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“I didn’t even get a chance to knock.”
“I keep an eye on everything,” I said, crossing my arms. “Now, what do you need?”
“We have more wedding details to figure out,” he said. “Namely, the venue. And I brought dinner to hopefully get you to talk about them.”
I eyed the bag of food. “What did you bring?”
“Not hot chicken,” he said. “It’s just burgers from a food truck nearby.”
“That does sound good.” I opened the door wider. “Thank you for bringing food, by the way. I’m sorry I didn’t answer your message about the venues. We’ll figure it out tonight.”
“I can only hold off my mom and stepmom for so long,” he said as he walked in.
“It’s a bit messy,” I rushed to say as his eyes trailed over every inch of my space. It wasn’tthatbad, but this would not be how I would let a visitor see it. I was already aware that the old yellow paint and scuffed-up floors didn’t make the house look the best, and the dishes on the dining room table and the notebooks filled with plans for the next week didn’t help.
This time, I also had wedding decorations scattered throughout the house. Lily had given them to me, and I’d put them in a pile and told myself I would deal with it later.
But this was home.Myhome, and I was defensive of it.
“Come on, it’s not that bad,” Levi said. “This feels more like a home than my apartment does.”
“Really?”
“There are some spaces that I can tell hold a lot of happy memories. This is one of them.”
“This isn’t even the best part,” I replied. “You should see the backyard.”
I grabbed a sweater hanging on the armrest of the couch and took him to the back deck.
The door squeaked open, revealing the huge backyard. With a flip of a switch, lights came on and illuminated the area. When I was a kid, I would pretend my wedding was happening out here, using a teddy bear as my groom.
Not as much had changed in my adult life as I had hoped it would.
“This is beautiful,” he said.
“It’s one of my favorite places. When Gram was alive, we’d have dinner out here when the weather was nice. I love it here more than my own room at my parents’ house. It’s why I ...” I trailed off.
“It’s why you can’t lose it.”
I looked at my feet and cleared my throat. “Exactly.”
“Then I’m going to make sure you never do.”
“It’s always a risk when I pissed off Calvin so much,” I said. “He got the house at first. I’ll never know why, but he did.”
“Were he and your grandmother close?”
“Not at all. They didn’t really talk much. He had Mom and Dad, and I had her. Maybe she regretted it in the end and wanted to give something to him.”
“He didn’t deserve it,” Levi said firmly.
I shrugged. “Still. It’s his. And if he finds out, he could take it.”
“You said you stole it from him. How?”
I perked up. “You remembered that?”
“It’s not every day someone says they stole a house.”