Page 88 of Wayward

“But again, I’m prepared. I also have dog dishes for him, I got bells for the back door, and my yard is fenced all the way around, so he can run laps and not get out.”

“This is very proactive of you.”

“Well, I want you to be able to stay with me whenever you feel like it, so there needs to be that option.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For doing all that thinking about me and Misha.”

He flopped down beside me on the couch. “All I think about is you,” he confessed, leaning in. “Period.”

“That’s very honest of you to admit that.”

“I want you to know how I feel. And just so you’re aware, I don’t care what he destroys in here. Nothing is irreplaceable except you and him.”

I chuckled. “You say that now, but when you get home to goose feathers floating in the air like a bad movie, I think you’ll be singing a different tune.”

He took hold of my chin then, gently. “I won’t. I promise. Just stay here.”

“Now?”

“Now. Later. All the time.” He leaned in and kissed me softly, then eased back to meet my gaze. “You should move in with me. Let Ada have the house.”

“Because?”

“Because my place is nicer and we’ve been together every night since we met.”

“Except when you left.”

“Which I hated,” he admitted. “I don’t wanna do that again.”

“That’s crazy fast,” I murmured. “You don’t really even know me.”

“We’ve talked for hours on the phone every night since I left.”

That was true. I knew him better than people I’d known all my life. “We have,” I agreed.

“I know you, and when I think of you with someone else––”

“Oh, c’mon, I don’t even know any––”

“I don’t care. It’s important for me to tell you I want it to be just me.”

“Well, so you know, there is only you.”

He took a breath. “Okay.”

“Something’s wrong. Tell me,” I prodded him, kissing the underside of his jaw.

His breath caught. “No, I just… Do you ever worry and obsess about something, and then when it’s okay, you need to take a minute and wrap your head around the fact that it is?”

“No, not really, but…it sounds like you’re happy. Are you happy?”

He nodded.

“Are you sure?”