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This wasn’t about his new, more financially rewarding career, his townhouse and his taking it slow to make it into a home.
He’d had a good job before, and he hadn’t settled.
“You don’t trust it,” I whispered, eyeing him closely.
“Can we not get into this now?” he requested tersely.
Oh, I so, so wanted to get into this now.
No, I needed to get into this now.
What I didn’t need to do was push it if Javi didn’t feel like getting into it now.
I shifted closer to him. “Yes, we can not get into this now. That said, I think we need to get into it eventually because it worries me.”
“What worries you?”
“You smoothing your washcloth out like it’s the finest silk.”
His brows shot down. “Say again?”
I shook my head. “Not now. You don’t want to get into it now. I just want it agreed that we’ll get into it later.”
Javi sighed.
Heavily.
“I want my crib to be comfortable and the shit I buy to last, but I don’t really give a shit about new stuff, babe,” he asserted.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
A man who smoothed out his fluffy, thick, probably expensive washcloths, though, totally did.
And he did because he was a man who didn’t have a washcloth for nearly two decades.
Javi, as was Javi’s way, read my mind. “You can’t fix what I lost with new shit, Harlow.”
“No, I know,” I agreed. “But you’re getting the new stuff, Javi.”
He opened his mouth, but I put my hand over it.
“First, that nutribullet is pink and I’m not leaving a pink nutribullet at your house. It’s a wonder it works with the level of your testosterone floating around. Right or wrong, pink is a girl color so that’s a girl nutribullet, which means, the longer it’s here, the longer I live in fear its motor is going to burn out from trying to chug through your male hormones.” I saw his eyes light with humor, and I felt relief, but I kept blabbing. “I’m buying a black one. Or a silver one. They have some matte ones, I need to look online. Or?—”
“Babe,” he grunted under my hand to keep me on target.
I took my hand away. “Second, I know I’ll never truly understand all you did without for so long, but what you need to understand is, I know you did without it so I feel a driving need for you not to do that ever, ever again. As such, you are not going to have an old, pink nutribullet in your fab new townhouse. You’re going to have a new, black or silver, or some matte color nutribullet in your fab new townhouse. You with me?”
“Lolita—” he started, and although his tone was a lot warmer, a lot lighter, he didn’t say anymore because the doorbell was ringing.
“Hold that thought,” I ordered as he walked to the door.
He dropped his head while shaking it, but still, I could see on his profile he was smiling.
Well, thank goodness. Our fight was over, and it looked like I won.
When he looked out the peephole, though, his smile vanished.