Over the next couple of weeks, Paige’s stuff slowly started to accumulate at Brendan’s. She’d attempted to pack a bag to take back to her parents’ house to trade out for new clothes, but Brendan had told her he’d just make more room for her things. It didn’t make sense to continually bring stuff back and forth.
Toward the end of November, Paige came back one day to find a dresser that hadn’t been there when she’d left for work that morning. She dropped her shoes by the bedroom door and went over to it, running her fingers across the wood. It was an antique, stained a dark cherry brown with six drawers, three on each side.
“It was my great-grandmother’s.”
Paige turned to see Brendan standing in the doorway.
“It’s beautiful. Where was it before?” she asked, turning back to the dresser and tracing a set of rings that were in the wood.
“The guest room of my grandparents’ house. Bennett restores furniture, and I asked him to fix it up for you,” he said as his boots echoed across the floor. A second later he was behind her, brushing the hair off her neck and kissing her throat. “Paige,” he whispered, “I want you to have more than a drawer here.”
“How much more?”
“Move in with me.”
Paige took a deep breath and turned in his arms, leaning back against the dresser. He settled his hands on her waist as she looked up at him. “I’ve barely been staying here a month,” she said while she traced the buttons on his shirt.
“I don’t care. I wanted you to move in last month, and I still want you to move in now.”
“What happened to taking things slowly?”
“Screw slowly,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t want slowly. Nothing has gone
slowly
for me since I met you. You crashed into me and set my world spinning the moment I met you. You, and those long legs of yours in those black wedges, and that smart mouth.” He smiled.
“You called me judgmental the first time I met you,” Paige challenged.
“Only because you called me a stupid redneck.”
“Illiterate,” she corrected. “I called you illiterate.”
“And a jerk. Yet, you’ve fallen in love with me despite all of that,” he said.
“I was wrong,” Paige said, shaking her head. “You’re none of those things.”
“Then what am I, Paige?” he asked, stepping into her. He reached up and touched her jaw as he leaned into her. “What am I?” he asked above her mouth before he parted her lips with his. One of his hands settled on the nape of her neck while the other wrapped around her waist holding her to him, which was fortunate since her knees felt weak. He held her as their tongues touched and moved against each other. She pulled back and rested her forehead against his.
“When I was little, I had training wheels on my bicycle,” she said, fidgeting with his shirt. “My dad took the training wheels off, and the first time I tried to ride my bike after that I ate it. I hit the pavement hard. I scraped my elbows and knees to hell, busted open my lip. So my dad put the training wheels back on because I was too terrified to ride without them. I rode with them on for so long that it got to the point where they were useless. They weren’t even touching the ground anymore they were so bent up. But every time he went to take the training wheels off I would freak out. I wasn’t ready. I needed that safety net.” She pulled her forehead back from his so she could look him in the eyes.
“I’m scared, Brendan. I’ve done this once before. I’ve lived with someone. Yeah, the circumstances were different, but the outcome was painful. With Dylan I fell off my bike and scrapped my knees. But you?” She took a deep breath and shook her head. “You’re the car crash I wouldn’t be able to walk away from.”
He looked at her in that way of his. The way that made her heart soar and ache at the same time.
“If you’re scared about crashing, I’ll be your soft landing or your safety net or whatever you want me to be.”
“You promise?” she asked, blinking hard. Her eyes were prickling and she knew that she couldn’t hold back the tears for much longer.
“I promise.”
Paige wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. She pulled back, laughing and crying, and so happy she thought she was going to float away.
“Is that a yes?” Brendan said and smiled, pushing her hair back from her face.
“It’s a yes.” She nodded as more tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Why are you crying?” he asked, running his fingers under her eyes.
“Because I’m happy,” she said, smiling through her tears. “If you’re going to live with me, you need to get used to it.”
“For you, I’ll get used to anything.”
* * *
They moved Paige’s stuff in that weekend, and it didn’t take very long because she didn’t have very much. The boxes that she brought to Brendan’s were filled with her clothes, shoes, books, and small knickknacks that she’d accumulated over the years. Brendan cleaned out half of the closet for her to hang up her clothes, and he built her a shoe rack. Paige firmly believed that nothing said love like a man giving her a place to organize her shoes.
While she unpacked her stuff in the bedroom, he worked on the stuff in the living room. He added her books and movies to his. There was something about the fact that he didn’t keep them separated but that he mixed their things all in together.
“Can we hang this in the living room?”
Paige turned to see Brendan standing in the doorway holding one of her paintings of a giant sunflower.
“But it’s of a flower,” she said, looking at it and then looking up at him confused.
“Is that what this is?” he asked, attempting to sound surprised. “I had no idea.”
“Shut up, smart-ass,” Paige said, shaking her head. “I should have said that I’m
surprised
you want to hang that up
because
it’s a flower.”
“I’ve grown quite fond of sunflowers since I met you,” he said, grinning at her. “And you painted this, so I like it even more. I’d like it to be obvious you live here, Paige. I want you in every room of this house.”
“You can hang it up,” she said quickly as a rush of warm affection washed through her.
And he did more than just hang up that painting. The hallway was now lined with some of her framed black-and-white photography, stuff that she didn’t want to sell. Pictures of her with her family and friends in an assortment of picture frames lined the bookcases. Her big and brightly colored coffee mugs hung from a rack in the kitchen. An old wooden clock that she’d found at an antique store hung from the wall in the dining room. And her lamps and curtains replaced his in their bedroom.
In
their
bedroom, which was in
their
house.
Brendan also put out her candles and lit them, making the living room smell like sugar and cinnamon, and their bedroom smell like pumpkin pie.
It was crazy how all of their stuff just fit together. His was more tame and neutral, but it complemented her tendency for crazy colors. It somehow just worked, much like they somehow just worked.
* * *
People were buying Paige’s pieces. In the few weeks that her stuff had been hanging up, three paintings, five photographs, one of the windowpanes and two of the words on aluminum siding had sold. Everything put together was over a thousand dollars. It was unbelievable.
Paige tried to give the girls some of the profits, but they wouldn’t take any of it. Instead they took some of her work. Well, first they’d tried to buy it from her, but Paige had refused, being just as stubborn as them. As Paige’s stuff sold, she went through her plethora of pieces and replaced the blank spaces on the walls.
Mr. Adams had seen her work at Panky’s flower shop. He was so impressed with it that he asked her for paintings and pictures for the funeral home.
“I’ll pay you full price for all of them, of course,” he said as he sat across from her at her desk. “But I’d like you to paint some of those pictures that you took, the local ones, of the beach and the town and such, and then I’d like some of those photographs to be framed as well.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said and nodded. “We have new paint on the walls, so we should have new art on the walls.”
“Wow, absolutely,” she said, so overwhelmed that she could hardly stand it. She’d
never
been commissioned to paint anything before, and Mr. Adams wanted her to paint over two thousand dollars worth of art, not to mention the photography.
Paige didn’t have a good space to paint at her and Brendan’s place, so she still used the shed at her parents’ house. She spent a lot of time there on the weekends, and she started going over after work a couple of times a week. Brendan would usually meet her over at her parents’ on those days. They’d all eat dinner together, and when Paige went back out to paint, Brendan would watch some game or another with her dad.
* * *
On the first Saturday in December, Paige dragged Brendan out to get a Christmas tree. She’d snuggled up next to him that morning and asked if they could decorate. He had no problem with decorating for Christmas, and even if he had it would’ve been a lost cause. He had no hope of denying her anything when she was pressed up against him.
“How have you never decorated for Christmas before?” she asked as they walked onto the Christmas tree lot.
“I’ve never had a reason to,” he said, following behind her. “Grams has always decorated, and I’ve always helped her with the tree and lights on the house. When I first moved out I lived with Jax, and he’s not much of a decorator. Before you, it was only me at our house, so I had no need to decorate there.”
Paige stopped and turned to look at him. “I guess not,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t imagine not decorating for Christmas. It wouldn’t be the same.”
“Well, it’s your house too. So you can do whatever you want.”
“I like that,” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him along behind her to a large pine tree. It was at least seven feet tall and full of thick green pine needles.
“This is the one you want?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, sticking her nose close to the needles and inhaling. She looked like she was in heaven. “Mmm, smells like Christmas.”
After they dropped the tree off at the house, they drove up to Tallahassee to get decorations. The few that Paige had weren’t enough. So Brendan spent the next couple of hours following her around the store pushing the cart while she threw stuff in it.
“Can we get Christmas sheets?” she asked, bouncing up and down in front of one of the displays.
Christmas sheets? Was she serious? But he really couldn’t say no to her, not with the excited glow that was on her face. And what did he care, as long as she was in the sheets with him? But the sheets in question were such a light blue that they were almost purple.
“What about the reindeer ones?” he asked, pointing to a green set.
“Are those more manly?” she asked, tossing them into the cart.
“Than girly snowmen? Yes, they are more manly.”
“They weren’t girly,” she said as she started walking.
“Half of them were wearing bikinis. That’s girly,” he said, following behind her.
“These reindeer are wearing Christmas lights on their antlers,” she said, pointing to the sheets in the cart. “That says manly?”
“It’s hunting meets electricity.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said, shaking her head.
“Neither do snowmen wearing bikinis.”
“Hmm,” she said distractedly as she started down another aisle filled with Christmas stuff. “You make a valid point.”
After that, she asked him to stop at a specialty store so that she could get the ingredients to make something for dinner.
“What are you making?” he asked her as they walked in.
“It’s a surprise. Go get some good wine,” she said, shooing him in the direction of the alcohol.
There was Christmas music playing over the speakers and he caught himself humming along to it as he looked over the labels. Apparently Paige’s holiday cheer was contagious.
He found two bottles of wine and a gourmet hot chocolate that he planned to add some peppermint schnapps to. Paige found him thirty minutes later, her loot already bought and hidden in two large brown paper bags. She added some fancy cheese to his cart and a bag of freshly baked bread before they checked out and left.
When they got home, she cranked up Christmas music on the stereo and pulled off her boots and jeans. She danced around the house while they decorated, wearing a long green sweater that didn’t cover up her red underwear, and a pair of Brendan’s white socks.
Yup, he was officially in the Christmas spirit.
* * *
Whatever Paige was cooking smelled incredible. It was driving Brendan crazy that she wouldn’t let him in the kitchen.
“It’s a surprise,” she’d said, shoving a glass of wine into his hand and banishing him into the living room.
So there he sat, watching a college football game with his feet propped up on the table, slowly going insane as he sipped on a glass of wine.