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“I thought I was meeting you at the penthouse?” I chuckled, thinking about how mopey he’d gotten that morning when I told him he couldn’t come with me to work. He’d taken the day off to come hang with me, but I wanted to do my first day alone. Well, there was Leon, but he didn’t count.
“You were taking too long,” he said, coming in and smiling at the walls and ceiling like a kid in a candy shop, like he hadn’t seen it before. I’d turned down his offer to rent me one of the floors he had on reserve in the skyscraper that housed Nexcom. This space wasn’t much, but I wanted to start small and watch myself grow.
“It’s three in the afternoon,” I said, “practically a half day.”
“Speaking of days…” he said, drifting off, snatching me up and spinning us around. We ended up on the floor tussling and laughing like fools as I fought to get away from him. “I want to know all about your day,” he said, helping me to my feet and forcing me against him. “I wanna know the size of your smile when you walked in here this morning. Which shrill ringer did you choose for the office phone line? What color pen did you use throughout the day? I wanna know your plans for the upcoming weeks. I wanna know where you’re going to hang theCasual Friday is Everydaysign. I wanna know how full your heart is with joy right now, right this second. Tell me everything, Jas.”
“Do you really want to know all of that?” I whispered, some insecurity behind sharing something as simple as my day still lingering from my time with Daniel.
“Yes,” he said. “Except the joy part. I don’t need you to tell me that. I already see it.” He puckered his lips for a kiss, and I willingly gave in.
“How’d you get here?” I asked.
“It’s nice out. I walked.”
Being close to home was an added perk to this location. “How about we grab a soda and a pretzel and I’ll tell you all about my day on the walk back. We need to head out of the city soon anyway if we want to beat the rush hour traffic.”
Cole had kept the penthouse. Aside from the memories we’d already formed there, the amenities were fantastic, even though I often gave him a hard time about being spoiled. Our hearts belonged to our home outside the city, though. A white farmhouse with a three-car garage, infinity driveway, and a weeping willow tree in the backyard. It sat on ten acres of lush greenery, with maple trees forming an archway leading to the stables.
It was where we spent our weekends, where we planned to spend our holidays, and if ever we managed days we could work from home on the same day, we’d be doing it from there. We’d be calling out sick to lie in bed all day together there. We’d grow old together there.
We walked and talked as we ate, seamlessly maneuvering through and against the stream of pedestrian traffic, blocking out the sounds of irate car horns, avoiding potholes and bike messengers as we soaked in the sun and the smell of the subway system through the grates in the pavement. Mostly, we were excited about our upcoming break from all of it.
“Do you have something you want to say to me?” Cole hinted as we entered our lobby. Everything wasoursnow.
“Nope,” I said, playing ignorant as I stepped onto our elevator. He’d asked me the same question that morning, and I knew my perceived lack of interest was driving him nuts.
I noticed the letter from the county clerk’s office on the foyer table as soon as we exited the elevator. “Is that…?”
“Yes, Jasper,” he said. “It’s done.”
I tore open the envelope, smearing a thumb over the wordfiledstamped below the letterhead.It’s over.
Daniel had tried making the divorce difficult. Tried to use it as leverage to get Nexcom to drop their lawsuit against him. With the recording I’d made, we held all the power, but Cole conceded, because we wanted that chapter of our lives over with, and it was never about Daniel’s money for Cole, and it was never about breaking him for me.
He’d lost his job, the integrity he never had to begin with, and his license to practice law. The scales were balanced.
“Mark just texted. He left the SUV with the valet for us,” Cole said, kissing my neck from behind. “Let’s go home.”
We pulled onto the property after six. and decided we wanted to ride while we still had a few hours of sunlight.
“What’s today’s date?” Cole asked nonchalantly as he drove the golf buggy toward the stables.
“June twenty-second,” I answered, kicking my feet up and enjoying the sounds and scents of nature. Cole huffed but said nothing else.
The property had come with horses, and we’d kept the stablehand. He’d been with the family who sold the house for over a decade and was more than happy to work for us now.
I hopped out before Cole came to a complete stop, rushing over to speak with Ryan, giving him the rest of the day off. We wanted privacy, and I missed the process of tending to the horses.
Cole’s frown righted itself as soon as he saw who waited inside the stables for us. “Lightning?” he gasped, opening her stall door and rubbing her neck down. “How the—” He stopped, looking through the steel stable grille into the adjacent stall. “Warrior?”
“Yup,” I said, a jaw-aching smile splitting my face. “I had them sent over.” We’d discussed making it happen, but I’d upped the timeline for this weekend specifically.
We readied the horses and rode out to the lake at the edge of the property, leaving them to graze while we relaxed under the shade of an oak.
“I know we’re not supposed to dwell on the past—”
“Then don’t,” Cole said. “We can talk about it. We can reminisce. But we don’t dwell there. We don’t live there. Here is where we live.” He held his arms out to encompass the beauty around us. “The here and now.”
