AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They put everything they had into it.
I felt feverish with a blush by the time we finally starting carrying bowls of hot food into the giant dining room.
"You survive?" Kingston asked, snagging me before I could make another trip back into the kitchen, dragging me down a hall and into the empty living room since the Mallick men and children didn't need a second invitation to the table.
"Barely," I grumbled, letting him pull me to his chest, wrapping his arms around me, breathing in his woodsy, sawdusty scent. "I can't unhear the things I have heard tonight," I told his neck.
"If it makes you feel any better, I was cornered by Charlie and all the Mallick guys demanding to know my intentions toward you."
"No way," I said, shaking my head, barely able to picture that, to imagine them all caring that much about me to want to make sure that the men in my life had honorable intentions.
My own father had barely ever greeted any of my ex-boyfriends.
It would have never crossed his mind to question them.
"Yep," he agreed, running his hand down my back, one of his hands grabbing my ass for a second before moving back up. "And then Shane informed me that if I hurt you, my kneecaps will pay for it."
"He did not say that," I objected, pulling back far enough to look up at him.
"He said it. And, what's more, he meant it. So, I better be good to you, huh?" he asked, squeezing me tighter.
"Ew," a disgusted voice grumbled as they moved past. From the back, it was impossible to tell which Mallick kid it was. "The adults in this family are gross," he added, making his way into the dining room.
"Someday," I said, turning back to Kingston, "maybe we can disgust our very own children."
The smile he gave me made my heart squeeze in my chest.
I wanted to tell him right then and there.
That I felt it.
That I had felt it for a long time.
Even if the world would tell us it was too soon to say it even if we did feel it.
But Helen called us to dinner.
And honorary members of the family or not, you did not make Helen Mallick call you a second time.
So, I kept it to myself.Kingston - 2 months"He picked the hottest day of the goddamn month to drag us out here," Nixon grumbled, stabbing the shovel into the ground, preparing the hole for a new fence post.
He wasn't exactly wrong.
All of us were miserable.
Spring had been a fake-out of a season, tripping over itself to catapult us directly into summer. The sun smirked down from the sky, burning skin, making a sweat pool down our backs and chests as we dug, mixed concrete, attached fencing.
"Oh, what are you bitching about?" Rush asked, unraveling the next few yards of galvanized fencing across the ground. "You weren't the one he had on the roof in a rainstorm to try to figure out where the leaks were coming from. I was a goddamn lightning rod up there."
Helen won the bet.
As if there was ever any doubt.
We were officially living together, though we did flip-flop between houses. Depending, a lot of time, on the weather. If the rain slapped or the wind whipped, the farmhouse dripped or cold air screamed through the ancient windows.
With the new help at the shop, Savea managed to cut back her hours a bit. I had tried to cut down mine as well, hiring someone to handle the administrative stuff I never had time to finish during my own workday.
We'd catch some food, take the dogs for a walk, then head over to the farmhouse where we had a temporary run set up for them to play around as we did projects inside.
The roof had been a main priority. Then undoing all the damage from it, skimming the walls, repainting.
We'd taken turns working the sanding machine to refinish the floors, then stained them a warm medium tone that set off the ancient, charming nail heads.
She'd once joked that the list of to-do projects at the house was as long as her leg. I'd thought at the time that she had been exaggerating. Until we really started spending some time there, getting wet, cold, squinting anytime we had to go into the bathroom because of the hideous porcelain color, struggling for elbow room in the kitchen if we were trying to cook meals together on the range that I was pretty sure pre-dated me.
I had been tip-toeing around bringing up something I had realized after only maybe a night staying there.
A major addition was called for.
We'd managed to get a queen-sized bed in the bedroom, but it had left almost no walking room. The kitchen needed to expand outward. An actual dining room would be nice instead of the teensy eat-in kitchen. A family room where our family could actually fit would be great. And, well, if we were going to have any children, they would need rooms as well.
