Page 219 of That Rush

I walk slowly around the desk. There are no family photographs waiting to claim the shelves. No hooks for Josie’s backpack. No cabinet filled with space for my clothes. The room assumes no one else has a right to be here.

An envelope rests at the center of the desk with my name written across the front.

“What’s this?”

“Every key to the lock.”

I look at him. “Every key?”

“The contractor gave me four. They’re all in there.”

“You didn’t keep one?”

“No.”

“Aiden, this building is on your property.”

“And if you accept it, the room is yours.”

My fingers settle against the envelope. “And if I take it?”

“You can say no.”

The answer comes without hesitation, although a muscle pulls tight along his jaw.

I glance toward the separate door. “What exactly am I accepting?”

“Space.” He keeps several feet between us, his hands loose at his sides. “You can use the room whenever you want. Read, work, sit on the porch, or lock the door and ignore every Slade on the property.”

“Including you?”

“Especially me if I deserve it.”

A small laugh escapes me. His expression softens at the sound, and the longing in his eyes is a physical pull, a quiet ache deep in my chest.

I run my palm along the empty desk. “What does this have to do with your house?”

“Nothing unless you decide it does someday. Your cabin stays yours. This gives you a place here without taking away the life you chose.”

“And if I never move in?”

“Then you never move in.”

“You’d really be okay with that?”

“I’d rather have a future we design together than lose you because I assumed mine.”

The quiet here is different from the silence at my cabin. It’s a shared space, a silence that holds both of us instead of just me.

He moves closer, stopping on the other side of the desk.

“I thought loving you meant making room everywhere and proving you belonged,” he says. “I made a key, cleared a closet, and answered questions about our future because I believed wanting you gave me permission to decide for you.”

My throat tightens. “You were trying to include me.”

“I was planning around you instead of with you. Then I ended us because you wouldn’t live inside the plan I made.” His voice roughens. “I’m sorry, Paige. You deserved questions, choices, and enough room to give me an honest answer. I should have trusted what you were offering instead of trying to make it look like what I expected.”

He comes around the desk, close enough that I can feel his warmth. He still does not touch me.