Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2)(81)

Further, I wouldn’t have to give up any of my belongings, these being both hard-earned, and I liked them. My furniture would fit in his house and not only aesthetically. We could set up one of his empty bedrooms as a guest room, and fill his empty den with my living room furniture.

Huge bonus: due to Core being a strictly jeans-and-tee/Henley/thermal/sometimes when the occasion warranted it button down-type of guy, his huge walk-in closet was barely filled. My closet was overstuffed. My things would fit in there, and I’d have room to expand.

We’d double up on kitchen stuff, but other than that, like we had into each other’s lives, I could slot right in.

Then there was the fact he had a garage.

He had a yard.

He had a dog.

He had a much bigger kitchen.

He had a pool table where we played, he regularly trounced me and I secretly loved it, because he was almost that teeny-weeniest bit of cute when he’d rub it in after he beat me.

The only con was that my office was about ten minutes farther from his place than the drive from my apartment.

Oh, and it was a big step.

Sure, we’d done a lot of the work of starting a relationship, getting into the deep stuff, mingling friends and families, fighting, making up.

But we hadn’t talked kids. We hadn’t talked future. We hadn’t talked money in the sense of what his home expenditures were and what I’d contribute. We also hadn’t talked money in the sense that I was already building a nest egg that would mean I’d live a very cushy, hopefully early retirement, and where he was with that kind of thing.

In thinking about it (which, since he suggested it, I’d done…a lot), I didn’t care about giving up my space. Core had a three-bedroom house with a den and a big pack patio. We didn’t have to be up in each other’s business every second we were together, we had places we could go.

Truth, in all the pros, outside the fact we had some deeper conversations to have, there really wasn’t a single con.

Everything with us was so great, I didn’t know what my hang-up was, except the fact I didn’t want to fail. I didn’t want to be one of those women who got all wrapped up in the first bloom of a relationship and made irrational decisions based on orgasms and male attention.

But this was not me.

Failing was part of living. I’d done it before and survived. And I couldn’t imagine Core and I would fail.

We worked great together.

Further, I didn’t care what anyone thought of me and my decisions.

Except Dad.

The thought hit me like a streak of lightning.

Because it was true.

Okay…

Well.

Shit.

But there it was.

My hang-up was all about the fact I didn’t want it getting to Dad I’d met someone, and within a few months, moved in with him, and then it went to hell, and I had to start over again. I didn’t want him to feel smug knowing I fucked up, and maybe, if I’d come to him for advice, or maybe, if I hadn’t gotten in deep with a biker, but instead, set my sights to someone Dad deemed worthy, I’d be on the fast-track to the perfect life with a doctor or a lawyer or something.

And maybe, since this was true, the foundation of what was driving me in pretty much everything I did was the need to prove something to him too.

To prove I didn’t need him anymore for the child support he held over Mom’s head, or the college tuition he held over mine.

To prove I had it together. I wasn’t just making it, I was killing it. I was twenty-three (nearly twenty-four), I had my own business, employed a member of staff, was expanding, and oh yeah, on top of all of that, I’d found the perfect guy who Dad would probably hate, but that guy was everything.

Okay.

Well…

Damn.

This was real.

This was who I was.

This ambition had been poured into the foundation that created me.

And seriously, what the hell was this nonsense?

So my dad being a dick made me want to make certain I was never just making it, I was killing it? So he had a part in giving me the drive not just to look after myself, but make something of myself? Giving me the strength to be independent and content to do my own thing?

Who cared?

Finally, I had something to thank him for (not that I’d do that).

I wanted to live with Core. Wake up and go to sleep beside him. Come home and eat his cooking. Go with him to his clubhouse for a drink with his brothers and their old ladies. Watch him, chilled out and stoned, his eyes to the TV, his fingers in my hair, settled and happy.

Fuck that noise. Fuck that damage.

And fuck my dad.

I wanted all I wanted, and I was going to get it.

And I wanted Core.

I nearly started laughing.

Because I couldn’t deny it.

I wanted to be an old lady.

I was actually thrilled with the idea.

I was keen to get home then, having made the decision.

Get home and tell Core I’d made it.

Then celebrate, because Core was going to be ecstatic (and Core’s version of ecstatic made me ecstatic).

After that, talk kids, and future, and money.

And all the things.

We had time, and we’d be living together so plenty of opportunity to do it.

Honestly?

I couldn’t wait.

So I was closing down, feeling light and bubbly and excited and fluttery, and all those girlie things that I also no longer cared Core made me feel because they felt fucking great.