Page 163 of As They Are
“You had me fooled.” My eyes went back down to the paper as I read the last one. “Letting her see the real me. Isthisthe real you?”
“Partly. The frustration at noise and bossiness in the bedroom is a part of it. I thought they were bad things.”
“Not for me.” I shook my head. “I like it all.”
“I didn’t think it was possible for someone to.” He pressed a kiss to my lips. “Now I see I was wrong.”
I could have stayed there all night in his embrace, but I also knew I had more house to see.
“How many bedrooms?”
“Three.”
“That’s a lot of space.”
“Most of the houses here were built for families. I use one to store my massive collection of sweaters.”
“Seriously?”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “No, I just use the closet.”
Henry led me to the bathroom, which was also original. I couldn’t help but notice every single part of him everywhere, including the aftershave he used and the razor on the vanity. This was his life, and I finally got to see all of it.
“You know, if you’d met me when I first got here, I would have said a lot more needed changing. But after living in Mollie’s house, I like the history. This house has it too. What matters is thatyoulike it.”
“I do,” he said. “But we could make it work if you did have changes.”
“How long do you think I’m staying for?”
“As long as you want,” he replied.
“I would take you up on that, but I do have projects lined up. Huge ones. Three hours away.”
“I know. We can make it work. How long will they take?”
“A few months.”
“And then what?”
“Then I find the next thing to fix.” I shrugged. “Or at least, that was the plan. The show was supposed to allow for bigger and better things, but after this ... I don’t know if I can keep going.”
“You don’t have to. You could come here.”
I thought about it. Mollie was here. Tammy was here.Henrywas here. “You’d really be okay with that?”
“A lot of people would,” he said. “More than you know.”
“I always thought my life would be fixing things. And I still love it but ... maybe it doesn’t have to beallwork.”
“It doesn’t. You could spend it doing other things.”
It was a future different than I thought possible.
But I wanted it.
I brought him back to me, kissing him only for me. No one else. And I liked it this way.
“You know, the one downside to this surprise trip is that I don’t have any extra clothes.”
