“What’s all this shit for?” Jared asks me when I drop the crate of paint tins to the ground.
“What does it look like?” I head over to the garage, opening the door and switching on the light. He follows me. “Okay, what I probably should have asked is why the hell is there over five hundred dollars’ worth of paint on the driveway?”
Tapping my bottom lip, I take a few steps to his workbench where a giant toolbox sits. “To paint the house. That should be obvious, no? Have you looked at it any time in the past …” I tug open drawers, finding no sign of what I’m looking for. “Oh, I don’t know. Decade?”
His hand closes the next drawer I open then he’s spinning me around and crowding me back into the bench. “You want to paint? You?”
The question combined with his crooked smile makes me scowl. “Well, it needs to be done, doesn’t it? Now, where are the paintbrushes?”
He just stares at me. That smirk still pulling at his mouth until it becomes a full-blown grin.
I blow out a loud breath. “What?”
He shakes his head then, cupping my cheeks, he leans forward to place a kiss on my forehead. “Nothing.”
I watch as he pulls an old box out from under the bench. Paint trays, rollers, and brushes are tugged from it and placed on the concrete floor. He selects some and places them in the tray. “All right.” He straightens. “If we’re doing this, you should probably go grab something, um… else to wear.” He winks and walks past me to the door.
“What?” I glance down at my dark blue sweater dress. It might be very last season, but there’s nothing wrong with it other than that.
“Paint, Frost. You’ll get paint on you. It’s inevitable,” he says over his shoulder before disappearing out the door.
Well, damn. He’s probably right. I march back inside and tug on a pair of jeans and one of his work shirts. It smells like his garage even though it’s supposedly clean, but it’ll do.
I moved in a few weeks ago, right after the New Year holiday had ended, or rather, Jared moved me in. He’d been asking me every day since I burned his couch, and I kept telling him no. It was too soon. But Jared being well, Jared, doesn’t believe in doing things by anyone else’s timeline but his own. He knew he had me when I came over one night after work to find he’d filled Darren’s old room with my bookshelves and was gently placing all the books in piles on the floor for me to put away how I like them. I couldn’t believe he’d done it. But he bluntly stated that Darren wouldn’t give a shit, and that a room is a room, and now this one is home for my books. Then he told me good luck with getting them out, and that he expects my ass in his bed every night from now on.
The lease on my apartment was up that week. So it was a choice between coughing up a hefty down payment for the new apartment I’d found, only to spend every night with Jared anyway, or admit defeat and do what I wanted to do. I had one condition, though. That he let me help pay half the bills, which in turn means he’s not taking on any more side jobs like working at the Hedgington as a valet. And even though his house is a far cry from what I’m used to, I don’t care. I just want the man who lives inside it. The man who lives inside my heart.
My future is unknown, wide open, and terrifying. But having Jared by my side only gives me more strength to take hold of what I want for myself and make it mine. To live my life my way, without fear and without apology.
Tugging my hair up into a ponytail, I head outside where we spend hours getting more paint on each other than the house. But by late afternoon, the front of the house is almost done.
I step back, looking at it. It’s yellow. Canary yellow. The same color I suspect it was painted many years ago when the house was first built. I’ve got some white paint for the windows and doors.
“Huh.” Jared wipes the back of his hand over his forehead. “Doesn’t look half bad.”
I snort. “Are you kidding? It already looks ten times better.” I tilt my head, squinting at the roof. “I think we should fix the roof up, too.” I hum. “I’m thinking gray.”
He tilts his head too. “Well, fuck. I’m going to have to steal a ladder from work.”
“It’s not exactly stealing when it’s your business.”
He huffs out a laugh. “True.”
I’m still staring at the house, smiling at Toulouse who’s sitting on the windowsill and watching us from the living room when something wet hits my cheek. I squeal, stepping back so fast I almost trip.
Jared comes after me wearing a shit-eating grin on his face. “No, stay back. We’re already covered in it.” I glance down at all the yellow paint smudges on his shirt I’m wearing. Big mistake. He grabs me around the waist and swings me before lowering me to the grass then pins my arms to my sides with his legs. I laugh and scream, probably sounding totally deranged. His finger trails a wet line from my forehead right down the center of my face. He stops at my lips, and my eyes grow huge. He wouldn’t.
He smiles evilly, lifting his finger and turning it to show no paint on the pad of it. “I licked it.”
Narrowing my eyes to slits, I lift my hips, and it unbalances him enough for me to gain the upper hand, shoving him off and climbing on top of him. “You’re an asshole.” I drop my head, pressing my nose into his.
He crosses his eyes, making me laugh. “So you keep saying.” He grabs the sides of my face and kisses me. “Yet you love me anyway.”
Smiling, I admit, “Yeah, I kinda do.”
Loving him doesn’t mean I’ll forget everything that’s happened, but I’ll also never forget what it felt like to allow him back in. Loving Jared is akin to stepping outside on an overcast, rainy day, only to be surrounded by warm sunshine.
Impossible.
Surreal.
Yet it’s happened, and it’s more real than anything I’ve ever known.
He squishes my cheeks in his hands. “Kinda?”
“Yeah, kinda,” I mumble out.
He growls, rolling me onto my back and shoving his face into my neck to blow raspberries. I burst out laughing, slapping at his shoulder and grabbing the back of his head. “Stop. Okay, okay.”
“Say it.” The words are muffled into my skin.
Pulling his head up, I look him square in the eyes. “I kinda love you way more than I first implied.”
He groans. “Devil woman.”
He stands and starts walking back to the house. Scowling at his retreating back, I get up and run after him before jumping onto his back. His arms swing around to grab my legs, and I twist his head to the side to look at me. “I love you.” He waits, and I relent some more. “It’s insane and unhealthy how much I love you, you big—”
He lets go of my leg to shove his finger against my lips. “Let’s not ruin it, Frosty pants.”
He winces playfully when I nip his finger. “But I love you, too. So fucking much.”
I place a kiss by the corner of his mouth. His tongue creeps out to lick me, and I laugh again. “Take me inside and feed me, already.”
He marches inside, and we wash our hands. Jared prepares one of his famous sandwiches for us while I sit and admire everything he’s doing with my chin in my palm.
“Enjoying the view, beauty?”
I nod a few times. “I am, but it’d be even better if you took your shirt off.”
He pretends to be offended, his dark brows furrowing. “Your shamelessness knows no bounds.”
“All because of you.” I wink and take a sip from my glass of water.
“Ah, I’ve corrupted you. Good.” He grabs the mustard from the fridge.
I chew on my lip for a moment then decide to just say it. “So my inheritance arrives next week.”
He nods, squirting some mustard on his sandwich and a little on mine. He knows I don’t like too much. I continue, “I think it’s time you find them.”
He puts the mustard down and looks at me. “What?”
“Maggie. I think you should hire a PI or something and find out where she is.”
He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, staring at me. “I’ve tried that. Took me months to save up a few grand and the shmuck spent it all at the casino and didn’t find shit.” He grins menacingly. “Well, he did find out what toilet water tasted like, as well as what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a good ass kicking.”
I shake my head. “Jesus. No, I want to pay for it.” I hold up a hand when he instantly throws a glower my way. “Please, let’s hire someone decent and find her and the baby. They couldn’t have gone too far. Not when she didn’t have the money or support. She could be right here under our noses.”
He leans a hip against the counter, sighing and turning his gaze to the ground. “That’s why I ended up at the women’s shelter, you know.” He looks at me again. “I asked my probation officer to transfer me there. I was picking up trash on abandoned highways for a few months before the idea flew into my head. He agreed. I’d been behaving and doing everything right. Plus, I think he knew my motives behind the change. But …” He shrugs half-heartedly. “I never saw her.”
“So we’ll find her. Together.” My tone is firm.
He doesn’t care, though. “No, I’ll find her. I promised Felix I wouldn’t stop looking. I’ve just been a little distracted of late.” He smirks. “But I will find her. Keep your money, Frost. Your grandmother went to great lengths to make sure it was yours and yours alone.”
He knows about the tenuous relationship of my family. I haven’t seen my dad, nor have I spoken to him since that phone call weeks ago. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find it in me to shut him out for good, but I need some time before I see him again.
“Think of it as a belated birthday present then,” I suggest. He turned twenty-seven when we were apart.
He rubs a hand over the scruff on his jaw, giving me a soft smile. “You know I don’t need anything else but you. I love that you care, that you want to help, but I’m not taking your money, beauty.” He raises a brow at me when I go to argue again. “And that’s final.”
He goes back to making the sandwiches, and I try my best not to grumble too loudly. I can understand, I guess. I know a thing or two about pride. But it’s still frustrating, especially when I know it troubles him. I don’t want anything to trouble him. He’s too good a man for other people’s messes to weigh him down. While I’m not so much a bitch as to want any harm to come to Maggie or her baby, Jared is the main reason I want to do this, to try to find her.
Determination rises within me. I’ll just have to work him around to the idea.
Challenge accepted.
I watch as he places the bread on top of the roast beef then brushes the crumbs off his hands. “Dinner is served, milady.”
“Good, I’m starved.” I go to yank the plate over to me with a sultry smile playing on my lips.
He catches my hand and leans over the counter, his breath fanning across my lips. “Sick of roughing it yet, princess?”
Sometimes I wonder if that vulnerability he tries to hide will ever leave him. I know it’s not because of me, but rather, a product of his past. But with every passing day we’re together, I hope to stamp it out even more.
I lower my lips to his. “Never.”