Moving day opened with Katherine in his arms and a crop-soaking cloudburst outside his window. The squall drifted past faster than they levered out of bed.
The last time they’d sleep together at his apartment. An end to the shuffling and commuting and the weeknights when she slept alone in her bed at her parents’ house. The balance had tilted, month by month over the last year, until nights together had become more common than nights apart.
But the biggest step—buying a house together—had gone from wishing to doing when they’d signed the papers yesterday. Boxes held all but today’s sheets, towels, and clothes. With a dolly and the elevator, loading the rental trailer went quick.
Lacking furniture, she’d crammed her belongings into the back of the shop’s work truck yesterday. Her dad would close early and meet them at the new place after lunch. And if she’d forgotten anything, hell, her parents’ place would be a ten-minute drive away.
Still, she stacked the boxes he brought to the trailer with a precise eye for dimensions. Shifting and shoving, she bent over his rough-folded cardboard junk-heaps. Her ass sat snug in a worn pair of jean shorts, and her muscled arms emerged from double-layered tank tops. Every bit as enticing as the day they’d met and then some.
He scooped her up in a behind-the-back hug. “Need a measuring tape, beautiful? Will I fit?”
Clenching his forearms, she wiggled her ass. “Gosh, I don’t know. Gotta follow the old rule—measure twice. We’ve only measured once this morning.”
She twisted in his arms and dragged him into a kiss by the back of the neck. Standing in the parking lot, in full view of his soon-to-be-ex-neighbors, she greeted him with unashamed proof of love. A year’s worth of practice and promises, of kisses lasting all night and love-fucking while the sun rose.
Their lips clung as she pulled back. Pouty and fiery-eyed, she purred. “We’ll have that new bed tonight.”
Afternoon delivery for the mattress and frame at the new house. Their house. His apartment had come furnished. They’d decorate the house together, in their own style. A mishmash of maps and wrenches. “Mm-hmm. King size. All ours.”
“Sooo…” Trailing her fingers down his chest, she pecked his mouth. “We’ll have to give it a workout. Christening, right?”
“Good plan.” He swayed against her. Two more loads of boxes from upstairs. Drive to the house, where Rob and Nora would meet them for unpacking, housewarming, and lunch. More unpacking when Katherine’s dad arrived. Dinner. A takeout dinner on the floor would be the next alone time they’d have all day. Hours and hours away. “Let’s speed up time and make it happen.”
The day tromped on in a cardboard flurry. The boxes marked GARAGE in her precise, all-caps print outnumbered the ones labeled BEDROOM two to one—and the KITCHEN travelers three to one.
By midafternoon, the work had slowed to a crawl. He sagged on a box and rested his back on the trailer. Returning it to the rental place would be next up.
Sherwood dropped onto the next box over and passed him a beer from the cooler. “You planning to box?”
A heavy bag and a speed bag stared at them from their new perches hanging in the open garage. The three-bay monster had sold them on the house. Great home workspace for Katherine, plus room for a boxing setup for them both.
“Naw, I figured we’d unpack.”
A jab caught his shoulder. “Smart-ass. Afraid you can’t keep up in the gym now that you’ve settled into domestic bliss?”
“Katherine boxes.” Correcting her form would be a hell of a fun way to spend summer evenings. With the garage door closed. “A little.”
“No shit?”
“Her granddad taught her some. Army man.” He tapped longnecks with Rob, and they both drank. A man who’d served, and one so dear to Katherine, deserved the moment of silence. “He died before I met her. But he helped make her the tough, talented woman she is. I wish I’d met him. Thanked him.”
Katherine passed through the living room, carrying a diaper bag. The big windows let the whole neighborhood see their business. He added curtains to his mental list of shit-to-buy-soon. Tonight, maybe. Definitely before they christened the living room floor.
“So.” Rob stretched out his legs and kicked the concrete driveway. “Homeownership.”
“Yessiree.” Fuck yes, and hallelujah. Nudging Katherine out of her parents’ house had taken months of building trust. She’d needed reassurance not just from him, but from her folks, too. So used to looking after everybody but herself. “Lifetime of adventure, right here in Podunk, Iowa.”
Never had he believed Rob about the whole “knowing” thing—that two minutes of talk was enough to know, down to his marrow, he’d found the woman he wanted beside him for the rest of his life. No sense telling Sherwood he’d been right. Helping move them into their new house, he was already abrim with smug satisfaction.
Flashing his damn saw-it-coming smirk, Rob nodded. “You ready for it?”
“What’s to worry about?” He spread his arms wide, swaggering comfort to mask the nerve signals tripping and resetting over the much smaller, non-cardboard box tucked away for Katherine. “My wife-to-be swears she knows how to mow a lawn, and I know the best specials at every takeout place in town. What else is there to home ownership?”
“Uh-huh.” Rob snorted and swigged his beer. “Don’t come crying to me when you’ve got leaves in your gutters and ice dams on the roof.” He dangled the bottle between pinched fingers. “You tell her about the wife-to-be part yet?”
“Working on it.” Marriage might take a while. He took a deep drink of his own brew. Steadying courage.
He might strike out with the whole wedding band tradition. As if Katherine’s commitment nerves weren’t enough, mechanics scratched up metals or got rings—or fingers—cut off in emergencies. But tonight, after she fell asleep, he’d leave the jewelry box with his message on her tinkering bench. And then the choice would be hers.
“Never thought I’d see the day.” Sherwood launched into reminiscing about their first meeting at Lackland.
Eighteen years old, across-the-hall dormmates for basic training. Scared-excited for the future, full of promise and stupidity. A whole fucking raft of stupidity.
“…and not a day went by you didn’t swear you’d sign up for whatever specialty got you to Hawaii fastest. Surf those ocean currents every morning.” As the front door opened, Rob got to his feet. “Not a lotta waves in Iowa, Surfer Boy.”
Holding the door wide, Katherine shook her head and spoke into the house. “Heck no. Better you than me.”
Baby in her arms, Nora walked outside. The rug rat had stopped crying, so feeding time must’ve gone well.
Best stand up himself, before—
“You see these boys out here slacking off while we womenfolk are busy being domestic goddesses?” Katherine traded a glance and a giggle with Nora.
Christ, let their home be as happy as Rob and Nora’s. Less fruitful and multiplying, but equally full in its own way.
Shoving himself up from the box-seat, he grabbed Rob’s shoulder.
“I don’t need waves.” He stood steady now, after stumbling onto perfection by accident. One lucky rip of a tire. “She’s my Hawaii.”
* * * *
Kit slipped out of bed not long after sunrise.
Brian lay sprawled on his back, his gentle snore intermittent and squeaky-scrape familiar as a windshield wiper clearing drizzle. Their first night as live-in lovers. New bed, new house, same them.
Tiptoe-hopping around the room, she threw on shorts. She grabbed a T-shirt from an open box and dragged it over her head on her way down the hall. Sun flooded the living room. Hanging the curtains they’d picked up last night went on today’s to-do list.
But first?
Workbench.
The far end of the garage had been a labor of love for the previous owner. Cabinets, drawers, a whole run of wide wood counter. Pegboard and cupboards hung clear up to lofted storage space in the peaked ceiling. They day they’d toured the place, Brian had taken one look at the garage and declared this house the one.
Because he loved her.
She skipped across the cool concrete floor in bare feet. His car straddled the centerline of the two open bays for now. The high triple window in the gable end streamed sunlight above her head. Seven o’clock. Mom and Dad would swing by around noon to give her the first pick of Dad’s garage sale crop and take them out to lunch. Plenty of time to putter around in her new workshop.
First on the agenda—set up Grandpa Jake’s train set. Cleaning off his bench at the shop had been a hell of a weepy-eyed weekend, for her and Dad both, but a good one. A necessary one. The engine ran now, with its six pullcars, and the whole thing would have a home here in her pristine—
Not so pristine. A tiny box sat on the otherwise empty worktable.
The box looked innocent enough. Brushed metal took on a riveted suitcase style with a luggage snap latch. But something so small, sized for her palm—might as well have been a blue velvet case with rounded corners.
She clenched her trembling hands into fists. Opening up a project and peering at its guts had fascinated her since she’d first picked up a screwdriver as a preschooler. This project, though, might be beyond her skills.
Brian would be brave. And persistent. If she pushed aside this box, left it sit for weeks, for months, he’d quietly understand. But every day, his eyes would hold a silent message for her.
I dare you, Katherine.
She snatched the box from the table and clutched it to her chest. One step at a time. Open the lid, assess the contents. She flipped on the work light. Maybe the project wasn’t what she thought at all.
The clasp unsnapped and the lid raised, as smooth and silent as a fresh-greased hinge.
A navy blue band sat like a napkin ring around a rolled-up slip of paper. A gag gift?
She plucked the paper free and returned the box to the table. The note unrolled in her hands. Brian’s scrawling handwriting filled the space.
You remember we talked about spicing up the bedroom with a few sex toys? Okay, the ring’s not a toy, but it is silicone, and you can wear it if you want to.
We don’t have to set a date, and we don’t have to go making an announcement. But you tried me on last summer and I’ve fit so far, haven’t I?
Give the ring the same chance. I promise I’ll still fuck your brains out when I’m your husband.
Tears pricked her eyes as she laughed. Trust Brian to turn a marriage proposal into a comedy.
Freeing the ring, she squished the silicone between her fingers. The soft band featured nothing sticking out to get snagged, nothing shiny to scratch, and nothing they’d need a diamond saw to get off a swollen finger.
Bouncy. She flexed the material, popping the circle between her fingers again and again.
The first time she’d fantasized about Brian, a smidge over a year ago, he’d been Prince Charming. She’d been certain she’d never want that. Never want him as anything more than a fuck on the trunk of a sun-warmed car.
But now his car sat in their garage. In their home, where they lived—together.
She slipped the band around her ring finger. For all that it claimed to be silicone, the ring sure seemed to conduct an electrical charge. Shivering, she extended her hand.
The dark blue didn’t look so wrong around her finger.
“Husband and wife.”
The words didn’t sound so wrong, either.
“Beautiful.”
As she spun around, Brian stepped through the door from the house. Barefoot and shirtless, he wore a pair of jeans hitched over his hips, the fly half-open. Slapping the back of his hand to his mouth, he covered his yawn.
Fuck, she loved a sexy, sleepy man. “Afraid you’d miss the moment, were you?”
He ambled toward her and rubbed the back of his head until his hair stuck out. “Bit of a gamble. May I kiss the bride?”
“That a ploy to get me back in bed?” Meeting him halfway, she kissed the smirk from his face.
“Might be.” Lips soft and sweet, he grazed her forehead and cheeks. “The day’s early.” He chased his gentle brushes with harder, deeper kisses at her throat. “Is it working?”
The backs of her legs hit the bumper on the coupe. “You gonna fuck my brains out, Mr. Fix-it?”
Nuzzling her collarbone, nudging her shirt aside, he nodded. “I promise, Mrs. Fix-it.” He raised her hand and kissed the flexible ring. “For the next fifty years.”
“Do it.” Belief came easier now, the strength of his commitment bolstered in the year of his nice-guy manners and bad-boy bedroom games. She’d accidentally gone and found a gentleman. One she couldn’t resist teasing with the phrasing they both knew so well that his mouth shaped the words as she spoke.
“I dare you.”