Ever since Tom put this ring on my finger, he’s been challenging me to address my fear of forever. My heart condition has been so stable, I’m beginning to think I can.

“Do you think I can do it? Live in the one place?”

“I do.” He leans me against him. “I think we both can learn together.” I remember belatedly that he’s got just as much to feel insecure about. He’s moved around working on houses for years. I feel his hand put the screwdriver into the tight back pocket of my shorts. Then he squeezes hard. I like his grunt.

I try to explain myself. “It’s my wanderlust. I think I was a circus worker in my previous life. I just love pitching that tent somewhere new.”

“This can hardly count as travel.” He gets that worried look in his eye. He’s paranoid that he’s stifling my international travel aspirations, but he just doesn’t get it. I’ve already seen every corner, bar, and back alley. The novelty of these micro-journeys from house to house has been a delight.

One day I’ll take Tom to all my favorite places. It’s one of my daydreams, working out the short list. It’s okay that we need a few more flips done first.

He kisses my cheekbone. “Every time we buy a place, I think: This is it. She’ll love this one. This is our house. And then you sell it.” He’s melancholy now. “Two houses ago, you could have had a home studio. I saw your face when you stood on that Italian carpet. Then … sold.” He sighs.

“We’re house flippers.” I smooth his hair down with my fingernails. “You got me addicted. I don’t want it to end.”

“Is that what you think will happen? That it will end?”

“You’ll move to the next flip and be in the tent without me.”

“You know I can’t do this without you. We’ll choose houses within travel distance and be home every night.” Patiently, he hammers down every concern I have. “Choose a house.”

“Why?” I’m just playing along. I know why by now.

“So I can make it your dream house.”

“I think that tent is everything I ever wanted,” I reply. We stare into each other’s eyes and the edges of the room start to darken and fade off. “I once had an impossible thought. I decided that if you were mine—” I swallow my words when he tips my jaw to one side and begins to kiss my neck. It’s not fair. He knows I short-circuit from that.

“If I was yours,” he prompts with a smile in his voice.

“I decided, if you were mine,” I try again, and my voice is a raw, husky outward breath that hardens his body and sharpens his teeth on my skin, “I’d sleep with you in a tent, all night, as the wind howled and the rain fell. To be with you, I’d sleep on the ground for the rest of my life.”

“And I told myself that I’d build a castle for the princess.” He moves closer still, and the stepladder wobbles under me. I don’t even feel a moment of fear. He’ll never let me fall. “That was what I promised myself.”

“I don’t need that,” I argue, but he cuts me off.

“I promised myself that when I was just a kid. Back when all I knew how to use was a hammer, I decided that one day Darcy Barrett would walk into a house I’d made and she’d look at me like …” He trails off, and his expression turns wry and wistful. “Actually, how you’re looking at me now.”

“Like I’ve got everything I want, if I have you.” I make sure he understands me. “I love you so much.”

He’s restless now, trying to work out how to convince me. “It’s so hard to spoil someone who doesn’t want to be spoiled.”

“You spoil me every night.”

I put my fingers on the buckle of his belt. His bottom lip drops open in surprise and I bite it. His hand tries to interfere, tightening on mine, but I just keep running my fingernail on the metal. It seems to be a conduit to some raw place of lust for him, because he can barely tolerate it.

“You really want me to choose a house.”

“Yes, please.” He sounds completely desperate. I look around the room. It’s still waiting for a wall to be moved and the cornicing is hideous, but the light shines in so pleasingly and I like the hedge of lavender humming with bees.

I think how much I love him, and the next big way I can prove it.

“This house,” I finally allow myself to say. They’re words I’ve held in for weeks now. The decision feels like a key in a lock. “This is our house.” I’ve got my hand on his jaw, tilting up his face just to look at his surprise. “Location, size, that lighting in the bathroom. Put me in that bedroom and never let me out.”

“This is the one? You sure?” He pauses, a new thought giving him pleasure. “This is the threshold I’m gonna carry you over?” There’s a flare in his eyes; that animal inside him wants nothing more than to add a second ring of gold on to my hand.

“Yeah,” I assure him, bracing for the kiss that I know is coming. It’s going to be something intense, with all of his heart and excitement in it. Finally, Tom Valeska can stop being that boy, locked out in the dark, waiting to be found. When he starts work again, it’s going to be a new experience for him. It’s going to be something he’s never felt before, and I’m so glad I’ve given this to him now.

This house? It’s Tom Valeska’s house. It’s Darcy Barrett’s house.

Holy shit, I’m living my own dream come true.

He’s gathering me up now in both hands, ignoring the sound of car doors slamming outside and boots approaching. They’re going to catch us kissing, but that’s happened a hundred times before, and besides, this is monumental. Professionalism be damned; Darcy Barrett and Tom Valeska now have a home.

He tips my head back, ready to show me how happy he is.

“You know I’ll love you even if you make me live in a tent for the rest of my life. Are you really sure?”

“So sure.” I close my eyes, and his mouth is on mine, and we are happy. It’s just as simple as that.

The Hating Game Epilogue

It’s a red dress kind of day.

It’s Friday afternoon. I’m sitting in my office at Bexley & Gamin and I can see my reflection in my floor-to-ceiling window. Outwardly I look remarkably corporate, but on the inside I’m forever an immature little weirdo. I cross my legs and begin to play the Mirror Game with myself. The Staring Game. Even a whispered How You Doing Game. It’s just not the same without my opponent.

It’s been a shitty day. I spent the afternoon fighting a valiant battle against Mr. Bexley over electronic distribution royalties, and then I found out that there’s a bug in our latest e-library app. I’m so tired I can feel my own skeleton. I need to be lying on my perfect couch but it’s not going to happen tonight. It’s so quiet I can hear the fluorescent tubes buzzing.

The elevator bings.

Whoever’s just arrived on the tenth floor needs to be kept out of my office so I can get the hell out of here. Scott, our executive officer, is a pretty good gatekeeper. I can hear muffled conversation, and then there’s a rap on the door. There’s only one person in the world who can put so much short, sharp love into a single knock.