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She’d left his house after breakfast when he would have rather spent the day with her.
But he knew she had work to do and there was always something he could find to kill the time.
It’s not like he wanted to stay home alone and watch TV or stare at the wall. He’d been doing that enough at night, like he was used to.
But hearing everything she’d just confessed to him made him realize how much he cared for her.
He wanted to say he was falling in love with her.
He was positive he was, but he didn’t think she was ready to hear it. Not yet.
“I know you think I’m perfect.”
She laughed. “Sometimes.”
“I’m not,” he said. “No one is. I just have a different outlook on life than many do. Things happen to us to shape that. If my parents hadn’t died, I doubt I’d be where I am in life.”
He’d thought of that enough. Maybe that was why he worked so hard to remember the way they were and could continue to make them proud.
“I don’t believe it,” she said. “Maybe you wouldn’t have the career you do. Or as many zeroes in the bank. But you’d still be the same person deep down. That comes from within and you know it.”
It was humbling to hear her say those words to him. “Thank you. I’d like to think so, but you just don’t know.”
“You do know. If I’d taken a job at a high-powered law firm out of college like some of my friends did, I could still be burned out but for a whole different reason. You know that. But it wouldn’t have changed how I felt about it all. That maybe I wouldn’t have been able to help as many people as I would have liked. My bank account would have a lot more zeroes in it though. See, kind of the opposites here.”
“I’m glad you can look at it that way,” he said. “I think you’re right. We need these things to happen in our lives to help us make other decisions.”
“And now that I came here and bared my soul to you once again, I guess I should go buy my wine and let you get back to work. I know you had a lot to do this week.”
He frowned. “Is that why you left so early?”
“What?” she asked, moving out of his arms.
“Did you leave so early because I was talking about how crazy things were going to get with the holidays coming up?”
It was one of those conversations that was talked about last night at Morgan’s. How busy the liquor stores were for Thanksgiving and Christmastime. Even the bakery and the restaurant. He wasn’t worrying about the brewery and pub. That paperwork hadn’t been finalized, but by the first of the year they’d be full swing into brewing and bottling. He’d be out there talking with his contacts once he owned part of the business.
He was hoping that was finalized in a few weeks too.
“I didn’t want you to put off work because I was there,” she said. “It didn’t seem as if it was things you could do from home and even then, me hanging out there wouldn’t make it easy.”
“I feel bad for that,” he said. “It was just conversation. I’ve got managers that can do this.”
She tilted her head. “You work so much because you don’t want to stay home by yourself, right?”
“Who likes to sit home alone?” he asked, laughing.
“A lot of people,” she said, grinning. “But they aren’t social like you are. I guess I didn’t think much of it.”
“But you’ve got work to do too,” he said. “I know that.”
“I do.”
“Would you want to do it at my place? I’ll leave you alone, but maybe having you in the house while I watched football, I wouldn’t be alone but wouldn’t bug you either.”
“It took a lot for you to say that, didn’t it?” she asked.
It had. He’d never admitted it to anyone before.
