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When she tenses and crosses her arms over her chest, I look up, questioning with my eyes. She looks toward the closed curtains, staring at nothing while I keep staring at her.

The smile is long gone, and her lips aren’t deviating from that tight lip line striped across her face. Nothing about her current state is the Tatum I know, much less the one I just made love to. I push up and sit next to her, leaning against the headboard, and ask, “What’s wrong?”

“You keep saying home.”

“Yeah, LA,” I say. Her eyes drift to the ceiling above me. That’s closer. Progress, but her body is unchanging. “I know hopping from one city to another may not be that exciting, but there’s great people-watching and?—”

“I don’t care about other people. I just want to be alone with you. Here.Home.”

I’m not sure what she’s talking about, but her anger is growing, and from the way she’s holding herself, she’s digging her heels in for a fight. “Why do you keep saying that?”

I’m hit with a hard glare. “Because you’re not catching the subtlety. I think I need to spell it out.”

“You don’t. I get it. You don’t like the gift. It’s fine, Tatum. Let’s not make a big thing. It’s your birthday, and you got a blank check. Life is great, right?”

I’m not as clever as I think I am. She can read between the lines just as well as I can read her subtlety. She sits up, her jaw slack in disbelief. “I thought so until you had to ruin it.”I ruined it?

She flips the covers off and storms to the bathroom. I hear the lock click into place, but nothing else—not the tub or the shower. She needs to cool off, and I need to cool down.

I get out of bed, pull on my pants, and walk into the living room. Pacing the length of the windows a few times, I find my irritation still scratches under my skin. She once said that she wants to learn how to fight. It’s a skill we could both use because right now we only know how to make things worse.

Do I go to her, or do I wait for her to come to me?

I didn’t know I did anything wrong by wanting to show her my hometown and meet my family. My parents, my brothers and Madison, will not be anything but welcoming toward Tate. Harlow will love her clothes. And they won’t see her as a fucking dollar sign.

Seems even sex can’t knock my anger at her parents away.Tatum’s asked me about whether I live in a house or an apartment, so I thought she would find it interesting to see my place. Meet the people I love most in the world.But why the anger?

Nick called us oil and water.

I used to believe that until Tatum lowered her walls and let me into her world. And then I realized whether it’s oil or water, we’re the same underneath. We mix just fine. It’s the outside world that seems set on destroying us.

She’s convinced only one can win. If so, will it be California or New York?

Maybe it’s both or the one I never saw coming. Or fucking Connecticut like Dolores and her family, for all I know. I don’t know anything, it seems, when it comes to us, except that we’ll make up. So I stay, sitting down on the couch and wondering if this is where I’m sleeping tonight, aka the doghouse.

“I think dating is good,” she says from the corner of the hall. I find her in the dark, arms still crossed, and dressed in her robe. I listen. “We need more of those.”

“I thought that’s what we were doing?”

“Yeah, we were jumping ahead too.”

She’s not wrong. I say, “I thought you’d like the trip. You don’t have to go.”

“I think I should. I want to see that part of your life.” It’s not lost on me that she hasn’t come closer. “Can we go this weekend?”

So now we’re going to ramrod this weekend to get it over with? I don’t have any other places to show to Lara this weekend, and no other showings either, so I reply, “Sure, I can be ready in the morning. You?”

Her armor finally lowers, and she takes small steps closer. Handling her delicately works wonders. I’m not tricking her into anything. I’m reminding her that she’s safe with me. She sits next to me, close with our knees touching but not our bodies. “Same, except I have one request.”

I’m not exactly waving a white flag of surrender, so it might be a bit early to listen to her list of conditions. Squeezing my eyes closed and pinching the bridge of my nose, I hope to ward off the headache I can feel coming on. Then I look up, and ask, “What is it?”

“I want you to put in an offer for me.”

This is the turn I didn’t see ahead. “On a property?”

“I want the brownstone next to Natalie.”

“It’s seventeen million dollars, Tate, and Dolores told me she won’t accept anything that’s not over that price.”