LISA
"I want that gray stain. The light one that we used in my bathrooms. What's it called?"
"Lancaster."
"That's it." I nodded. "Flat panel style. Soft close."
"Can do." My cabinet guy Drew scribbled on his notepad. "Do you want us to build them for you? Or just deliver the boxes when they show up?"
"I'll build them." Doing it myself would save me some money even if it would take my time. I was already into this place more than it would resell for and I wanted to keep my costs down.
"Great." He clicked his pen closed and stuck it in his shirt pocket, stretching his other hand for a shake. "I'll give you a call when they show. Probably about four weeks."
Four weeks. I stifled a groan. "Thanks, Drew."
I'd thought about using an online supplier to get them faster, but with shipping costs and the discount Drew gave us at his shop, I'd take the delay, let him deal with the hassle and have his one-year guarantee in my pocket.
He waved and let himself out the front door, and I waited until he was gone to curse. "Fuck."
Why exactly had I destroyed my kitchen before I had the new cabinets ordered? This was a mistake not even the most novice DIYer would make. How the hell were we going to survive for over a month without a kitchen?
Eating out was going to get old fast. Grilling too. This was a clusterfuck all because I'd been so messed up about Jennie that I'd lost the ability to think logically.
Louis had come home after the Fourth and muttered a whoa when he'd stepped into the kitchen.
Whoa. Fucking whoa.
But this was my mess. I'd clean it up and was determined to get life back to normal. Normal, with a new kitchen. And a new floor.
The bright side of the cabinet delay was that I had four weeks to get the hardwoods installed. It was going to be my nighttime project when I couldn't stop thinking about Jennie. Hopefully, Louis could sleep through the noise of my nail gun.
I walked to the fridge that I'd pushed into the living room and took out a Mountain Dew—we'd call this lunch. After three shitty, sleepless nights, I'd been surviving on caffeine and sugar to keep me moving.
Hanbin was at the job site, finishing up with the inspector, so I'd come home to meet with Drew. I was going to chug this pop and sit down at my computer— where, I wasn't sure because my normal workspace at the dining room table was crowded with kitchen shit—to work on a bid.
We had two projects lined up after the Bridger mountain house. Neither Hanbin nor I liked looking into the future without three or four jobs stacked. If we won the bid we'd put in last month on a custom home in town, plus the one I was working up today, that would take us through the winter.
I crushed the empty can and took it to the recycling bin in the garage just as the doorbell rang. Drew must have forgotten a measurement.
My boots thudded across the subfloor—I'd torn out the carpet yesterday— and I set my can aside before swinging the door open.
It wasn't Drew.
"Hey." Jennie looked small on my porch. Nervous. Beautiful. Her hair was swept into a bun and she was wearing a dress. A simple, green sundress that made the her eyes sparkle.
I blinked, making sure she was real. Had the delirium of no sleep conjured her from my dreams? "Thought you left."
"I came back."
I swallowed hard. "Why?"
"I'm a rock star."
"Uh, yeah. I know." Was that supposed to mean something to me? "So?"
"So, I'm a rock star. The Golden Sticks, though I've never been crazy about that nickname. Whatever. I'm rambling. The point is, I'm a rock star. Dream accomplished."
"Right. Wasn't that why you left? So you could go and be a rock star?"
"No. I am a rock star. I've been working so hard to become one, to get to the next level, that I missed the fact that I am one already. We're at the top."
"You didn't realize you were a rockstar."I shook my head, not understanding a damn thing she was saying. Mom always said, Mountain Dew will rot your brain. "Huh?"
"I thought this was it. The endless tours. The hours we'd spend in the studio, recording and adjusting and recording again. Making album after album without a break in between so we could make it big. That's what my life has been."
The life I'd spent nights contemplating. Trying to find a way to give Louis what he needed and still hold on to Jennie.
Sure, her lifestyle wasn't what I had imagined ever wanting for myself and Louis. She didn't have a quiet, small-town house with routine mealtimes and regular pop-ins from family. But kids could thrive in a city. I'd never been to Seattle, but I was sure it had redeeming qualities. As hectic as it might be, the touring and the concerts would give Louis a unique lifestyle.
It was different. But possible.
And if it meant a life with Jennie . . . "I get it," I said. "That's your life."
"No, that's—"
"Just let me get this out." I held up a hand. I'd planned to have this conversation next week, but for whatever reason, she'd come back and I wasn't wasting a moment. "I've thought a lot about it the last couple of days. What you said under the stars. What I said about the life I wanted for Louis. And I think we were both wrong."
She blinked, her mouth opening, but I kept going before she could interrupt. "You have a special life. You have a gift. I'd never take that away from you, but I'm not losing you again. We belong together, Jennie."
"Lisa—"
"If that means we move to Seattle and follow you around the world, we'll do it. Louis can have tutors. He'll get to see the world, something most kids wouldn't have the chance to do. And I'll be there. With you. I'll be front row during every magic hour, because if it makes you happy, I'll be happy. As long as we're together."
Her chin began to quiver. "And I'd be happy here, with you. Living in this house. Playing drums with Louis or watching him play baseball or reading books. As long as I can sleep in your bed each night, I'll be happy."
It took a flash for my brain to register what she was saying. But this was it.
Us.
"I want—"
I hauled her into my arms and sealed my mouth over hers, swallowing her words. Whatever she wanted; she could tell me later. She could tell me day after day, year after year, and I'd do my best to make it happen.
The sweet sound of her moan rang in my ears. The taste of her lips soothed the fears that I'd lost her again.
By some miracle, she was here, and I wasn't letting go. Not this time.
Jennie clung to me as I hauled her inside, kicking the door shut behind us as we shuffled toward my bedroom. A trail of clothes marked our path and when I laid her on my bed, the touch of her bare skin put the last of my worries at ease.
She'd come back. Not that it mattered.
I'd already planned a trip next weekend to drive to Seattle and chase her down.
"I love you." I kissed the long column of her neck.
"I love you too," she whispered in my ear, her hands running down my spine.
I gripped my shaft, running it through her wet folds, then rocked us together, savoring the hitches in Jennie's breath as I eased inside, inch by inch, until I was rooted deep. "You're mine."
"Yes." She arched her hips. "Move, baby."
I glided out and thrust inside, hard and fast. "I missed you."
Her legs wrapped around my hips and her hands came to my ass, urging me deeper. My lips covered hers and we kissed, long and slow, in a rhythm that matched the motion of my hips, the slide of our bodies together. When the build and the heat became too much, our mouths broke apart. I lost myself in her stormy gaze, the dark swirls of brown dragging me with her as she toppled over the edge.
I collapsed, trapping her beneath me as the roar of blood subsided in my ears and the white stars in my eyes vanished. Then I buried my face in her neck, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair that had escaped its pins, and held her tight. "We'll make this work."
"You'd really follow me around the world?"
I shifted, rolling to my side so I could face her. "You'd really move here and give up the band?"
She nodded and clutched my hand to her chest. "For you."
"I'm never going to make you choose me or the band, Jennie."
Her eyes softened. "And I'm not going to make you give up what you have here. You didn't let me finish explaining outside. I'm a rock star."
"This is not new information, babe."
"Would you be quiet?" She laughed. "I'm saying that I'm a rock star. That status we've been chasing, the fame and the notoriety, we made it. We can stop chasing it now. I don't need to be glued to the studio. I don't need to be on tour all the time. We made it. I'm a rock star, and it's time to make space for the people missing in my life."
"What about Kai and Bambam? Are they going to be okay taking a step back?"
"I haven't talked to Kai, but I can't imagine he's going to be mad. He's already pushing for more family time in our schedule. And Bam was the one who put my ass on a plane this morning to come home."
"I knew I liked that guy."
She took my hand, kissing my knuckles. "We're burning out. It's time to slow down. I can be in Hush Melodies and live here. I can fly off for shows and then come home. Maybe we can do mini-tours in the summers so you and Louis can come with me."
She'd have the band. I'd have roots.
But most importantly, we'd have each other.
"You're sure? I don't want you to look back in ten years and realize you sacrificed your career for us."
"I've spent the past two weeks looking back, Lisa. I know exactly what's been missing. This time around, we do it together. I have no idea what it will look like, but I have faith that we'll figure it out."
I rolled on top of her, searching her eyes for any hesitation or fear. But they were clear and bold and true.
This was our second chance.
"You set me free once, Lisa. You let me fly. Now I'm coming home." If a home is what she wanted, a home is what she'd find.
--
"Jennie?" I called into the house.
"Downstairs!" she hollered back.
I grinned at Louis and followed him through the kitchen. We both kept our shoes on since I'd made no progress on the floor in the past week since Jennie had surprised me on my doorstep. The free time I'd expected each evening was suddenly nonexistent. Jennie, naked in my bed, took priority over home remodeling.
"Go grab your backpack," I told Louis.
"Okay." He smiled and raced to his room. "Jennie! We gotta go."
"I'm coming." She jogged up the stairs. "Five minutes."
"You need to wear shoes, babe." I frowned at her bare feet as she tiptoed into the bedroom.
"I'm fine."
"Yeah, until you step on a nail I missed when I ripped up the carpet." I followed her, leaning against the door as she sat on the edge of the bed to pull on her Chucks. "How was your day?"
"Good. My parents came over this morning to deliver a latte and say hello. Then I spent a few hours writing. How would you feel about a piano in the basement? The keyboard isn't cutting it."
"Whatever you want is fine by me." Though in about an hour, we'd be talking about which house to have said piano delivered.
"Thanks." She hopped up and crossed the room, standing on her toes to give me a kiss. "How was your day?"
"Good. Better now."
It was amazing how good it felt to have someone ask about your day. To kiss you when you got home. And not just someone.
Jennie was the one.
"Ready!" Louis raced to us, strapping on his backpack.
"Did you get your flashlight?" Jennie asked.
"Yep."
"And your pajamas?"
"Yep," he answered her with a nod. "And your toothbrush?"
"Uh . . ." He darted into the bathroom. "Got it."
"Then let's load up," I said. "There's a cheeseburger at Grandpa's with my name on it."
Jennie kissed me again, then walked beside Louis through the house and to the garage.
I hadn't had to sit Louis down and talk to him about Jennie. How she'd meld into our house, and how we'd go about making a two-person family into three. It had just happened seamlessly.
The day Jennie had returned, I'd kept her in bed all afternoon until it was time to pick up Louis from Vacation Bible School. On the drive home, I'd promised him a surprise when we got to the house.
Jennie had been sitting outside, waiting. The moment he'd spotted her, he'd bolted from the truck—before I'd fully parked, we'd had words about that—and crashed into her arms. He'd pulled her inside, talked her into a game of checkers and hadn't even blinked when he'd woken up the next morning to her in the living room wearing one of my T-shirts.
He'd crawled onto the couch beside her, yawning, and asked if he could have a donut for breakfast.
I'd said yes. Jennie had said no.
She was unofficially living here, sleeping in my bed. The clothes she'd brought to Bozeman hung in my closet. Her makeup was on the counter in my bathroom.
No announcement necessary.
Louis hadn't asked questions. He was simply glad that she was here. But today, I'd snuck away from the job site a couple hours early to pick him up from day camp.
We'd had some shopping to do. And some talking.
"Did you use my drums today?" Louis asked Jennie as we climbed into the truck.
"Yes. I wrote the part for that song I played you last night."
"Cool."
"It is cool." Jennie beamed a smile my way. "And guess what else? I'm going to sing "Love, Always" for the album. Kai called me today after talking with Harvey and they both love the idea. I've been waiting for Bambam to call me and rub it in, but I haven't heard from him all week. I'm starting to get worried."
"Call him."
"I'll text Jimin first." Her fingers flew over the screen as we drove.
I was beginning to see how these people fit as an extension of her family, how they loved and protected her like she did with them.
Which was why I'd made my own phone call to Kai today.
Jennie clutched the phone in her lap as she waited for Jimin's reply, the ding coming seconds later. She read it and gasped. "What?"
She closed her eyes and whispered, "Thank God."
"What?" I asked again, but instead of answering, she held up the phone for me to read Jimin's reply.
Rehab.
Bambam had gone to rehab.
"This is a good thing." She relaxed into the seat. "A really good thing."
"What is?" Louis asked from his seat.
"Grown-up stuff, bud."
"When will I be old enough for grown-up stuff? When I'm twelve?"
"Eighteen," I answered at the same time Jennie said, "Twenty-one." Her protectiveness over my son was undeniably sexy.
"Where are we going?" Jennie asked when I hit Main Street and turned the opposite direction from our parents' neighborhood.
"It's a surprise."
She looked at me, then twisted to glance at Louis, who was wearing an enormous smile. "I thought we were having a family backyard campout."
It was something we'd done often as kids. My parents and her parents would set up some tents in their backyards and we'd all sleep outside. Or in my mother's case, pretend she was going to sleep outside until everyone else was tucked in for the night and then sneak inside to her soft bed.
"Change of plan," I said. "We are camping. Just us."
"Ah." She nodded. "That sounds good. What about your cheeseburger?"
"Coolers are already at camp."
"We picked up hot dogs, chips and s'mores," Louis added. "No vegetables."
She laughed. "Where are we camping?"
"You'll see."
She squirmed in her seat, her eyes tracking our every turn as we drove ten miles out of town and pulled off a gravel road into a bare lot. A two-wheel trail had been flatted in the grass and I followed it to a copse of quaking aspens. In the distance, the mountains towered bold and blue, the color nearly as stunning as Jennie's eyes.
"Here?" she asked as I shut off the truck.
I nodded and climbed out, opening the back door for Louis.
He scrambled out, his backpack forgotten, and raced around the truck to capture Jennie's hand as she stepped out. "Check out our fire pit."
"What is this place?"
"Ours." I breathed in the clean air and let the summer sunshine warm my face. "I got a tip about this property about four weeks ago. The real estate agent is a buddy of mine and he thought we might be interested in building a spec home on it." The tip had come right before Jennie returned to Bozeman for Nan's funeral. "Hanbin and I decided to let it go. We've been too busy with custom work to think about a spec. But I called the agent yesterday and put in an offer. It got accepted an hour later. What do you think?"
If she hated it, I'd transfer it into the company's assets, and Hanbin and I would build a spec house after all. But if Jennie loved it, this would be home. I loved my house in town, but with three of us, hopefully more one day, we needed space.
"It's beautiful." She smiled and pointed to the mountains. "I want a window with that view."
"You can have whatever you want." I took her hand and walked her to the fire pit Louis and I had built after stopping by the grocery store to fill the coolers and bring them to the lot.
"I'm not letting you pay for all this yourself. Not if it's ours."
"Fine by me." We'd figure out the money later. I wasn't going to tell her how to spend her money, and I wasn't going to pretend she didn't make more than I ever could either. But that wasn't a conversation for today. "I'd like to build a home here with some space for our family to grow. We haven't talked about kids but—"
"Three. Plus Louis. Four total. I like even numbers." God, I loved this woman.
"Four total."
She leaned into my arm. "I'm glad we're camping here. It's like the first night in a new home."
"Me too." I dropped a kiss to her hair, then left her with Louis as I started to unload the rest of our supplies.
We set up our tent, spreading out our sleeping bags—Jennie zipped ours together. Then we explored the five acres, earmarking different spots for a potential homesite. When our stomachs growled, I lit a fire and we cooked hot dogs and ate s'mores. And as the night sky faded from blue to black, Louis's sugar high wore off and I tucked him into bed.
"Is he asleep?" Jennie asked as I zipped the tent closed. "Just about."
She yawned and turned her face to the sky. The glow from the fire danced across her skin.
"Come on." I waved her out of her camp chair as I hopped up on the open tailgate of my truck. The blankets were already in place.
She climbed up beside me and we lay down, her tucked into my side, like we'd done time and time again.
"I called Kai today."
"My Kai? Why?"
"Because I'm going to steal a part of you from them. I thought it was appropriate to give him a head's up. Same reason I swung by and paid your dad a visit today too."
"Lisa . . ."
I reached over her body and captured her left hand, finding a certain finger, then sliding on a diamond solitaire ring.
A ring that Nan had left me along with that ugly fucking green chair now in my basement.
"Oh my god. This is Nan's ring." She lifted her hand, staring at the jewel. "She gave it to you? When?"
"Your dad brought it over today. It was on her list, I guess. She knew it was real. Even when we didn't, Nan knew."
Jennie smiled, a tear dripping from her eye and into her hair.
"Marry me." I ran my knuckles over her cheek. "Count stars with me until we're too old to climb in the back of my truck."
"Yes." She nodded, shifting closer for a kiss. "Yes."
"I love you."
"I love you too." She laced her fingers with mine, then turned to the sky with a smile stretched across her beautiful face. "One."
"Two."
She kissed me again. "Three." We didn't make it to four.