“I know,” I say gently. “You’ve had plenty of reasons to be cautious. Your ex-fiancée left. Your design career got sidelined. You’ve spent years being the one who stays while everyone else walks away.”
He looks down, then lifts his gaze again, surprisingly steady.
“And you’ve spent years leaving before anyone had the chance to ask you to stay.”
“Exactly,” I say, grateful for his clarity. “We’re opposite sides of the same fear—you’re afraid of being left. I’m afraid of getting stuck. You stay too long. I never stay at all.”
“Not exactly a promising foundation,” he says, though his tone holds no bitterness.
“Or maybe it’s the perfect one.”
Itake a breath.
“Your roots balance my wings. My momentum balances your steadiness. Together, we might actually reach the middle ground neither of us could find alone.”
He doesn’t respond right away, but I can see the calculation behind his eyes—not numbers this time, but something quieter. The math of trust. Of risk. Of whether love is worth the unknown variables.
“What if it doesn’t work?” he asks. “The business. Us. Any of it.”
“Then we adapt,” I say. “Like we did with the beam removal. With the water damage. Like we’ve done with every curveball this house has thrown at us.”
I step closer, close enough that I have to tip my chin to meet his eyes.
“I can’t promise I won’t get scared. That the part of me that wants to run won’t flare up now and then. But I will stay anyway. I’ll choose you. This place. What we’re building—together—even when it’s hard.”
Something in him shifts. A softening. Or maybe just a surrender.
“I’ve never been anyone’s load-bearing person before,” he says.
“Well,” I smile gently, “I’ve never admitted to needing one before. So we’re both in new territory.”
His gaze drops to the business plan, then to the rendering, then back to me.
“This would mean big changes. For both of us.”
“Terrifying, isn’t it?” I say. “Almost as scary as buying a house drunk or kissing your contractor during a blackout.”
That earns a flicker of amusement.
“You have a history of impulsive decisions.”
“I prefer to call it inspired risk-taking,” I say. “With a mixed track record—but this?” I gesture toward the business plan. “This is the most researched, carefully thought-out risk I’ve ever taken.”
He doesn’t speak. Just lets his gaze drift again to the sketch labeledWinslow Cottage, to the artist’s rendering, to the materials I’ve spent days assembling. Then he meets my eyes—and it lands. That click you feel when something heavy slides into place.
“I’ll come back to the project,” he says. The words are slow. Measured. Deliberate. “To finish what we started.”
“The house?” I ask, my voice quiet, needing to be sure we mean the same thing.
“The house,” he confirms.
“And... the rest.”
He glances at the proposal. “The business needs more discussion. More planning. But the concept’s sound.”
Relief rushes through me so fast it nearly knocks me off balance.
“So you’re saying yes? To being my load-bearing person?”
