Page 58 of Undercover
“What?” That didn’t compute.Break upwith him? Yeah, and then I’d swear off beer and chocolate, too, just so I could hate my life completely. “Baby, are you insane? Of course I’m not breaking up with you! I love you!”
We’d said it for the first time a few months before, but I didn’t say it often. Probably not often enough, actually, and I’d been working on that. Gabe relaxed a little. “Then what do you mean, a transfer?” He still sounded wary, and I hated it.
“To a resident agency. A smaller, regional satellite office,” I clarified, since he didn’t look enlightened. “About half an hour outside of Burlington. It’d be a little bit of a commute, but I could live with you.” He was still staring at me. “If you wanted me to. Or get a place of my own there, or in between. See you every day. If you wanted me to.”
He blinked at me. “You’d uproot your whole life for me? Even though you have this cool, grown-up job and I’m a nerdy student, and everyone would say I should be the one to have to move around? Especially since I can afford it.”
I stroked his purple hair away from his temple, where a strand of it had stuck. Putting my feelings into words had never been my strong point, but I had to get this right. I couldn’t stuff DMV records into a manila envelope and pray for the best every time Gabe needed me to tell him how I felt. And Christ, was he ever worth it. I didn’t know how I’d gotten along without him.
“Youaremy whole life, Gabe,” I said haltingly, hoping against hope I could make him understand. “I’m not uprooting anything. I’d be coming home.”
He melted against me, sliding his hands up to wrap around my neck, pulling me down so that our faces almost touched. And he added a little wriggle of his hips, as if I needed the distraction.
“I love you too,” he whispered, and leaned in that tiny fraction of an inch to kiss me. His mouth was always so soft, always so perfect. I lingered, tasting the words on his lips. “Yes. Move in with me. We’ll find a new place. I’ll triangulate the location to make sure it’s as far as possible from any kind of yoga studio.” He swallowed. “You really mean it, though? You want to live with me? Make this, you know. Permanent? Semi-permanent? Do relationships have levels like hair dye?”
I thought of the email in my drafts folder, the one I’d written to my sister but not quite had the courage to send yet, asking her if she could set aside a weekend day to take me around to jewelry stores. I thought of the money I’d been socking away every pay period for the last few months, not really planning anything, but—pre-planning. Imagining. Fantasizing, even.
“Permanent,” I said, with conviction. “Definitely permanent. I’d live anywhere for you. Even Anchorage.”
“Anchorage? What are you—you know what, never mind. Come here. I love you. And stop talking,” Gabe said with a grin brighter than his neon hair. “You have better things to do with your mouth.”
And I really, really did. Permanently.
T H E
E N D