“The one and only.” He held his arms out. “I’m gonna be your neighbor.”
“Not sure you have the right definition of neighbor,” I quipped as I met him at the bottom of the steps. “But sure, we’ll go with that.”
“You’re too smart for your own good.”
“Whatever you say, sir.”
Cade’s face screwed up as he stopped next to a sleek black car so shiny I could see my face reflected back at me in the bodywork. “That sounds downright disgusting coming from your mouth.”
I fluttered my lashes and clasped my hands together, doing my best impression of the girls who had surrounded him on the field. “You don’t like it, sir?”
“Ew.” Cade shook his head as if to erase the words I’d spoken from his mind. He pointed at me from the opposite side of the car in warning. “Stop it.”
“Or what?” I asked, pulling the door open when the lights flashed. “You gonna give me detention?”
Cade’s nostrils flared, but the glint in his eyes told me he was playing. “Maybe I will, Miss Aria.”
I pushed inside the car and tried to hold in my laughter. “You know that’s not my last name, right?”
He turned the engine on and winked at me. “I know, but I kinda like the way it sounds.”
I clicked my fingers and stared out the windshield as he pulled out of the parking spot. “Gotcha, kinda like how I call you sir.”
“Exactly. Wait. No. Stop calling me that.”
I grinned, so wide it actually hurt. “Okay, sir.”
“Dammit, Aria. You’re gonna be the death of me.”
“Promises, promises.”
* * *
CADE
I stared at the front of my new house. Mine. I owned an actual house. I wasn’t sure this day was ever going to come, but now it was here, and it meant I was a real adult. The three-bedroom house was more than I needed for just me, but I couldn’t turn it down at the price.
It was a fixer-upper. The siding needed to be replaced, the wood on the small porch needed sanding and varnishing, and the inside needed to be ripped out and started again. Between Dad and me, we’d already stripped out the kitchen and re-plastered all the walls. It was a blank canvas now, and today, the new kitchen was being installed by professionals, and the walls were being painted by Dad, Lola, Belle, Asher, and me.
“Did you know there are three bedrooms?” Belle asked, sidling up next to me as I watched men carry cabinets into the house.
“There is?” I raised a brow, acting like I had no idea, and looked down at her not-so-innocent face.
“Yep.” She pushed her flowing light-brown hair behind her ears with the palms of her hands.
“Hmmm.” I nodded but said nothing else. I knew what she was going to say. The same thing she had since she found out I was moving back home.
Belle and I had always been close. There was a time I hated my dad for being with Lola. Hated that he was with a woman closer to my age than his. But it hadn’t taken long for me to understand that what they had was different from what he'd had with my mom. It was so different: night and day.
As soon as Belle had come into this world, I knew I’d love her more than anything else. I hated that I had to move away to college when she was a toddler. At first, I’d come home on weekends, but by my senior year, my workload was so insane I only managed one out of every six.
I hated it. And I knew she hated it.
So as soon as I told her I was moving back home, she’d squealed and told me all about the plans for the room she would have at my house. And now I was guessing she’d already chosen which one she would claim as hers.
“I like the one with the view of the backyard,” Belle continued, not unfazed by me being non-committal.
“Nope.” I shook my head and held my hand out to her. Her small palm pressed against my large one, and then we walked up the short path lined with grass on one side and the driveway to the garage on the other. “That’s my room.”