“Now, do you see where I’m comin’ from?” he pushed.
“How about we go halfsies?” I suggested.
Deacon looked to the ceiling.
I took that as a no.
“It was just a suggestion,” I muttered.
He looked back to me. “You want diamonds and pearls, you got it. You want to fly to Paris, I’ll have to swing a passport, but I’ll do it and you got that too. You want anything and I got it in me to give it to you, I’ll give it to you. But that is not this. This is day-to-day, give and take, me takin’ care of you, you takin’ care of me. I get you got it in you to take care of yourself. You showed me that for six years. What you gotta get is that, if we want this to work, you gotta budge on that and give me my shot at doin’ it ’cause I’m the type of man who’s got that in me in a way there is no other way I can be.”
His words made me feel warm and squishy, but this conversation was too important to leave it at that.
“I can do that,” I allowed. “But there has to be compromise.”
“Yeah, I suck at cooking mostly ’cause I hate that shit. You’re fuckin’ great at it. You take that on, after years of fast food, I’ll be eternally grateful and put up new gutters on every fuckin’ cabin at Glacier Lily.”
“It seems I get more out of that than you do.”
“Obviously you haven’t eaten garbage for ten years.”
This was again intriguing.
And again, Deacon didn’t give more.
I didn’t push it.
I gave in.
“All right. You pay for the gutters but only if you let me help you put them up and on the added condition that if something like this ever comes up again, we have a discussion. You don’t catapult me into the Badass Zone, take over, and make the decisions for both of us.”
“The Badass Zone?”
“A zone you live in constantly. A zone I live in when I’m with you. It becomes capitalized and I visit it when you establish badass boundaries, so, FYI, it’s the zone we’re in right now.”
A smile spread on his face even as his lips ordered, “Here.”
“See?” I stated, lifting a hand to point at his mouth. “Badass Zone.”
He crossed his arms on his chest.
“Just to say,” I continued, dropping my hand. “I’m not only argumentative, I’m ornery and stubborn. If you want to have a badass stand-off, I should warn you, as badass as you are, there’s still a very good chance you’ll lose.”
I finished my declaration on a startled cry because Deacon lunged, nabbed my hand, and stepped back, sending me sailing into him. I was still dealing with colliding with his long, hard frame when his arms wound around me and his mouth crushed down on mine.
He kissed me with tongue and he did it deep.
When he lifted his head, he murmured, “Funny, feels like winning.”
And again, he was not wrong.
*
“Okay, Milagros,” I said into the phone. “See you later.”
“Hasta luego, Cassidy,” she said back then I heard her disconnect.
I put the phone down on the arm of my Adirondack chair and tangled my feet with Deacon’s on the railing.
Deacon didn’t object.
I fought the grin that caused and asked, “You cool with dinner tomorrow at Milagros and Manuel’s?”
“Said I was when you asked me when you were talkin’ to her,” Deacon noted.
“Yes, but I was talking to her when I asked,” I replied. “Now’s your chance to get out while you can.”
“It’ll be good, Cassie.”
I had a feeling it would.
I also had a feeling it wouldn’t.
That was because everything with Deacon was turning out good.
But Milagros and Manuel meant the world to me and there was no way Deacon could sit at their table and be Deacon. I knew this when he introduced himself as Priest.
And you didn’t lie to your friends.
Resolutely turning my mind from that to the bright side, I was right, astoundingly right, gleefully right.
Working alongside your man was fun.
Okay, not fun but it was still awesome.
I knew this because I helped Deacon install my gutters. It wasn’t done but we had three sides of the house completed.
He didn’t talk while he worked, I didn’t either, but working side by side getting something that needed done done felt great.
“Warning,” he stated, taking me from my thoughts. “There’ll come a time, and soon, when you’ll be entering Badass Zone again. This being when I talk to you about the state of your shingles.”
I grabbed my beer, brought it to my mouth, and before taking a sip, murmured, “Noted.”
“You got leaks?” he asked.
“Not that I know of,” I answered.
“Miracle,” he muttered.
I grinned at the trees as I put my beer back to the arm of the chair.
“Want dinner?” I asked.
“I could eat,” he answered.
I untangled my feet from his, put them to the deck, pulled myself out of the chair, and moved to the side of his.
I bent over him and the only movement he made was tipping his head back to catch my eyes.
“Then you’ll eat,” I said softly before I leaned in deeper and touched my mouth to his.