“How is it that you’re this picky about houses?” Ramsey’s voice echoed in the cavernous foyer with a chandelier the size of the Rock of Gibraltar hanging from the ceiling, and I shrugged.
“I wasn’t aware I was.”
“What’s wrong with this one?”
“I dunno.” I glanced around. There wasn’t anything wrong with it. It wasn’t over-the-top, aside from the chandelier. It was perfectly decent. “Just doesn’t have the right vibe.”
“Maybe vibes are best left in your dresser drawer.”
I snorted and shoved him toward the door.
The next place Laura showed us was only a couple of miles away from the first but felt like a different world. As we wound up a long, gated driveway, I glimpsed a peaked roof in the distance. A few moments later we hopped out of the car in front of what looked like a tamer version of a mountain lodge.
Ramsey lifted a brow. “This is interesting.”
“It needs a little work,” Laura said. “But wait until you see the back. There’s a pond and a huge deck.”
Ramsey and I exchanged a smirk because apparently the more we fucked, the more juvenile we became in each other’s presence.
“Right vibe?” Ramsey asked.
I studied the windows like I knew what the hell I was looking for. I didn’t. “Maybe.”
The interior was so far from the first mansion I’d ever envied, I couldn’t believe I liked the place, but I did. Laura was right that it needed work, though. It was stuck in the ’90s, with musty old carpet everywhere, but when Laura led us to a wall of windows overlooking a huge redwood deck that stretched out over the pond, isolated from the neighbors by thick blue spruce trees and scrub oaks, the view stopped us all in our tracks.
“All right, this is cool as shit,” Ramsey murmured. “I’ve got a bunch of contractor names if you wanted to upgrade it.”
Laura looked more excited than I’d seen her all day. “Do you think you might want to make an offer?”
“I need to sleep on it,” I told her. But after we’d walked through the rest of the house again, I kept coming back to that deck. I could see it in the spring, a bunch of us hanging out there in the off-season. Grilling, drinking beer. Me, Houston, Cross, Ramsey…and goddamn, when had I gotten into family-style daydreams?
Once we said goodbye to Laura, Ramsey and I climbed back in my car so I could drop him off at home.
“It’s a badass place,” he said, gazing at the passing scenery.
I allowed myself five seconds to imagine Ramsey coming over, a late afternoon sunset, smoke from the grill mingling with a warm summer breeze that grew cooler as it passed over the water. The two of us sitting out there together, with a bucket of beers or, fuck it, even just glasses of water between us. “It could be really fucking nice,” I said, hoping he’d assume I meant the house. But maybe some of the wistfulness in my chest seeped into my voice because his gaze shifted to me and lingered an extra beat before I snapped mine away and squashed the fantasy.
“I wouldn’t hate having you as a neighbor, by the way.”
“You should be so lucky.”
“Especially with that deck. I’d be over all the time.”
“Over it all the time.”
“I said deck, not dick.”
“Same thing.”
Ramsey burst into a laugh, unbuckling his seat belt as I stopped in front of his house. “Goddamn, I don’t know what to do with you sometimes.”
“Shutting me up seems to be working out just fine for you so—” Before I could finish, Ramsey leaned over the seat, demonstrating how well that tactic worked by kissing me soundly on the lips before sliding from the car.
17
RAMSEY
The room was quiet except for the sound of our breathing. We were both naked, after I’d just come in Garrett’s ass. There was nothing like fucking him, especially since we’d been going at it raw.
Garrett’s head rested on my arm, which was around him, fingers drawing circles on his sweat-slicked skin. He’d spent every night of our bye week at my house. Even when we’d gone to look at places, he’d dropped me off, gone home for a bit or to see his parents, but then had ended up with me again.
It was…different. Not that I hadn’t had women sleep over at my place—exhibit A: the stalker, sleeping photos—but not on the regular like G had been. It had always made me slightly uneasy with others, so I’d kept it to a minimum to avoid mixed messages. But I actually liked it when it came to Garrett. I wanted him here, liked cuddling with him, working out with him, feeling the bed shift because he couldn’t stay still. He also did this cute thing right before he fell asleep where he’d sigh deeply, then almost whimper, before snuggling in like he was the most comfortable he’d ever been.