“Always,” I assure her, my eyes boring into hers so she understands the truth of what I’m saying.
Eden’s smile goes bright and I think I see her shoulders relax with relief. She takes two steps up toward me then turns around to sit down. She pats the spot next to her as she looks over her shoulder at me. “Come sit down and let’s talk.”
“You don’t want to come inside?” I ask her as I trot down to sit beside her. It’s hot as hell out here and the air-conditioning is blasting inside.
“No sense in going inside if I’m not staying, and I’m not sure I’m staying until I hear what you have to say,” she says softly.
My body tenses up under the threat that just because Eden came here directly from Ireland and is willing to listen to me doesn’t guarantee anything. While she may have been totally willing to compromise last week when we fought about this, I’m certain my jackass behavior may have had her reconsidering the meaning of compromise.
Reaching out, I take her hand closest to me and thread my fingers through hers. I lift her hand to my mouth and kiss her wrist briefly before I release her. Then I rest my elbows on my knees, look out over the vast expanse of the front yard of Goodnight House, and tell her, “I think you were right when you were offering some options. I think we could absolutely split time between homes so we could be together. But if that’s not something you’re willing to consider anymore, I’ll move with you to LA permanently.”
“What?” she gasps as her head whips to look at me. “You’d give up your business? Newberry?”
“Newberry? Yes,” I tell her without any doubts. “My business? Not exactly.”
“What would you do?” she asks with her head tilted, and I’m bolstered when she takes my hand now and pulls it over onto her lap.
“I’d hire a manager to oversee the maintenance business,” I tell her, thinking back to the tedious work I did going over my numbers to make sure I could afford it. “But I’d keep the design business. See about expanding it, maybe working some in LA. I’d have to travel a bit, but it wouldn’t be that much.”
“You’d do that?” She looks at me completely awestruck. “You’d give up your home here for me?”
“I’d do anything to be with you, Eden,” I tell her truthfully. “I couldn’t do it fourteen years ago, and I don’t think I was supposed to. I think what happened between us was supposed to happen. Needed to happen. We both went our own ways and we grew up and had experiences. But we were brought back together, and I know you felt it too, honey, but it was right between us. I mean…it was the most right thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”
“But you said we couldn’t make it work,” she reminds me. I knew this was coming and I’m ready for it.
“I was an idiot,” I tell her simply. And that’s my big comeback.
Eden snickers and looks back out over the front yard. “You hate LA. You’d be absolutely miserable there.”
“Not if you were there,” I say, although she’s right, I do hate LA. But she’d more than make up for it.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about this as well, and I’ve got some ideas you might want to consider,” she says as she turns toward me.
“I’m all ears.”
She takes a deep breath and launches. “We make our permanent home here in Newberry at Goodnight House. I’ll sell my home in LA. I’ll continue to act, but cut back on the amount of films I do, with the goal to spend as much time here as I can. When I do travel to film, I’d love for you to come with me. Maybe just for a few weeks here and there so you can attend to your business, or the entire time is great too. Whatever will work best for us both at that point in our lives. And that’s really all I have, but I think it’s the start of a good plan.”
“I’m digging it,” I tell her with a smile.
She doesn’t smile back. “But I’m not sure it’s sustainable.”
My stomach flips. “Why not?”
“Because I have no clue how you really feel about me,” she says softly. “These last few weeks together have been amazing, but they haven’t been revealing. It may have been a very young love we had all those years ago, but it was love. And even with love, we didn’t work out. So while we may have all these great ideas on how we can be together, I’m feeling like we skipped over something really important, and that would be the why of things. Why would we even bother doing this?”
And it’s clear. I mentally slap my forehead as I realize I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Well, that’s not it, really. I just got so panicked when Eden left, and I was trying to come up with the best game plan so she’d take a risk on me, that I forgot something very, very important.
“You want me to tell you I love you,” I say with certainty. I also say it with a confident, almost cocky grin.
“It wouldn’t hurt,” she mutters.
“Eden,” I say as I lean into her, brush my lips against her cheek briefly. Then I bring my hand to the side of her neck, thumb to her cheekbone. “Do you really think I’d fly all over this fucking country just so I could talk to you for two minutes face-to-face if I didn’t love you?”
“You’re referencing that whole ‘actions speak louder than words’?” she quips with a smile, and I’m relieved she finds me amusing.
But I’m also deadly serious. “I love you, Eden. Have since I was sixteen years old. Never stopped once. It may have been dormant, but it never died. And I will do anything to make you understand that, and I will give up Newberry so we can be together forever. I’m not letting you get away this time.”
“I don’t want to get away,” she murmurs, her eyes warm and tender. “I love you too.”
“Thank fuck,” I gust out on a relieved breath, then I’m yanking her into my arms. Wrapping my arms tight around her, I bury my face in her neck. She throws her arms around me too, we just hold each other for a few moments as we take in all that we just gave to each other.
When we finally break apart, I cup her face and give her a sweet kiss. Her eyes flutter closed for a second, then open when I pull my lips from hers. She smiles at me.
Clearing my throat, I say, “Last week…before you walked out…we had talked about kids and where they’d stay if you were traveling.”
“That’s right,” she affirms.
“And you didn’t freak out about the prospect of kids,” I remind her.
“Why would I? I love kids.”
“I know,” I say with a laugh. “But my point is, we were talking about permanent things that we both apparently thought were a given with us.”
“Agreed,” she says cautiously, because she can’t see where I’m going with this. “So…?”
“So we love each other,” I say, affirming the biggest plus we have going for us.
“We do.”
“We’re going to live here together permanently at Goodnight House.”
“True.”
“And we’ve known each other a long time,” I add.
“Most of our lives,” she says with mock disbelief. “That’s a long damn time.”