Dream Maker (Dream Team 1)

“Okay then, what is it?”

“Bungalows and a couple Denver squares that, if we go the distance, you can boho the fuck out of and they got big garages so I can have some space for my man cave to get away from the macramé.”

I blinked up at him.

“You want kids?” he asked.

I bobbed my head mutely.

“Two? Three?” he went on.

I shook my head.

His brows went up. “Four?”

“No,” I said softly. “I don’t know. Two. Maybe three, because, if the first two are the same gender, I’d want to try it again so I could have both.”

He smiled down at me and shifted closer, holding tight to my hands.

“Mo’s old room would be crowded for all that,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I pushed out.

“Babe, relax,” he said on another hand squeeze. “This isn’t pressure. And this isn’t restlessness. This is me being a thirty-four-year-old guy who’s got a wad of cash in the bank who lives in a condo, shotgunning beers, and he’s beginning to wonder what fertilizers will make the greenest lawn. It’s growing up, honey, bein’ smart with my money. And I just happened to meet this girl I like a fuckuva lot, so why not?”

Oh man.

He was on the road to leave behind the frat boy and become a full-blown Hawk.

I felt a highly pleasant internal quiver at that thought and choked out, “Yeah. Why not?”

“And just so you know, that’s not gonna be the forever home. I’ll always be working to give more to my woman, more to my kids, until the kids are off and it’s time to downsize.” He got even closer. “What I’m sayin’ is, don’t let Nikki put shit into your head that that’s an issue. It wasn’t right with her and I didn’t read it, but my behavior stated it clear. We settled but we never settled in and definitely didn’t settle down because, if I did that with her, it would be settling, and that wasn’t what I wanted.”

“I don’t want that for you either, Danny.”

“You know anything about fertilizers?” he asked.

“No clue,” I answered, and offered, “I could do some research for you, though.”

“That’d take the fun out of it,” he muttered.

“It’s a lot of change for you in a short period of time, a long-term relationship being over, buying Mo’s place and his stuff, meeting me, my issues, then looking at houses.”

“So Nikki’s shit already got into your head.”

“I actually didn’t remember it until just now, but maybe, yeah,” I admitted.

“Want honesty?” he asked.

I nodded.

“All right,” he began. “Your apartment is a disaster. You gotta start almost from scratch. I want you off the stage at Smithie’s because that isn’t where you wanna be and I want you in a classroom and on the way to the life you should be leading, something you want too. It’d be a lie if I said that wasn’t part of a number of reasons I decided to have a look around a real estate website. And I’d be a dick, I was with a woman I was into, she knows how into her I am, and I looked into buying a property without taking into account that her ass might be livin’ in it with me. If I get serious about this, we’ll go look at places together. Do I think it’s time for us to make what we got now official in that way? I don’t know. It feels right. I love spending time with you. But where we’re at isn’t normal. I’d want some normal in before we go down that road. That said, you gotta know, you’re definitely a consideration and a major one.”

I stared up at him.

This lasted some time.

“That freak you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then why aren’t you talking?”

“I’m trying to decide how I’m going to give you an orgasm.”

His expression changed, it was a lovely change, then he moved Mag Fast, the TV was off and he was pulling me to his bedroom.

Mag no longer put his sling on to sleep.

Which was good.

Because in the end, I gave him two orgasms (to him giving me three), and as such, we both passed out.Chapter NineteenThe MiracleEvieI woke up on my stomach, leg hitched, eyes aimed over the edge of the bed.

It was quiet and dawn was on the room.

It was also Sunday.

Sunday.

The best day of the week.

And I thought that even though I had to strip at the end of it.

It was also a week after I came home from Smithie’s to find Mag looking for new homes on Zillow.

With me definitely a consideration.

And it’d been a good week. No kidnappings or shootings, and except for Rob texting me in a restrained way I knew he was holding himself back from begging so he could see I was okay (but more, since he mostly knew I was okay, he wanted to meet Mag and decide if he approved), no family drama.