Page 36 of This Love is Under Construction
“Owen, I know what I’m asking. This would be a leap. A real one. You’d be taking a professional risk on a plan dreamed up by someone who bought a house while drunk and thought YouTube tutorials were an acceptable renovation strategy.”
My smile wavers, but I hold it. Hold him.
“But I believe in this. In you. In what we could build if we did it together.”
He doesn’t look away. His eyes stay locked on mine, and the weight of that gaze makes my spine go rigid with hope.
“Why now?” he asks. “After the argument, the plans, the walking away—why this, now?”
It’s the opening I’ve been waiting for. I close the folder—set the business pitch aside, so he can see the truth underneath .
“Because when you walked away, I realized something,” I say, voice steady now.
“You’re my load-bearing person, Owen.”
He blinks. “Your what?”
“My load-bearing person,” I repeat, the metaphor forming fully as I speak. “Like a load-bearing wall. The structural element you don’t notice until it’s gone, and suddenly everything feels off balance.”
He says nothing, but he’s listening.
“I’ve spent my whole life avoiding people like that. Keeping things decorative, movable, non-essential. Because load-bearing means permanence. Planning. Risk.”
I take a small step forward.
“But when you left, I realized I’d already built you into my foundation. You’d become necessary. You held up something in me I didn’t know needed holding.”
The room is so still I can hear the distant call of birds, the soft shifting of Finn near the door.
Owen’s jaw flexes, his voice lower than usual when he speaks.
“I’m not good at this. At trusting that people will stay.”
“I know,” I say gently. “You’ve had plenty of reasons to be cautious. Your ex-fiancée left. Your design career got sidelined. You’ve spent years being the one who stays while everyone else walks away.”
He looks down, then lifts his gaze again, surprisingly steady.
“And you’ve spent years leaving before anyone had the chance to ask you to stay.”
“Exactly,” I say, grateful for his clarity. “We’re opposite sides of the same fear—you’re afraid of being left. I’m afraid of getting stuck. You stay too long. I never stay at all.”
“Not exactly a promising foundation,” he says, though his tone holds no bitterness.
“Or maybe it’s the perfect one.”
I take a breath.
“Your roots balance my wings. My momentum balances your steadiness. Together, we might actually reach the middle ground neither of us could find alone.”
He doesn’t respond right away, but I can see the calculation behind his eyes—not numbers this time, but something quieter. The math of trust. Of risk. Of whether love is worth the unknown variables.
“What if it doesn’t work?” he asks. “The business. Us. Any of it.”
“Then we adapt,” I say. “Like we did with the beam removal. With the water damage. Like we’ve done with every curveball this house has thrown at us.”
I step closer, close enough that I have to tip my chin to meet his eyes.
“I can’t promise I won’t get scared. That the part of me that wants to run won’t flare up now and then. But I will stay anyway. I’ll choose you. This place. What we’re building—together—even when it’s hard.”
Something in him shifts. A softening. Or maybe just a surrender.
“I’ve never been anyone’s load-bearing person before,” he says.
“Well,” I smile gently, “I’ve never admitted to needing one before. So we’re both in new territory.”
His gaze drops to the business plan, then to the rendering, then back to me.
“This would mean big changes. For both of us.”
“Terrifying, isn’t it?” I say. “Almost as scary as buying a house drunk or kissing your contractor during a blackout.”
That earns a flicker of amusement.
“You have a history of impulsive decisions.”
“I prefer to call it inspired risk-taking,” I say. “With a mixed track record—but this?” I gesture toward the business plan. “This is the most researched, carefully thought-out risk I’ve ever taken. ”
He doesn’t speak. Just lets his gaze drift again to the sketch labeled Winslow Cottage , to the artist’s rendering, to the materials I’ve spent days assembling. Then he meets my eyes—and it lands. That click you feel when something heavy slides into place.
“I’ll come back to the project,” he says. The words are slow. Measured. Deliberate. “To finish what we started.”
“The house?” I ask, my voice quiet, needing to be sure we mean the same thing.
“The house,” he confirms.
“And... the rest.”
He glances at the proposal. “The business needs more discussion. More planning. But the concept’s sound.”
Relief rushes through me so fast it nearly knocks me off balance.
“So you’re saying yes? To being my load-bearing person?”
Something that might actually qualify as a full smile curves at his mouth.
“I’m saying I’m willing to explore the structural implications.”
I laugh—real and bright and unguarded.
“That’s the most Owen Carver way of saying yes.”
“It’s a qualified yes,” he says, voice warm but steady. “Contingent on proper foundation work.”
“Naturally,” I reply. “Can’t build something real without a solid base.”
He reaches out then—an unexpected, quiet gesture—and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers graze my cheek, light and reverent.
“We should get back to the house,” he says, voice softer than before. “Plenty of work to do if we’re going to meet that TV deadline.”
“Right,” I say, blinking. “The house. The deadline. Very important.”
We gather the materials in silence, but the tension between us has shifted. It’s no longer a wall. It’s a current—pulling us forward, not holding us back. As we walk toward the door, Finn bounds ahead like we’ve always been one unit, not two people learning to walk side by side again.
“Winslow,” Owen says, low and quiet, as he passes behind me.
It’s not just a nickname. Not anymore.
It’s a whisper against my hair. A homecoming. A word that holds every part of the conversation he isn’t ready to say aloud yet.
We walk together toward the truck, the morning sun casting gold across the gravel path. There’s no kiss, no sweeping declarations. Just a shared pace. A quiet understanding. A framework we’re finally ready to build on.
Owen opens the truck door for me. And in his eyes, for the first time, I see something I used to run from— wanting . Steady, open, tender.
He looks at me like I’m the only home he’s ever wanted. And for the first time in my life, that doesn’t scare me at all.