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He’s not wrong, so I let it play, grinning as I dig into my food, and letting the warm spring sun soak into my skin. For a while, we eat and exist together, stretched out on the blanket, our fingers brushing without thinking as we lie next to each other. It’s quiet and simple, and normal. It brings me back to so many days we’ve done this over the years. This is what our relationship has always felt like, but now we get to live it.In love.

But there is one more topic that I’ve been meaning to bring up, and now feels like the perfect time.

Logan’s apartment is familiar, and I’d follow him anywhere, but his place and mine both feel weighed down by bad memories. I want something new. A completely fresh start for both of us. Not necessarily to erase what happened, becausewestarted there, but to choose what comes next. To build something that’s ours without trauma hanging over it.

“Do you want to buy a place together?”

Logan doesn’t move, and for a second, I think I might have broken him. Then, slowly, he turns to look at me.

“You really want that?” he whispers.

“Yeah, I do,” I nod, shifting to face him. Most people would probably say this is bad timing and we should wait, let the trauma settle before making any big decisions, but this doesn’t feel fast to me. It feels inevitable.

“Your lease is up soon, and I think I want to sell my house. I want a place where we can start fresh together. I don’t want to make a home out of either of our places,” I say quietly. “Yours still feels like…like whereithappened, and mine just doesn’t feel like home anymore. I want to be together permanently in a place where we can start fresh. A place where we can choose what’s next, and what’s next for me, is us.”

Logan reaches for my hand and laces our fingers together. He looks so overwhelmed, I almost laugh. Like, somehow, he never thought this would be a possibility. His eyes are shining a little, but he shoves me before I can say anything about it.

“Ryder!” he nearly yells, grinning like an idiot now.

“So…that’s a yes?”

Logan huffs a laugh, then launches himself at me, rolling me onto my back and tackling me in a full-body hug.

“Baby,” he murmurs against my neck. “That’s a hell fucking yes!”

I grin, threading my fingers through his hair. “Good. Because I plan on christening every room in our new house—and I fully expect you to keep your flip fuck promise.”

Logan snorts, shaking his head as he pulls back. “Jesus, Ryder.”

I smirk, rolling us so I’m on top now. “What? You said you’re vers and I gotta try bottoming somehow.”

His fingers curl into my hips, his voice low, amused. “You think I’d say no to that?”

I laugh, rolling off him, and he immediately pulls me back, arms wrapping tight around me. “I already have everything I want with you. All that’s left is a front door that’s ours to walk through.”

35

LOGAN

“Fuck, your tongue feels so good.”

Ryder’s mouth is hot and wet and perfect around my cock, and I have zero control over the noises I’m making. My fingers are gripping his perfect brown hair as he hums around me. I nearly choke on the vibration that shoots through me before he pulls off with a pop. His lips are wet and his pupils are blown out, and he looks so sexy on his knees like this for me.

“You like that?” he asks with a smirk.

He doesn’t even wait for a response before he’s swallowing me down with no hesitation. Ryder has become insatiable for my cock and I’ll never be one to deny him what he wants.

He hollows his cheeks and I feel his throat constrict around me as he sucks me as far back as he can. I’m so close, and my whole body is tensing beneath him.

“Baby—gonna?—”

Ryder groans around me like he was waiting for those words and it sends me over the fucking edge. My hips fuckinto his mouth as I come hard down his throat. He sucks me through it, not wasting a drop, and when he finally pops off, he licks his lips and looks so pleased with himself.

“Jesus, baby,” I breathe, still catching my breath.

Ryder grins, crawling up my body to press a slow, teasing kiss to my lips. “Told you I’m getting good at that.”

I hum, still half-dazed. “Not gonna argue with you, even if you are so damn cocky since realizing you like dick.”