“A very charming shoebox.”
“You’re just saying that.” I walked around the space, trying to envision the furniture, my life, fitting in here. I couldn’t. Time to put the plan into action.
“Where are you going to put your clothes and gaming setup?” Geoff asked as he put the finishing touches on my rough sketch of where I wanted the furniture to go. “I don’t know. There’s no space for guests either.” I put my hands on my hips. “If you stayed over, you’d feel like a giant in a dollhouse.”
He nodded.
“The building’s quiet,” I said, trying to find positives. “And it’s close to work. Walking distance, so my lack of a car won’t hurt for a while.”
“That’s good.” Geoff was examining the window locks, the door frame, cataloging safety features with a protectiveness that should have been annoying but was actually sweet. “Sturdy construction. Good bones.”
The furniture delivery arrived an hour later, and we spent the afternoon assembling and arranging. Geoff did most of the heavy lifting while I directed placement and tried to make the space feel homey.
But with each piece we added, the apartment felt smaller. More confining. Less like a home and more like a place I was staying temporarily until I figured out what I really wanted.
The bed went in last. Even though it was a full-sized frame with a mattress, it looked ridiculously small after a week of sleeping in Geoff’s custom king. We made it up with the sheets I’d bought at Fiona’s, and I stood back to survey our work.
“It looks good,” Geoff said, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “It’s you.”
Except it wasn’t me. Not really. The furniture was generic; the space was impersonal, and nothing about it felt like home. Not like the cabin did, with its oversized furniture and mountain views and the lingering scent of pine.
Not like waking up in Geoff’s arms and having coffee in bed while we argued about optimal skill rotations.
This was just a place to sleep. Maybe a place to keep my mail. But it wasn’t home. The cabin was.
“Thank you,” I said, turning in his arms. “For all of this. The clothes, the help, everything.”
“Of course. Whatever you need.” He kissed my forehead. “So, are you staying here tonight? Getting settled in?”
The question hung in the air. This was the moment I’d dreaded. The responsible adult moment where I said yes, where I started my independent life in my new town, where I proved I could function on my own and wasn’t just running from my problems into the arms of the first person who showed me kindness.
“I should,” I drawled. “Start as I mean to go on and all that.”
His face fell slightly before he schooled it back to neutral. “Right. Yeah, that makes sense.”
“But,” I bit my lip, making a decision that was probably impulsive and definitely not well-thought-out. “Could I maybe stay one more night? At the cabin? I’ll come back here tomorrow, start work prep, and adult properly. But tonight…”
“Tonight you come home with me,” he finished, and the relief in his voice was palpable. “Yes. Absolutely yes.”
We locked up the apartment, my adult life waiting for me in five hundred square feet of studio space, and drove back up the mountain as the sun began to set.
And I didn’t tell him what I was thinking. Didn’t tell him that looking at that apartment had made my decision crystal clear. Didn’t tell him I had no intention of ever living there, that I was already calculating how to break the lease, how to explain to everyone that I’d made a massive mistake.
I didn’t tell him I’d already decided where home was.
And it wasn’t in a studio apartment above an empty storefront.
It was in a cabin on a mountain, in a bed big enough for a Yeti and his girlfriend, in the arms of the person who’d been my home for three years already.
I just needed to figure out how to tell him that without scaring him off.
One more night until the plan fell into place. I’d figure out how to tell himtomorrow.
Tonight, I was going home.
Chapter 10
Geoff
