Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83586 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83586 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
“Hello, Ms. Kemper. How are you today?” Jasper asked when we approached.
“I’m doin’ just fine. I was surprised to hear you wanted to look at this place. I thought you lived with your mama and daddy?” It was impossible not to know almost every damn person in Ryland, or at least for them not to know you or something about you.
“I got a house there, yeah, but Sutton and I are lookin’ to get somethin’ of our own.”
The way her mouth fell open slightly, her gaze shooting between us, I knew she realized what he meant by a place of our own. That we were together. Or at least she was wondering if we were. I could tell when Jasper realized it too by the way he cleared his throat.
We weren’t out there letting the whole town in on our relationship yet, just Carrie, Emerson and Sammy, Ms. Dana at Iris’s, and the way Molly was smiling at us when we had dinner there, she knew for sure now too. The more people who found out, the harder it would be to contain.
“Good for you,” she replied. “This is a smart investment, and I know the two of you together can make it great. It would be a nice place to raise a family or whatever you decide.”
I smiled. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“I’ll show you around.”
We nodded and went along with her. I was grateful for her response. Most people didn’t care, I figured. Sure, there were assholes out there, but there were a lot of good people too. Sometimes the bigots were just the loudest, making it hard not to focus on them. I still worried what Jasper being more open about us would do to his relationship with his folks, but I was trying to trust him and just…be happy. We deserved that, didn’t we?
Ms. Kemper led us through the ranch-style house, which, again, needed a whole lot of work, but it did have good bones. Jasp and I weren’t fancy people. We didn’t need much. We could make it work until we could turn it into something better.
“There’s a lot of options here, Sutt. We can fix her up, remodel to get some more space, have a barn and some animals and whatever else we want.” The excitement in his voice matched the one in my chest. It was perfect.
“I’ll leave the two of you alone for a minute.” She headed to her car, and Jasper and I did a sweep of the property.
“It’s expensive…” I said. “Less than it should be, but maybe too much for us. It’ll take more of our savings than we planned.” Still, I wanted it. I was just trying to be smart.
“We deserve this, Sutt. We’ll figure it out. We can make a home here that’s just ours. It ain’t a spot of land on my folks’ property. It ain’t my house that I designed and you helped with. Everything we do will be us. Can you imagine comin’ home to this after work every day? Spendin’ our weekends buildin’ our future together with our own two hands? Makin’ this everything we could ever want?”
I smiled, my heart going a little crazy. “Yeah, baby. I can imagine it.” And it sounded fucking amazing. “Everything feels almost too good to be true.”
“It ain’t. I won’t let it be.”
And just like that, I believed him.
“We should go out and celebrate,” Jasper said after dinner. We’d played it cool after looking at the house, then came home, called Ms. Kemper, and put in an offer. We got lucky and the owners accepted right away.
“Go out where?” I asked.
“The bar, I guess. We can have a beer. I’ll kick your ass in billiards, then darts. You know, the usual.”
“Whatever, fucker.” I tweaked his nipple, and he jumped off the couch.
“Ouch, damn it.”
“Then be nice. You don’t always beat me.”
“I beat ya most of the time.” Jasper winked. I couldn’t say he was wrong.
“Sounds good to me.” I liked that it felt like we were getting our social lives back and Jasper was still my guy. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t slightly nervous about the day when the guys we socialized with found out about us, and I figured it’d likely be soon. Ms. Kemper wasn’t a gossip as far as I knew, but nothing stayed quiet too long in Ryland.
We showered, changed, then climbed into my truck and headed to the bar downtown.
Rock music was playing when we stepped inside, a band I didn’t recognize, but I liked their sound right away. Larry, the owner, was behind the counter with another male bartender. Larry was older, born and raised in Ryland, and an all-around solid guy. And the bar was pretty busy, people shooting darts, playing pool, sitting around at tables and at the bar, chatting and drinking. I’d missed this place, I realized.