re okay with moving?”

He shrugged, that uncertain look on his face appeared and vanished. He’d been like that all day. Waffling. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to give him the choice, but I couldn’t take it away either. Eventually, he looked at me and his face scrunched up, his chin wobbled as he asked, “Do you think he’d be okay if I called him dad?”

“Honey.” Damn my sweet kid. Was that his uncertainty? That was the last thing he had to worry about. “He told you the first time you met him you call him whatever you want. If you’re there, and you want that from him, I can one hundred percent guarantee Jordan’s okay with that.”

He sniffed. “Okay then. Yeah. I’m good with moving.”

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