Page 34 of Built to Last

“You bought a house immediately after opening a new business?” I asked, flabbergasted that someone would take such an enormous risk.

“In my defense,” Marco said, “it’s a fixer upper. I’ll be doing repairs and upgrades for the next couple years to get it into shape, but that meant the price was right.”

“Let me know if you need any help with any of that,” Kyle said, his arm tightening slightly around me, like he was letting me know that just because he was offering to help a friend with his home improvements, that didn’t mean we were any less of a couple.

“That would be great,” Marco said, brightening. “I’m sure I’ll need a ton of help.”

“I can pitch in a bit of elbow grease, too,” I offered, glancing up to Kyle. “If we’re going to be together, I should probably learn a bit about building things.”

“Does this mean I need to learn about brewing coffee and stuff like that?” Kyle asked. His teasing smile caused adorable wrinkles at the corners of his eyes that I found sexy as hell.

“You’re already an expert in drinking coffee,” I teased him right back.

“Coffee is delicious,” he said, eyes only for me, even though five other people stood watching us. “If it wasn’t for my love of coffee, I might never have come in here and run into you again.”

“Um, if I remember correctly,” Diccon spoke up, elbowing Theo as he did, “you came in here to inform us you were about to tank our business with your diggers and jackhammers and things.”

“At no point was your business actually threatened,” Kyle defended himself jokingly.

My brothers and I all groaned and made faces and rolled our eyes.

“Everything turned out okay in the end,” Kyle continued to justify everything. “And from the look of things, business at Common Grounds is booming.”

“It is,” I conceded. “But you’re lucky things didn’t go the other way.”

“I’m seriously lucky,” Kyle said, grinning at me like the lovesick fool he was.

We were both a little insufferable at the moment, but I personally didn’t think anyone could blame us. Somehow, miraculously, we’d managed to overcome years’ worth of misunderstandings and bad blood to get back together again. Stories like that didn’t happen every day.

And yes, things were still new between us. We’d spent every night over the last week together, talking, discussing things honestly with each other, and making up for some serious lost time between the sheets. It’d gotten to the point where my brothers were starting to ask if I even lived at home anymore.

They were joking, but Kyle and I had already started talking about building a house we could share. Soon. Way sooner than any sane couple should be talking about those sorts of things. It didn’t feel like we were a new couple, though. It felt like we were picking up where we should have been all along.

I loved it. I loved Kyle. I couldn’t remember ever being happier.

“You know I’d love to find ways for Common Grounds and Provisions to work together going forward,” Marco said, and by his tone, Kyle and I had missed part of the conversation while making googly eyes at each other. “I can see so many ways that our businesses could overlap and complement each other.”

“The possibilities are endless,” Sam agreed. “I’m definitely game to run joint promotions if you are.”

“You should join in with our big Halloween Party,” Diccon suggested, immediately excited over the idea. “We’ve been doing it for a couple years now, and the community loves it.”

“Halloween party,” Marco said, nodding, the wheels obviously turning in his head already. “I’d definitely be up for something like that.”

“We’ll talk,” Sam said with a sage nod and a wink.

“Hey, you know what else we should do?” Diccon asked, glancing over to the wall that divided the two shops. “We should knock a hole in the wall to make a passage between the café and the shop. That way we’d both benefit.”

“Hold on there,” Kyle said, laughing. “We’ve only just finished building the shop. Don’t go knocking parts of it down already.”

“Yeah, and don’t do anything until I have a chance to thoroughly review the blueprints to let you know what the best way to join the two spaces together would be,” Theo said. He was already staring hard at the wall, like he was thinking of ways to open the whole place up.

“Whatever you do, give the ideas some time to percolate first,” Kyle said.

I laughed. “Ha! Percolate. Coffee. Did you say that on purpose.”

Kyle’s eyes went wide for a moment, then he laughed. “I didn’t even think of that.”

“That just proves that the two of you are perfect together,” Marco said, winking at both of us.