Page 99 of Finding Home with You

“Good,” I say, squeezing her on the ass. “Because I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

“But what will you do?” she repeats, propping herself up on her good hand. “I mean you don’t have to work, I meant that, but I sort of figured…”

“I wanna work, Red. I’d go crazy being stuck at home all day.”

“So what,” she asks, biting her bottom lip. “Will you go work with Finn?”

I let out a short laugh. “No, definitely not,” I tell her. “As much as I respect what Finn does, I’m not cut out for small-town police shit.”

Erin smiles. “Yeah, I kind of get the feeling it’s all drunk tourists and idiot teenagers most of the time.”

“Definitely not my thing,” I tell her. “And besides, while I loved being a detective, I’m happy to leave those days behind me.”

“So?” she asks, fingers brushing back and forth across my chest.

I grin. “Well, I was thinking about going to see Beck,” I start. “See if he’s thought about fixing up that so-called kitchen he has at the pub.”

Erin, pulls back, a look of surprised delight on her face. “You’re gonna offer to be his new chef?”

I start laughing now, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. “No fucking way,” I say. “I’ve already had Beck as my boss once, and as much as I love the guy, I don’t want him as my boss again. And besides, I don’t actually want to cook in that place.”

“So, what will you do?”

I pull her closer, wrap my arms around her as I say, “I’m gonna suggest we be business partners and I’ll take care of the kitchen side of things.”

Erin grins as she kisses me again. “I love it,” she says. “You should go talk to him right away.”

I laugh. “Yeah, maybe in a little while, Red,” I murmur, rolling her beneath me.

Afterwards, I take a quick shower, kiss Erin goodbye and head over to O’Loughlin’s to find Beck. It’s late in the afternoon, after the so-called lunch rush and before the after-work drinks.

Beck grins at me as I walk in the door, grabbing me a beer before I even have to ask.

“Thanks,” I say, reaching for the bottle.

“How’s Erin?” he asks.

I nod. “Mostly good,” I tell him. “I mean I know it’s gonna be a while before everything feels normal again, but we’ll get there.”

“And how about you?” he asks, wiping down the counter.

I nod. “The same.”

“You going to speak to someone about it all?”

“Yeah,” I say, lifting my beer. “We both will. I think we both need it. Erin’s been carrying a lot of shit around all these years and I sure as hell need to sort my brain out after everything I saw yesterday. God, was it really only yesterday?” I murmur, scrubbing a hand down my face.

“It helped me and Kelsey,” Beck says quietly. “You know, after…”

He trails off, but he doesn’t need to finish what he was going to say. The memory of Kelsey’s stalker, the kidnap and Beck getting shot, still raw for all of us, even all these months later.

“I know,” I say. “I’ll make sure it happens, I promise.”

“So how long are you off work?” he asks.

I look up at him, wonder if it’s possible he’ll even go for this plan or if this is all just a colossal waste of time. I mean, this pub is a family business, it’s called O’Loughlin’s for fucks sake, so me coming in might be the last thing they want.

“Yeah about that,” I say, taking another sip of beer.