Page 41 of Falling for Him (Honey Leaf Lodge #3)
“Not true,” I said. “Only the ones with more than one syllable.”
“Terrifying,” Beck muttered.
I sipped my drink and turned back to my house. A small white bungalow with blue shutters, a wraparound porch, and more flower boxes than seemed strictly necessary. It wasn’t the sleek Florida condo I’d lived in before. It wasn’t even my style, if I was honest.
But the moment I saw it, something inside me had clicked.
It looked like a beginning.
“Alright,” Fifi said, pulling on a pair of gloves from her back pocket. “Who’s ready to make regrettable life choices involving heavy lifting?”
“You married into this town yet?” Beck asked.
“Close,” I said softly, glancing at Fifi.
“What?” Fifi asked, turning around. “Who are you marrying, Beck?”
He frowned. “No, not me. I said, Is Ben married to this town yet?”
She chuckled as her cheeks flushed. “Let’s get on it.”
I took a sip of coffee and set it on the bumper.
The first few trips were full of groaning and griping, with Beck muttering about deadlifts and Sienna trying to guess the contents of each box based on weight and sound alone.
“Is this your gym equipment?” Sienna asked, nearly dropping a box. “Or your emotional baggage?”
“Bit of both,” I muttered.
Fifi giggled behind me, her laugh like a small victory every time I heard it.
The banter helped. So did the rhythm of movement. Back and forth, lifting, loading, placing. A makeshift human chain formed between the porch and the truck, and for the first time since this all started, I felt… normal.
Better than normal.
Included.
It was the kind of camaraderie I had never experienced growing up. There were no family move-ins, no housewarming jokes, no shared iced coffee sweats, and teasing. Just loud nights, slammed doors, and people too tired or too angry to care about your new lease.
But this?
This was different.
“Okay,” Fifi said after placing a box labeled Random Crap Probably Important on my kitchen floor, “explain this labeling system.”
“It’s layered,” I said. “Strategic ambiguity. Creates excitement.”
Beck groaned. “You are so deeply broken.”
Fifi just smiled at me over the top of her drink, and I felt that smile all the way through me.
Later, as the truck emptied and the last box thudded down beside the bookshelf, I stood in the center of the house and looked around.
It wasn’t perfect. The floor creaked. The kitchen needed a paint job. The thermostat looked like it hadn’t been updated since the eighties.
But it was mine.
And for the first time, it didn’t feel like a temporary landing pad.
It felt like something I could build from, with people, with her.
“You okay?” Fifi asked, brushing her hair out of her eyes as she stood beside me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Better than okay.”
She looked around, too. “It’s cute. Has good energy.”
“I think that’s mostly you.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Don’t make me blush in front of your appliances.”
I grinned.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you getting Beck and Sienna to show up,” I said softly, “but I’m really glad you did.”
She smiled, that real one, the one that made her whole face light up like sunrise, and then she reached up and brushed her fingers against my jaw.
I leaned into the touch.
And that’s when it happened.
There was no warning or dramatic pause, and no swell of background music.
It was just her hand in mine, with the other tangled in my shirt, and the soft gasp she let out as I kissed her. It felt as if I’d been waiting my whole damn life to.
It wasn’t rushed.
It was slow and certain.
It was a kiss that rewrote the rhythm of my heart and made me forget why I’d ever questioned something this real.
She sighed against me, her body melting into mine, and I knew, knew in the way you don’t question, that this woman had shifted the axis of my world.
When we finally broke apart, her forehead pressed to mine, she whispered, “You’re not allowed to doubt yourself tonight.”
I smiled, breathless. “Not with you here. Not a chance.”
And just like that, the fear quieted.
Because I didn’t need tomorrow’s answers when tonight ended with her lips on mine.
And a future I didn’t know I wanted… standing right in front of me.
And when she slipped her hand into mine in the middle of a half-empty living room filled with echo and possibility?
I realized I didn’t just want to stay, I belonged