Page 62 of Kissing Kayley
My house was paid off. I didn’t really want to sell it, but if I did, the last time I’d checked I’d easily make over four times what I paid for it. And I’d be able to move somewhere else where the insurance wasn’t insane. Maybe someplace that didn’t experience nearly every natural disaster except annual hurricanes and volcanoes.
Maaaaybe someplace like… here.
Then again, I wasn’t much of a winter person. Or, I could downsize to a condo, still be close to my parents, and save a ton of money that would allow us to spend a few weeks here every summer.
Maybe even buy a condo or a small house out here for summer and holiday visits.
Still, the thought of just walking away from my career at my age, when I still had a lot of things I wanted to accomplish, books and papers to write—a new generation of mental health professionals to educate—didn’t sit well or easily with me.
To the point that I knew if I did that without giving it serious consideration and working through all the factors with Vic, it’d slowly poison things on my end.
Then again, my big bro had patiently waited over a decade for Elliot to de-ass his head, so maybe slow and steady was a trait we share.
On the other side of that equation, I wouldn’t feel right asking Vic to retire before he felt ready. I disagreed with my brother’s career choice, especially when it nearly killed him, but after all these years, I now better understood the mindset of the highly trained people who protect other people.
And Vic definitely was a protector.
It was wonderful seeing the soft and gooey side of my big bad special agent, but where we would end up meeting in the middle remained something we hadn’t fully hashed out yet.
From the things he’d said so far, I had the distinct feeling he wasn’t ready to file his retirement papers.
Vic stirred next to me, drawing me closer. “Hey, baby,” he mumbled. “How you feeling?”
I nuzzled his head and finally pried my eyes open. “Damned good.”
He peeled an eye open to stare at me. “How’s the ass?”
I squirmed against the bed. “Good.”
“I want us to take the day off today,” he said.
I snorted. “We’re on vacation.”
“I meant from impact play.” He rolled toward me so he could more easily look at me. “Let’s spend today having fun around the resort. I don’t want to burn you out on impact play, and you need a little time to heal anyway. They’re having some sort of video game tournament down in the arcade today.”
“I’m not much of a gamer,” I said.
“I meant meee.” He smiled. “I want to enter it.”
“Oh. Oh!” I laughed. “All right. We can do that.”
We eventually dragged ourselves out of bed and had breakfast. Before returning to our room, we got the details for the tournament and Vic signed up.
The tournament would last for several hours, at least. When we went to the arcade, it was packed with Bigs, Littles, and everybody else.
There wasn’t even a place to sit, except the floor.
Vic studied the throng and then turned to me. “I don’t have to do this. We can go?—”
“No,” I said. “I want you to have fun. I think it’s completely reasonable for you to take this time for yourself.”
“Yeah?”
“Duh.” I rose onto my toes and brushed a kiss across his lips. “I want to watch you play, but do you mind if I don’t sit here the entire time?”
He pulled me in for another kiss. “How about I text you when I’m about to go up?”
“That’s a plan.” He sent me on my way with another kiss and I returned upstairs, uncertain what I wanted to do. Then I thought for a moment and returned to our room to retrieve my tablet.
