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* * *
I had to admit, Mav got shit done. Maybe it was his size that intimidated people into getting stuff done. Or maybe it was his money that moved things along. Maybe it was both or neither. Whatever.
I didn’t really care because the tree was long gone, and the house was enclosed. The roof and exterior walls were fixed. I’d left work to check it out.
Standing in the backyard, I could see the hole was gone in the roof and the shingles were on. The replaced section of siding was up, but it hadn’t been painted yet. Replacement windows were installed in my bedroom and kitchen.
I went inside through the back door. The kitchen stove was missing, and the table and chairs were still in the living room. I went up the steps. The hall ceiling still had a hole, and I could see where a truss needed to be replaced in the attic. In my bedroom, the new mattress had been delivered. The interior walls needed insulation and drywall and the hole in the floor between my bedroom and the kitchen below was covered with a piece of plywood.
Still, it was a major difference. Repairs would continue, but I could now live in the house.
I dropped onto the mattress, tags still attached. The house was quiet. No chainsaws. Just the familiar scent and stillness that I’d known my entire life.
When Bixby called me at the office to give me my daily update, I was thrilled. Then… not thrilled. The only time I hadn’t lived in that house was when I was at college. Even then, I came home often on the weekends and every summer.
This place was my home. Where I’d grown up with my parents. Where I’d raised Bridget.
But I spent over a week with Dex. Or at least in Dex’s house. My ordered life shifted. I still had my list, but new things were added. I liked the new things. A lot. Like sex. I even laughed at myself thinking a stupid pillow berm was going to keep us apart.
I glanced around, took in pale yellow paint color. It had taken me two years to take over the master bedroom after my parents died, stripping off their blue striped wallpaper and painting. That transition had been hard.
But moving in with Dex, once I gave in to being with him, hadn’t been. The way he got home from his trip, climbed in bed and greeted me last night, I wanted him to do that every night. God, that had been hot.
That reminded me to collect some things. More nighties, which he strangely loved so much. I smiled, wondering which one I’d wear tonight. I opened the closet door, and something leaped out at me.
I screamed.
37
DEX
* * *
Lindy was late. She was never late. While I didn’t have too much data to trend since she’d only been in my house six days before I left for the exhibition game, I knew she was a stickler for routine. And it was five-thirty, and she wasn’t back.
I wasn’t worried. She said she could take care of herself and I knew it. This was Hunter Valley. The most exciting thing that had happened around here was a tree falling on a house.
And me.
And both happened to Lindy. So if something was going to go sideways, I believed it might happen to her.
More importantly, I missed her. I didn’t wake up to my head between her thighs as I’d hoped. I’d had to rub one out in the shower so my dick went down.
I was at the winter complex between two practice sessions and staring at my phone.
No texts, no calls.
Fuck, I was whipped.
I set the phone back in my bag and turned back to the ice.
It rang.
I spun back, snagged it up and couldn’t help the grin as I saw Sugar appear on the screen.
Totally whipped.
“I was just thinking about you.”
