“I’ve been thinking something similar,” he admits, eyes shy. “I have a meeting scheduled with my accountant this week, actually. You sort of dropped the gallery show on me, and I wasn’t quite ready, but I’ve been planning on talking to you about moving.”
I frown, unsure why his accountant would be involved with me moving.
“Yeah, that was dropped on me last minute as well. And don’t worry about the money. I’m not going to move all my stuff—mostly just clothes and things like that—so it won’t be that expensive. I checked a couple extra bags of stuff on the return flight—it’s still in the rental out front. I don’t have a car in LA, so I’ll have to find one here, eventually.” I shrug, unconcerned. Shiloh can drive me around. If the last seven years are any indication, I have no problem at all being the passenger princess. “So, yeah, don’t stress about the money. And anyway,why would you pay for me to move?”
Shiloh laughs, scattering some diced onion and mushrooms into the pan. He smiles at me.
“I wasn’t planning on paying for you to move. I was looking intomemoving. Bernie’s been taking a look at my books, and we were going to meet to come up with a plan.”
“A plan?”
“Yeah. For selling the business and”—he waves a hand through the air, and I gape at him—“the house. Or whether it would be better for me to split the year but travel back and forth more, leave Oliver and Nils to run things while I’m gone.”
“Shi,” I say on a breath. It should be funny—us both planning the same move in opposite directions—but mostly, it just makes me sad. I didn’t think I could talk to him about moving here until I had a solid plan. Shiloh likes plans. He likes neat boxes and a routine he can follow. Daniel was putting that together for me, and my trip this weekend was the final piece.
“Shit, Shiloh, I’m sorry.” I shake my head, embarrassed, as I usually am, to be such a ridiculously incompetent adult. “I thought…well, I thought it would be better to have everything organized before I came to you with my plan to stay. I wanted to find a house and studio space and?—”
“You have a house,” he reminds me gruffly. Crossing my ankles in front of me, I wiggle my fingers at him until he moves close enough for me to bend down and kiss his messy head.
“Thank you. Best not to assume, though, right, baby?”
I get exactly what I’d been hoping for with the endearment—a bloom of pink across his cheeks, visible even when he tilts hisface away under the guise of flipping the omelet.
“I don’t want you to give up your entire life, Ewan,” he tells me, meeting my gaze once he’s ascertained the omelets are behaving. “We can work something else out. Split time between Siren’s Point and LA or me come with you.”
“Shi, listen to me when I say you would hate it there. And frankly, I can’t believe you’d ever consider selling the boat. Youlovethat boat. You love your job!”
“A job is a job, and a boat is a thing. That’s not even a choice,” he replies, blue eyes steady on mine. “If the choice is you or anything else, I’m choosing you. Not just today, or tomorrow, or next week. Every time. In every room in every corner of this world, I am choosing you. So yes, Ewan, I did consider selling the boat and the house and everything that keeps me here. I can live somewhere I hate as long as you’re living there with me.”
I breathe in slowly, that familiar burn of tears pricking the back of my throat.
“Thank you,” I repeat. “But I love you, and I’d hate myself if I made you give any of that up. I don’t want you to live in California with me, Shiloh. I want you here where you belong. With me,” I add, wanting to be very, very clear on that point.
He’d been worried. I could see it clear as day when I packed my suitcases into the back of the Jeep—the fear in his eyes that history was coming back around for a repeat. Ewan Fate, the artist and the runner, set to drive off into the sunset, just like he did nearly a decade prior. I knew no amount of words and promises would be enough to convince him I was coming back. No, the only way forward is through, and if I want him tobelieve I’ll come home, then I have to prove I know how.
“I wish we’d had this conversation three days ago,” Shiloh mutters, lifting a hand to his eyes and pinching them closed. It’s the exact thing his dad used to do when our rambunctiousness stopped being cute and started being aggravating.
“Well, we’d hardly be us if we didn’t avoid emotional conversations,” I joke, lifting my hands to accept the plated omelet that’s passed my way. “Thank you.”
“You’re going to live here, right?” he asks before adding, “I want you to. That was me officially asking.”
“Then yes. This is me officially accepting.” I pop a bite of omelet in my mouth to seal the deal, moaning and earning a side-eye from Shiloh.
“The spare bedroom isn’t going to be enough,” he says, eyes on my mouth as I eat. I lick my lips, gearing up to add another sex noise with my next bite.
“No, it’s not,” I agree. “There isn’t much available here, if I’m being honest. Daniel is having a hell of a time finding good real estate listings, and the stuff he does find aren’t exactly what we’re looking for. Right now, we’re leaning toward buying a lot and building.”
Shiloh’s eyebrows rise. “Oh? How big?”
“Mm.” I hum around another bite of omelet, left eye squinted closed. I could wait until it’s cooled down to a suitable eating temperature, but I’m starving, and Shiloh’s an excellent cook. “Not huge, but definitely big enough for larger canvases. The biggest I’ve worked on was thirty-six inches across and forty-eight tall. Not likely to happen again, but it would be bestto plan for every possibility. Especially if we’re building. Might as well make it right the first time.”
“That big?” Shiloh asks, surprised. “How did you get it out the door?”
I laugh. Leave it to him to consider the practical requirements of such an undertaking.
“I painted it on the wall it lives on.”
“You’re kidding.”
