Page 83 of Brett and Rowdy
Or maybe he’d sell it to Crystal for her kids and do some sort of rent-to-own kind of thing.
He blinked at himself.
Maybe he’d been thinking about this more than he thought he had…
He got up and padded in his socks to Rowdy’s office, needing some input. If he was gonna make this kind of plan, they needed to be making it together.
Rowdy’s head was down, the man adorable in a plaid shirt and old jeans, Rowdy’s office was pristine—the desk holding a laptop, a Braille book, and a squishy hand exerciser shaped like a rainbow cattle brand. This was another room that needed art on the walls, dammit.
He knocked lightly on Rowdy’s doorframe, and that dark head came up, Rowdy searching with those eyes even though he couldn’t see Brett.
“Hey, you got a minute?”
That smile was warm as a thousand suns. “I do. I was just filling out paperwork.”
Rowdy sat back in his chair, laughing when one of the German shepherds jumped up and put his front feet on Rowdy’s lap. “What’s up?”
“I’ve been thinking.” He sat in the office chair across from Rowdy’s desk.
“That explains the smoke I smell.”
“Hush now. Do you think I should stay?” It came out quieter and more hopeful than he really had planned on. He was afraid it was maybe a little desperate, which he didn’t like, but he wanted to know what Rowdy really thought.
Rowdy’s head tilted, and he would swear those eyes were watching him. “Darlin’, I’ve been ready for you to stay ever since we got back here. You’re the one who seemed to have one foot out the door while you were enjoying the hell out of being here.”
Fuck him.
He shook his head, knowing he had to look all hang dog, “If I made you feel like it was because of you, I’m sorry. I just don’t trust things. You know that.”
“I do.” Rowdy just seemed like a duck with water rolling off his back, calm as shit. “So, I’ve been giving you plenty of time to make up your own mind, but if you’re ready? I say we go get your shit.”
This huge grin broke out on his face, pulling hard enough on his cheeks that it hurt. “It really is just like that with you?”
Rowdy nodded, leaning back in his chair, and that was when he could tell how tense his lover had been in that second. He was going to have to get better at catching that. “It really is just like that. I figure we’ve been given a second chance to get to know each other. We’ve done that. We had to figure out if we can live together, so we did that too. My family adores you, my dogs like you, I…” Rowdy trailed off, and Brett held his breath because there were three little words he needed to hear.
Then again, maybe Rowdy needed to hear them from him.
“I love you, you know.” Brett just came right out and said it. “I really do. I mean, I always kind of have, but after we came out here, and I got to be with you… I realized that I still did, and it’s not just the boy who I used to know that I’m in love with. I love the man you are now.”
Rowdy shook his head, and for a second, Brett’s heart just crashed down into the pit of his belly and stayed there. Then his lover grinned. “Shit, darlin’, if I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t spend all this time getting past your squirrely weird worries and your prickly nature. I wouldn’t be spending a fortune on your metal-working supplies every week, and I wouldn’t be sharing my bed with you at night.”
“Are you saying I’m a kept man?”
“Brett, I will kick your gigantic, broad-shouldered ass.”
Rowdy was just smoking hot like this. Brett stared him, his heart hammering in his chest. “You’re going to try, short stuff.”
“You and I both know that I’m toughest son of a bitch you’ve ever met in your life.”
He nodded and stood so he could walk over and loom over his cowboy who was leaning in toward him. “I don’t know, man, I think that might be your daughter. She is a stone-cold bitch.”
Rowdy’s grin was like the sun coming out through the clouds. “I’m so proud of her.”
He leaned down and took the kiss that he wanted, just mashing their lips together. “The rumor is, you always get what you want.”
Rowdy nodded. “You bet your sweet ass I do.”
“And how do you manage that?”
