“You know, I’ve also played with the idea of using some of the money for a down payment on a house.” She shrugged. “I mean, why pay rent on two apartments when we could be building equity by owning a house?”
We.
Our apartments.
Everything about that statement had included him. His pulse quickened, and the big picture ofthemswam before him.
They’d been basically living together for the last two-and-a-half months, so it wasn’t totally out of left field.
Things had been going so well between them that he’d had to tell himself to slow down and not rush things.
Especially when he found himself thinking long term and looking at rings. It was too fast for that.
While he was pushing thirty, Tori wasn’t even twenty-four yet.
But did he like the idea of getting a house with her?
Hell, yeah.
Before he could respond, his cell buzzed from an incoming text.
“Hold that thought.” He glanced at his phone and grimaced at the message from one of the senior partners. “Chuck asked me to take care of something with a client really quick.”
“Oh. Sure.”
Though really quick could mean twenty minutes, which meant the ice cream social would be wrapping up.
“We’ll talk more tonight, okay?”
“Sure.”
God, he wanted to kiss her. Squeeze her hand. Give some sign of affection, but because they were keeping the work PDAs to zilch, he settled for stealing a gummy worm off her ice cream.
“Easy there, gummy thief.”
He winked before turning with his own dessert and making his way back inside.
*
Tori watched himhead back to the elevators and bit back a groan.
Great. She’d probably freaked him out with that whole buying a house talk. His expression had certainly been a little stunned.
It had all come out wrong, though. She hadn’t exactly meant they should buy a house together. She’d only been trying to say it was silly for them basically to be spending all their nights together, while paying rent on two separate apartments.
She could count the amount of nights they hadn’t stayed together on one hand.
They were damn near inseparable. James wasn’t just her lover, he’d become a close friend. Just as close as his sister, even.
The realization made her heart flutter and warm as she stared at the view in front of her.
The sky was a gorgeous blue, dotted with occasional marshmallow clouds. A ferryboat moved slowly through Elliot Bay on its way over to Bainbridge Island.
It was an absolutely perfect Seattle day. And she could barely appreciate it, because James took up like 99.9% of her thoughts.
Oh, man. She was such a mess. She’d let him in. Despite her vow never to let herself fall hard for a guy, it’d happened.
It was hard to regret it, though. He was such a nice guy.