High in the trees, overlooking the porch and the undeniable view, it was a large room with windows on two sides. The hardwood floor was stained a honey that could easily be lifted or darkened. My mind began to whirl, placing a highboy dresser on one wall, a desk in the nook in the corner. Would the bed be four poster or sleigh . . . Oh no, I was staging the room.
Simon came out of the bathroom with a smirk. “Holy shit, you are going to lose your mind when you see what’s in here.”
I pushed past him.
Claw.
Foot.
Tub.
“Sweet merciful God,” I managed, leaning against the wall as he chuckled.
He caught me up in a close hug, leaning his forehead onto mine.
“Nightie Girl, we should totally buy this fucking house,” he said, laughing when I shrieked.
My legs literally turned to jelly. Everything south of my navel liquefied, and if it were not for the core strength I possessed from hours spent in the yoga studio, I would have melted into the hardwood floor and dripped down onto the Pepto carpet below.
“Simon,” I started, an eyebrow moving north.
“Caroline,” he came right back, his eyebrow mocking mine.
“Simon,” I repeated. “Slow down. And when did you start smoking the marijuana?”
He laughed again, then disappeared into one of the closets. I followed him, tamping down the hysteria that threatened inside.
“Listen to me. Seriously, are you high? You must be, because otherwise— Holy shit.” I stopped, my voice echoing. It echoed, you see, because the closet was as big as our entire block. I immediately envisioned miles and miles of custom cabinets: drawers, open shelving, shoe racks. I let out a whimper.
Simon stood in front of the window (the closet had a window. I can’t even.) and gestured at the view. “I wonder if my closet has a window too.”
I gulped. “There’s another closet?” I spun back into the bedroom. Yep, there it was. Two closets. I more than whimpered this time. I looked at Simon, who was leaving my closet (the closet) and coming toward me. I backed into the wall as each step came closer.
“No. No, Simon.”
“We could totally do this.”
“We could totally not do this! Not kidding.”
“This house is incredible.”
“This house is a money pit. Haven’t you ever seen that movie?”
“Have you ever seen a view like the one from that porch?” he asked, placing his hands on either side of the wall, caging me in. “Quit trying to talk yourself out of this,” he said with the tiniest bit of . . . annoyance?
“You haven’t even seen the basement,” I said.
“So we’ll go to the basement.”
“I’m scared of basements, Simon.”
“Everyone’s scared of basements, Caroline.”
“You too? One time when I was a kid, I—”
But I couldn’t finish my story about the time I gave myself a black eye racing up the basement steps with every Barbie I owned because of the werewolf that was chasing me, because I suddenly had a very insistent and very skilled tongue working past my lips and into my mouth.
I had barely caught my breath before the assault on my senses began again. His hands pressed into the small of my back, pulling me into him. His kiss ended, and he now rested his forehead against my own. There was want and need in his eyes, but in a different way than normal. I brought my hand up to his face and traced a path down his jaw.
“I’m not totally saying no,” I whispered, and sudden joy broke across his face. I pushed him off me and looked again at the bedroom. He snuck his hands around my waist, which I allowed. Frankly, I needed the anchor. This was crazy.
“Since when did you want to live in Sausalito?”
“It’s grown on me. Besides, they’re turning our building into condos—we’d have to move sooner or later.”
“That’s a rumor.”
“That’s a fact. The lady in 2A told me.”
“The lady in 2A just wants to get in your pants. Are we actually talking about this? And can we afford this?”
“I can, and you can help out. I know you’re already thinking about all the things you want to change.”
“We’d start with the carpet; that would come up immediately,” I answered promptly, then slapped a hand over my mouth.
“I knew it.” He laughed, and tugged me over to the window seat. For Christ’s sake, a window seat. I never stood a chance. When he pulled me onto his lap, I let him.
“Okay, look,” I said. “Let’s just talk about this for a minute. A year ago, you had just left behind your harem. Now you want to move out to the suburbs with me?”
“I would hardly call this the suburbs.”
“You know what I mean. This is just . . . Look, you have to admit that things have been different since . . .” I trailed off.
“Since?” he prodded.
“This just isn’t what I was expecting. You’re asking me to— Wait. What are you asking me?” I asked suddenly, my entire body going on point.
“I’m asking if you want to live together, silly girl. To buy this totally impractical, beautiful house that’s way too big for two people, and live in it with me. Together.”
And I’d thought we were just going out for a stroll today.
I looked around the bedroom, looked out the window at the killer view. I looked at him, looked him right in the eye, and tried to uncover what he was thinking. “You sure you want all this?” I asked, not just talking about the house.
“Hell, yes. I love you; that’s not going to change. I want this, I want you, and I think . . . Oh hell, here comes the Dawson’s Creek.” He grimaced and I chuckled in spite of the moment.
His gaze grew wistful, and he looked so young. “I don’t want to put things off, even though we haven’t been together a really long time. I don’t want to wait—you never know what can . . . Look. I adore you, and I want a home. Again. With you.”
That did it. Cue the waterworks.
“You’re killing me, Simon.” I sniffled, tears and nose beginning to run.
“I know. I’m very cute when I’m vulnerable,” he said, making me snort in a very unladylike way.
“So without knowing how much this house costs, without knowing anything about buying a house in Sausalito, without an inspection or a real estate agent and knowing there’s a shit ton of work to be done, you want this? All of it—you really want this?”
He nodded, looking determined but a little afraid of my answer.
I got off his lap and walked around the bedroom once more. There were at least a hundred reasons why this was maybe not the best idea. I peered out the big window once more, looking down onto the old rosebushes in the brush. I bet this was beautiful in the spring.
I leaned on the windowsill, seeing the last of the afternoon sun leave the city across the bay. The windowsills were deep, exactly the right size for a very particular cat to doze in. I turned to Simon, now standing in the doorway with the most hopeful look ever.
Did I want this?
Is this what it was like, being grown up? Making big decisions, and then moving into a new phase of your life? Wasn’t this too fast, too impulsive, too . . .
I did want this. And I wanted it with Simon. I nodded yes, and he grinned, laughed, then kissed me stupid.
Three hours later, he’d made an offer. It was accepted.
Grown-ups, right?
• • •
“Are we rushing into this?”
“No, we’ve been at this quite a while. It’s called foreplay, Caroline,” Simon murmured, south of my navel.
“I’m familiar with the concept,” I replied, tightening my legs around his midsection and lifting up onto my elbows to peer down at him. “Not talking about the foreplay, although it’s good.”
“Good? Just good?” He crawled up my body, kissing it all the while. I shivered. “I was giving you some of my best stuff down there.”
“Did I say good? I meant fantastic. Phenomenal.” I kissed him square on the lips. “Out of this world.”
“That’s better. Now, what’s this about rushing things?” He used my left breast as a pillow as his fingertips traced lightly over the right.
“With the house. Are we rushing into this?” I asked, running my hands through his hair and making it stand straight up. I twisted it this way and that, making Mohawks and no hawks, bowl cuts and bangs. I worried his hair around every finger, feeling the silky strands as he kissed my cleavage.
“You’re still thinking about this?” he asked, sighing. “If I thought it was too soon, I wouldn’t have made an offer.” The barest hint of tongue now wet the tip of my breast. “If I thought it was too soon, I wouldn’t have told the Realtor that I wanted that house no matter what was wrong with it.”
His hips bumped mine, slipping between my legs, which automatically cradled him. I could feel him, hard and wanting and insistent. “If I thought it was too soon, I wouldn’t be giving you an obscene design budget to turn that house into our home,” he whispered, his voice husky and thick. And speaking of thick . . .
He nudged inside, just barely. “Heated floors, Caroline.” My back arched. “Marble countertops.” My legs fell open wide.
“Carrara?”
“I don’t know what that means, babe,” he said, panting, now hovering over my body. He rested his full weight on one hand, letting the other dip down below to begin drawing those perfect circles, exactly where he knew would send me flying.
“It’s a kind of marble that—mmm. . . .” I moaned, my head falling back onto the pillow as he slid inside me entirely.
“Anything. You can have anything you want. Don’t you know that?” He groaned, scooping under my back and pulling me closer into him, tilting my hips so that each thrust hit me right smack dab on the Carrara. “I just need you.” His eyes burned into mine, stormy and full of want. “You—I need you,” he repeated, thrusting deeply, stringing me out right on the edge.
It was those eyes that pushed me over that edge. And when he followed, it was epic. We lay together, tangled and out of breath. Holding him closely, I whispered in his ear how much I loved him, and how great this house, this home, would be.
I only hoped I could make it what he needed.
chapter seventeen
The next morning, I got an e-mail from Jillian. They were coming home in three weeks.
And in those weeks, my entire world turned upside down. I’d been running things for months now, and I’d pretty much gotten the swing of things. But not these last two weeks. No, sir. It was like the design gods all gathered, rubbed their hands together, and said, “Let’s see how we can fuck up Caroline Reynolds.”
And in case you’re wondering, there are in fact design gods. And in case you’re wondering, yes, they’re fabulous.
The new job I’d agreed to take on in Sausalito was initially supposed to be a kitchen remodel. Which turned into a living room remodel. Which turned into “Couldn’t we maybe add French doors out to the patio?” and “I think we could use a new patio, don’t you?” and “I saw something called a pergola on HGTV the other night; could we put one of those over the patio?” This was all very good for the pocketbook, but it was way more work than I had planned on. We revised the timeline, revised the hell out of the budget, and I began work on the almost total renovation that this project now required.
We had a sprinkler malfunction at the office, resulting in the entire third floor being flooded. The sprinkler just went bananas one afternoon and sprayed for fifteen minutes until we could get it shut off. Offices had to be aired out, a team brought in to dry out the carpets, and some of the year-end tax forms now were blurred beyond comprehension. Luckily I had backup copies, but the panic I felt when I saw those forms? Might have caused my first gray hair ever.
The damned art installation was finally installed in the lobby of the Claremont. Max Camden took one look at it, pronounced it all wrong, and demanded we find something else. Which we did. All parties agreed that the new art was better for the space, but now everything else needed to be reconfigured to accommodate it. Which made me question the lighting placement. And the lighting in general. It was like pulling one loose thread on a sweater, and suddenly, poof, no sweater! And you’re standing naked in a new hotel with terrible lighting.
I don’t have time for naked.
Because the next blow to fall was that our building was indeed going condo. After Jillian forwarded an e-mail from her landlord, I learned they’d be going on the market in thirty days. Thirty days—is that even legal? During which the building owner would be coming in to make repairs and updates to all the units.
Simon took it all in stride, saying that it was a sign reaffirming that we were supposed to move to Sausalito. Sign or no sign, I was now faced with a new home that we were going to renovate top to bottom, and we’d lost the apartments we were going to live in while it happened. And with Jillian due home, I was losing my house-sitting gig.
So now on top of everything else, we had to pack up both our apartments in the city and move everything into a storage container until we were ready to move into the new house. Seriously. I hired help, of course, but I still needed to sort through things, purge things, and pack a few things on my own. There are certain things in a woman’s apartment that she wants to pack herself. You know what I’m saying.
Nobody was getting their hands on my KitchenAid.
So, to recap. My already hectic work life was ramping up instead of slowing down. My boss was returning in a few days, and there were box fans all over the third floor of her office space in a historic Russian Hill mansion. And I was stealing a few hours I really didn’t have to pack up my glorious apartment, to move into a nonglorious home going through a gut rehab.
I was going to be living on-site during a gut rehab.
Laugh all you want, design gods. I could handle it.
Right?
Brain laughed. Backbone curled up like it had scoliosis. Heart was still drawing her own image all over the imaginary mirror in her new master bath.
And Simon? Simon was . . . a pickle. A pickle who was packing up his apartment next door as we speak, and making a helluva lot of noise while doing it. I was in my bedroom, purging my sock drawer, when I heard a very distinct thumping coming through the wall. A banging, if you will. I smiled, remembering the first few times I heard that banging.
Clive jumped up on the bed, looking curiously at the wall.
Pretty sure that sometimes he still listened to see if Purina was going to come meowing through that wall again. Fat chance.
I crossed to the shared wall, placing my hand on the spot I imagined was right above his bed, and sure enough, I felt another thumpity thump. What the hell was he doing over there?
I grabbed my phone and sent him a text:
What the hell are you doing over there?
Taking apart my headboard.
Ah! No wonder. I was having flashbacks.
His response was to bang on his wall again. I banged back.
Bang ba ba bang bang.
Bang bang.
I giggled, then listened. Would he . . . ? Sure enough, a moment later, Glen Miller came through the walls. Smooth.
I went back to packing, and he went back to taking apart his headboard. Clive attacked a roll of bubble wrap and made it his bitch. A few hours later, we met back in my apartment and looked around at the tiny dent I’d made in getting things ready to be moved.
“When is the storage container coming again?”
“Two days.” I looked in my calendar to verify the date. “So you need to make sure anything you don’t want in the container is already moved out before the crew gets here. They’re taking care of everything else.” It was still weird to think about the new house. I almost couldn’t, with everything going on. One step at a time.
“We still staying here tonight?” he asked, peering over my shoulder at the calendar.
&nbs
p; “I’d like to, if that’s still cool with you. One more night, where it all began? Besides, I went to the trouble of bringing my pussy,” I joked.
As if on cue, Clive ran through the kitchen and back out again like the hounds of hell were on his tail, towing a large piece of bubble wrap that streamed out behind him like a crinkly-sounding cape.
“You know I can’t resist that,” he murmured in my ear, arms sneaking around my waist. “By the way, you can erase that trip.”
“What trip?” I asked, my voice all gooey. His arms did that to me.
“The one to Belize. I canceled it,” he said, pointing to a date I had circled on my calendar.
“You canceled Belize?” I asked. That was three trips in a row.
“Yep, I wanted to be here to help with the house.” He nuzzled my neck. “I’m pretty handy with a hammer, if you’ll recall.” He bumped his hips into mine.
I bumped them right back. A little harder than was necessary?
Maybe. A little.
“I’m gonna go make sure I got everything in my room,” I said, shrugging him off and heading back to my bedroom. I knew he didn’t like it much when I questioned his schedule. And if he noticed that my voice was no longer gooey, he didn’t say anything.
Pickle.
• • •
Every single one of my worlds collided on the same day. Friday dawned cold and clear. It was a good thing there was no fog, because the fog in my head by noon was enough for the entire Bay Area. Jillian and Benjamin were due in on a six o’clock plane. We wanted them to be able to enjoy their first night back without us hanging around, so when I left for work Friday morning I made sure everything was spick-and-span, with everything exactly how they’d left it.
Simon was closing on the new house at two thirty. He’d be signing the paperwork and picking up the keys, and I told him I’d meet him at our new address as soon as I could get away from work. Utilities were being turned on, we had a truckload of essential boxes being delivered, and Simon was in charge of buying and setting up our blow-up bed. Yep, a blow-up bed. Since we’d be living on the premises while our new home was renovated, we didn’t want any real furniture there. Didn’t want to have to keep moving it as we worked through the rooms, so we were living basic for a while.