Page 128 of The Goalie in Room 1

“Where the hell are you taking my shit?”

I carried the clothes into the primary suite and set them on the bed.

Cash stopped in the doorway.

His gaze moved from me to the clothes, then around the room. He’d never been in here. He’d never slept in this bed. But he’d likely thought about it every time he slid into bed downstairs. Every time he walked past the stairs. Now, he stood at the threshold, gazing at a room that belonged to a part of the house he probably thought he needed permission to enter.

“Thad.”

“This is our room.”

He didn’t move.

The silence stretched long enough for doubt to creep beneath my skin.

“Unless you don’t want it to be,” I added.

Cash looked at me then. “You don’t have to do this…”

“Yeah, I do.”

“We had sex, and it was—” His lips twitched. “It was really fucking good, but that doesn’t mean… It doesn’t mean…”

I waved my hand around the space. “No. You being the man I want to share it with means you’re moving into my bedroom. If it’s what⁠—”

His expression changed, the humor disappearing so quickly as he scowled at me, his brow furrowing. I wanted to reach for him and joke about his aversion to ifs.

I didn’t.

Cash had spent months having his body handled, moved, supported, and restrained by other people. If he crossed the space between us, it needed to be because he chose to.

“You never said anything about sharing it,” he said.

“I’m saying it now.”

“Because I started moving upstairs.”

“Because you started moving into a guest suite in the house where you already live.”

His eyes narrowed. “I am a guest.”

“You haven’t been a guest since the day you first stepped through the door.”

“Then what have I been?”

Mine.

The answer came too fast. Too possessive. Too close to everything Cash feared about people who gave him something and thought it bought them a claim.

“The first person I look for when I come home,” I said instead. “The reason I started coming home at all.”

His throat moved.

“I wake up and listen for you. I walk into the kitchen and expect to find you arguing with the coffee maker. I buy food I don’t eat because you like it. Half the shit in my living room is yours, and when you spend the day at Halo House, this place feels wrong until you walk back through the door.”

Cash glanced down.

“I don’t want you upstairs because we had sex,” I continued. “I want you here because I’m in love with you.”