“I can’t wait. Honestly.” He was impatient to get home now.
“Good. Bye now.”
“Bye, Momma.” He hung up and opened up his laptop. Just one more email and then he could turn this in and get moving.
“Hey, Connor?” There was a light knock on the door.
Jesus Christ. “Hey, Kit, come on in.”
“Hey. Wow. I can’t believe—”
“It’s really my last day. It is. It’s crazy right?”
Kit smiled, embarrassed. “So…about the Lunar deal.”
“I sent you an email with the status, and everything you need is in the file I left on your desk.” Kit was nervous about him leaving, he knew. “You’re going to be fine.”
“Yeah, you’re only a phone call away, right? I can’t believe you’re moving to the middle of nowhere on a ranch.”
“It’s not the middle of nowhere, it’s just a big property.” A huge property. Which, okay, did kind of made it the middle of nowhere. He looked around his office. “I think I have everything.”
“Are you sure?”
Was the question “are you sure you have everything” or “are you sure about leaving”?
The answer was the same either way. “Yeah, Kit. I’m sure.” He put the lid on his box and picked it up. It was time to go before someone else stopped him. “I’ll be in touch. I want to do some freelance. I’ll probably call next week.”
“Okay. Well, enjoy your new adventure, huh? I mean, a ranch! Cool.”
His phone buzzed. He put the box down and pulled his phone out, afraid of what it could be this time.
Oh, thank goodness. Some good news. “Sorry, Kit… It’s Early.”
He lifted his box again. “Gotta run, Kit. You’ve got this. Take care.” He didn’t wait for Kit to answer, he just made a beeline for the elevator.
Early was waiting for him at the house, and his boys were waiting for him in Durango. The pool, the amazing shower, the hot tub—those were all waiting.
The drive back to the house was both too long and too short. He was ready to see Early, but he wasn’t as ready as he thought to see the house so empty. “Wow.” He stood in the foyer with Early, an arm around his husband’s waist.
“Right? It’s insane. I sort of want to load the Beemer in a hurry and go, because it’s so weird.” Early held on tight.
It was weird. And it didn’t feel like the place he wanted to remember now that it was empty. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s just do it. You want to? We can get dinner on the road.”
“I’d love that. There’s not a lot—the coolers, the food, the suitcases, our pillows, and the picture of the four of us that goes above the mantle.” Early insisted that the portrait needed to travel with them.
He hadn’t argued, it was possibly their most important possession. It represented the day they became a family. “Everything in the trunk except the portrait. That can go in the backseat. I left a blanket out for it.”
The car ended up way more packed than he’d intended, but there was room to see and for both of them to fit in.
Early looked over at him, face serious. “Are you ready for this, darlin’?”
“I don’t know. Are we ever really ready for anything, you and I? Were we ready to get married? Ready to adopt the boys? How did we know? I think we just make the best decisions we can and jump in with both feet.” He trusted in what he and Early were together and that was that.
“So long as I have you beside me, that’s what I need. Let’s go home before Mommama drowns the boys in the river.”
He laughed and gave Early a sidelong look as he started the car. “She called me, you know.”
“Oh god. She is panicking that we’re going to decide all of the sudden to fly to Belize and leave her with the boys.”