Page 74 of Structure of Love

Gage

Friday night I found myself with Netflix on, but I wasn’t paying any attention to it. It merely provided background noise. My focus lay on my iPad, where I was doodling.

Designing, really.

Designing a house for Logan. To share with Logan.

Yeah, I was aware this was a step above making playlists.

I paused in drawing and really looked at what I had mapped out. I’d started with bubbles first, just intersecting bubbles of where I wanted rooms and in what layout. The bubbles felt good to me, so I’d refined things from there. Right now, bubbles were for the ground floor and in the configuration I liked best. Foyer, kitchen, living room, dining room, all the usual suspects.

And then to the left side, I had a list of rooms I wanted for Logan. His own home office, so he could work there instead of at the bar if he so chose. A game room so we could host our friends. A three-car garage so he had room to spread out and work on a car, since I knew he liked to tinker.

I’d learned enough about this man to half design a house with no input from him.

And yet, it didn’t feel like enough. I wanted more. I wanted to know every part of him. Curiosity raged in me like an unquenchable thirst. The level of knowledge I possessed right now felt so inadequate.

I could spend a lifetime learning every bit of him and it wouldn’t be enough.

I huffed out a laugh at myself, because my brain could be so squirrelly. This was how my mind decided to show me how I felt about this man? By designing a house where I could live with him forever and ever?

I’d known I was falling for him, but I guessed my heart had leapt forward faster than I’d realized. I literally fantasized about a future with him. Pretty telling.

Also a little nerve-racking. I’d never even gotten close to this step with someone before. I could trust my heart to Logan, without question. He was the most trustworthy man I knew. He’d proven that to me over and over. Even knowing I could trust him with my heart, it felt so scary to say, to even frame those three little words in my mind.

Why the idea of expressing myself made me feel so vulnerable, I didn’t understand. Maybe it was my damn trust issues acting up again, I don’t know. It was just nerve wracking to even think of opening my heart completely, exposing my feelings for him. I clearly wasn’t ready to make any declarations yet. But Logan wasn’t demanding anything from me, either. I had time.

Waiting was fine. We’d just started exclusively dating—I didn’t have to make a firm decision or any grand gestures soon. The fact I wanted to in the future was enough for now.

Didn’t stop me from fantasizing and designing Logan a house. Us a house, really.

I wondered if he’d even want a big wedding…?

Someone pounded on my door. Startled, my soul almost left my body, and it took a second for my heart to come back down out of my throat after being scared upward. Who the hell was at my house at eight o’clock on a Friday night? That was some angry pounding.

Should I be armed?

I heard my mother’s voice scream through the wood. “GAGE! I KNOW YOU’RE HOME! OPEN UP!”

Again, should I be armed…?

Well, I was pretty sure I could take her if it came down to it. I pulled up Zar’s contact on my phone, ready for a speed dial, because I’d never heard her this mad before. I kept the chain on the door but did crack it open. Only to issue a warning, though, as I had no intention of letting her into my house.

Seeing her face had me feeling that old pang of guilt again, like a needle stabbing right in my chest. But that was a conditioned response, and I shoved it down. She looked terrible. Her mascara had run, leaving sooty trails all over her cheeks. She’d always been short, but right now she looked like a homeless goblin with an oversized shirt, cardigan—in this heat?!—and sandals. She hadn’t dyed her hair recently, so it was a faded reddish copper with roots showing. It looked like she’d been through the wringer over the past few days.

Oh, come to think of it, Cooper had gotten thrown into the clink for a drunk and disorderly. Or something. If she was only coming to me now, then he must have had to do more than pay the fine; he might have gotten some actual jail time. Part of me was floored by that concept, and a pang of guilt tried to wiggle its way back in. I shoved it down. If Cooper had mouthed off at the judge—and he probably had—then yeah, the timing of her appearance made sense. She’d probably been scrambling for days to get him out of trouble, and now she was ready to yell at me about it.

“Cooper called you,” she accused, voice hoarse from all the yelling, probably. Her anger was a livid, breathing thing. “Cooper called you and YOU HUNG UP ON HIM!”

“Why are you so surprised? I told you both I would.”

She stared at me, lost for words.

“I take it you got him out? Didn’t leave him in there to learn his lesson—”

“OF COURSE I GOT HIM OUT!”

“You really shouldn’t have. He’ll never learn if there’s no consequences.” In a deliberately cold manner, I tacked on, “Although I suppose when you’re dead and there’s no one to clean up after him, he’ll learn then. If he’s even still alive.”