She’d happened to be looking at the relevant page on RISD’s Web site, so she’d turned her laptop to let him read the tuition figures on the screen. He’d widened his eyes and blinked, and Victoria had snorted. “That’s without books and supplies.”
“Ah. So no, then, you’d definitely need help.”
“Probably. But I’ll take things one step at a time.”
Time. He’d been right about that. Victoria didn’t have to decide anything immediately. And neither did Ethan; he’d taken his own advice and finally admitted he also needed some time to work things out before he committed to taking over Doc’s practice.
“Doc didn’t really want to retire yet anyway,” he’d explained on Monday night as they watched the sunset from the front porch of the main house. “And if he ends up changing his mind and selling to somebody else, it’s not like I’m out of options. We’re talking about a year off. I never had a . . . what do they call it? When you do a year before you start the next school thing?”
“A gap year?” Victoria had nestled closer to Ethan for warmth. They’d spent most of the day on the porch; soon it would be too warm for that, and she couldn’t quite believe that by then she would be in New York again. It was easier to pretend she could stay at Hilltop forever, watching sunsets from the comforting confinement of Ethan’s arms.
“Yeah, a gap year. Not to work, and not to go backpacking around Europe, whatever. Driving around to kink cons, selling rope, setting up the house in different places . . . that can be my gap year.” True, it might set him back when and if he tried to get back into practice; but hell, he could figure that out when he got there. “My world is opening up right now. For once I’m going to embrace that and stop worrying so much about what might happen down the line.”
Embracing his new world had included embracing Victoria at that moment, so she’d supported him wholeheartedly. She still did, even though they’d be apart sooner than she wanted to think about. Who knew where they’d be in a year or so? Maybe his nationwide rope tour would bring him to the East Coast. Maybe after she finished her degree she’d move back to Texas for some career opportunity. Stranger things had happened. And she hadn’t known him long enough to feel like she was sacrificing one need for another . . . right?
Ethan had been texting rapidly, apparently in an active back and forth with his correspondent. When he finally put the phone back in his pocket, he wasn’t frowning anymore, but he wasn’t smiling either. Not sure what to make of his expression and not wanting to pry into the details of whatever he’d been texting about, Victoria dove into the conversational breach with a new topic.
“So you know my dad called again this afternoon?”
“Oh, yeah? His new hobby. I’m glad you’re talking to him, though. You seem happier.”
“I am happier.” Not least because of a certain irresistible rope nerd. “I’m not sure what to do, though. My parents have this thing with estate taxes. They want to give me a car. Not the BMW. A cheap car, under fourteen thousand dollars. So, should I take it? Once I get to Rhode Island, not when I’m in Manhattan.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “A free car? Hell yeah, you should take it. But . . . but I haven’t been in your shoes.” Suddenly restless, he shifted his weight and ran his fingers through his hair, spiking it up and not bothering to smooth it back down. “Look. Okay, here’s the deal. You want to live as cheaply as possible, right?”
“Well . . . within reason.” Her notion of what reasonable meant had changed drastically over the past few months, but she still had standards. Indoor plumbing, for instance, was nonnegotiable; peeing outside in the dark at Ethan’s had shown her it wasn’t necessary, but also reminded her how much she valued it.
“Sure.” He finally stilled enough to make eye contact again. “Uh, you like the tiny house, right?”
“Oh. Yes. But it’s . . . here. I mean . . . I like it, it’s just that—”
“Right. But what if it was there? In Rhode Island. Or close. Canterbury, Connecticut, to be exact. It’s about an hour away from Providence, maybe a little less.” He looked at her very earnestly and took one of her hands again, pressing it between both of his palms.
Victoria could hear her heart pounding, blood rushing in her ears. “You’re . . . are you offering me your house or . . . ?”
“I’m offering me and the house. Package deal.”
* * *
Ethan exhaled slowly, trying to keep his composure, while Victoria processed what he’d just said. After a moment he lost it and started talking again to break the silence. “My friend Trey owns this horse farm in Canterbury. We’ve known each other since Davis. See, earlier I remembered how small everything is over on the East Coast, so I checked the map and found out his place was really close to Providence. So I texted him just in case, and asked if he’d be hip to me parking the house there for a year or so, and he said—that was him, just now—he said sure, come on over. And it would only be a few hundred a month, plus we can cook at home a lot, so it would be a huge savings. You could still take the loan if you wanted, but maybe you wouldn’t have to.”
Victoria inhaled, then paused. “That’s . . . that’s a lot to think about. I wasn’t expecting that.” She picked up the level again, contemplating the movement of the air bubble as she rocked the device back and forth. Her next words made Ethan’s heart race. “Could you have a ropewalk there, though?”
“Yeah, yeah. He’s kinky. It’s how we know each other. I mean, we met in class, but then . . . you know.” He knew she was going to say yes. He had to play it cool because she was dragging it out, but he had felt things click into place so firmly that all his anxiety had turned to pure anticipation in an instant. “And the East Coast is good for kink, he says.”
She grinned, finally letting him see the growing spark of delight and hope in her eyes. “Oh my God, yes. There are so many kink events within a few hours’ drive from there.”
He nodded, feeling almost light-headed with possibility. “Maybe you can do your senior project on ropes.”
“Nope. I already have a topic. God. If we’re doing this, I guess I should tell my parents this weekend. Uh . . .” She stopped and contemplated him, her face unreadable again. “ ‘Mom and Dad, I got that job in Manhattan and I’ll probably go back to school in the fall, but I’m also moving to Connecticut with . . . some guy.’ Would we be . . . what would we be? Roommates? Fuck buddies? What’s the Facebook status, here? I can’t tell them I’m moving in with ‘It’s complicated and he ties me up a lot.’ Accurate though that might be.”
“Is it?” He was starting to think that assuming things were complicated might be part of his problem. “Complicated, I mean? I think it’s pretty simple. ‘In a relationship.’ We can decide what that means as we go along, right? Tell them the truth: We started seeing each other after you got here, we want to spend more time together, and now we want to try living together. And if the worst happens, and after a few months we start to annoy the hell out of each other, at least you’ll have a few paychecks under your belt. You can go to Providence and continue with your original plan.”
She looked like a series of emoticons come to life, and it was adorable. “I wouldn’t even need that car. It’s a farm, right? I could just keep borrowing the farm truck.”
“No, you should absolutely accept the car.” There, he’d said it.
She glanced up at him and stage whispered, “Of course I’m taking the car; I’m not an idiot. Free car.”
“Oh thank God.”
“On the other hand, I do already have a line on a supercheap apartment in Providence . . .” Her forehead wrinkled and she looked off at the horizon. “It would be better for the environment not to commute by car at all.”
He shook his head. “I can’t recommend that.” Folding his fingers over hers, he pried her hand free and brought it up to his lips, pressing a kiss to each of her knuckles as she’d done to him minutes earlier. “For, oh, let’s say three reasons at least. One, Roxie
would miss you terribly.”
A smile flashed over her lips, so swift he almost missed it. Her gaze flickered toward his as if she couldn’t help herself. “Well that would be bad.”
“Two, I would miss you terribly.”
She tilted her head from one side to the other, then finally let her smile stick. “Okay, I would miss you, too.”
“Because you’re falling in love with me.”
“Yeah. I am.” She squeezed his fingers and her smile deepened until her dimples showed.
“Oh good, because if you hadn’t been, that would have been really awkward. And I’m falling in love with you. And we need time to see how that plays out, right?” He dropped a kiss on her smiling lips, intoxicated by her proximity.
“What’s three?”
“Huh?”
“You said three reasons at least,” she reminded him, standing on tiptoe to kiss him as if that might help him remember.
Fortunately, he didn’t require help. “Three,” he said, pulling her into his arms, “is obvious. Your tiny, crappy apartment in Providence almost certainly wouldn’t have a big-ass bondage frame in the middle of the living room.”
She was giggling when he kissed her again, and it was like kissing a glass of champagne. A toast to their future, which was suddenly full of possibilities.
Chapter 19
Victoria had put the wall hanging up while Ethan was checking the trailer hitch. She jumped down from the door and closed it firmly behind her, dusting her hands off on her thighs as she approached him. It didn’t help; her hands stayed grubby. It was almost ninety, the humidity was insane, and between the sweat and the dust, she felt grimy pretty much all the time. But that would change once they got far enough east.
“Everything’s secure, hatches all battened down for traveling. Or rather, all the cabinets are latched and the books are strapped in. But I left the throw pillows and bed linens on, and the wall art all stays up in transit, so it’s still ready to show off before we leave.”
“Attagirl. So glad you know something about decorating, because this thing would have turned into a complete crapfest otherwise. I did not research that part sufficiently.”
“I knew there was a reason you loved me.”
He grinned, stepping away from the hitch and grabbing her before she could escape. “Are we talking about your ass?” He shifted his grip so he could squeeze the body part under discussion.
Victoria reached around his neck to pull him down for a kiss. Hot, sticky, whatever. He’d earned a solid kiss. They both had, after all the work they’d put in on the house. They hadn’t quite beat the heat; it was late May, and they would have preferred to leave about two weeks earlier. But now Victoria was glad they’d waited for all the last-minute pieces they’d ordered, and finished everything completely. It felt better to start off that way. Solid. Prepared for whatever came along. Feeling completely at home in their handmade home.
They’d worked their asses off the past few months—both of them putting in time on the house, Victoria getting increasingly into her new job, and Ethan doing everything he could to make sure the ranch wasn’t impacted by their absence. And they’d spent hours each week building up stock for the rope business. They’d earned every square inch of their portable retreat from the world.
Ethan released her with a final pat on the butt. “Okay. Let’s get this baby rolling. Keep your fingers crossed.”
They got in the cab, and Ethan spent what felt like an eternity to Victoria carefully maneuvering the trailer off the space it had been parked on, over to the gravel service road that trailed around the property, and down to the turnoff where the service road merged into the main driveway.
When they finally made it there—without incident, although there had been a few hair-raisingly tight turns—most of the ranch staff, plus Victoria’s mother and sister, were there to see them off. And to finally see the completed tiny house, which Ethan had been denying access to for the past month. He’d wanted a reveal. Robert was even taking a video with his phone to record the moment for posterity.
Ethan stopped the truck, engaged the brake, then turned his head and shot her a smile. “Ready for this?”
She nodded. “Let’s do it.”
They got out at the same time, Victoria rounding the truck to join the group as they oohed and aahed over the reclaimed wood and rust-finished metal of the tiny house’s outside.
“I thought these things all looked like cottages,” her mother said, putting an arm around her waist. “This is beautiful, honey. So modern. I’ve gotten a ton of pictures already for Daddy.”
Alexandra made a skeptical noise. “I still think it’ll look like a boxcar on the inside too.” She still wasn’t entirely easy with the situation—Victoria’d had to do a lot of education and an equal amount of wheedling to get her to give up her outing plans—but she hadn’t tipped their parents off so far. That didn’t keep her from expressing her displeasure through less direct means.
Mindy gave them all a smug look. “Nah. It’s gorgeous. I peeked through the windows a few days ago.”
“Cheater!” Ethan finally located the right key and put the short step stool under the door, climbing it to open the house up, then stepping inside to make way for the visitors. “Okay, right this way, folks. Watch your step. Okay, c’mon up, Audrey.” He took Victoria’s mother’s hand, helping her clamber up and in. “Of course this’ll all be easier with the permanent steps, but I’ll build those in on site. No, Mindy, you were a cheater so you can come in last.”
One by one, they filed in to join Ethan in the small space—Logan, Diego, Robert, a couple of the part-timers, Audrey Woodcock, Alexandra, and finally Mindy. Victoria brought up the rear, curious to see what the house looked like with ten people in it.
Crowded as hell, frankly, but not nearly as bad as she’d feared. Some of the guests had moved into the couch area already; they all knew Victoria’s mom was vanilla, so they may have noted the cleats and rings, but none of them commented on that feature.
Ethan was already happily explaining everything in front of them, demonstrating the versatility of the kitchen with its extendible counter that could double as a dining table or temporary desk. He moved on to tell the crowd more than they probably ever wanted to hear about the bathroom, including his decision matrix for choosing that particular incinerating toilet. Then he showed them almost all the hidden storage; it was everywhere, from smuggler’s panels in the floors to removable couch cushions that revealed compartments.
He still hadn’t seen the wall hanging—there were too many people between him and the right-hand loft, so the one free section of wall she’d utilized was obscured from his view.
She got her chance when he ran out of words trying to describe what they’d done with the décor. He didn’t have many words for that, other than to say he liked it. Victoria took over, explaining the limited palette of colors, the use of neutrals throughout most of the space to make it look bigger and less busy.
“And then when you do have a piece of art, it needs to be something really significant. Because the space is so limited. But I just put this up and I think it fits the bill really well. Plus, it adds a lot of color.” She stepped closer to the piece, caught in admiring the infinite hues of red all over again. Most of it was hemp, with some bits of sisal and jute woven in here and there. Down each side of the piece of cedar the woven panel hung from, strips of red leather sharpened and neatened the outline. But it still had a rough, handmade look, with as many variations in texture and thickness of the rope as there were in the colors. Up at the top, natural undyed jute blended to a soft watercolor pink. The pink weft continued into a row of hemp dyed the same color. The next pick was deeper in tone but with less consistent coloration. For a few rows the rope was almost magenta, and then it finally warmed to a rose before it darkened to red. The weft strands grew longer toward the bottom of the two-foot-wide panel. The next-to-last one was a thirty-foot, six-millimeter hemp, its top a jewel-brig
ht claret, its end a deep, almost plummy black cherry; it took up fifteen rows, nearly a vertical foot of the panel. It was the test piece where they’d finally perfected the ombre process.
Below that, a shorter weft—twelve feet, if Victoria recalled correctly—took the color in a new direction that she and Logan had just started on the previous week. A warm, deep purple, almost as dark as the near-black row above it, blended into cobalt blue, and from there into teal. Below that, the undyed hemp warp strands hung empty for the final foot or so.
“That’s cool.” Even Alexandra was willing to admit it. The kinksters were busy explaining the different types of rope to Victoria’s mom, who thought it was amazing how much the ranch folks all knew about the subject.
Victoria glanced over to Ethan, whose eyes were fixed on the colorful piece. She couldn’t tell whether he liked it or not. Whether he got it or not. A chronicle of their relationship, from their rough early days straight through to the current patch of unaccountably smooth sailing even though the waters weren’t charted.
She made her way through the group to his side, looping an arm around his waist and trying to see the hanging through his eyes. No good. She knew too much about it already. Knew what each component meant and where each slip had come from.
“Thank you,” Ethan murmured, low enough that only she could hear it.
“Happy moving day,” she replied, kissing him on the cheek.
He bounced on his toes, as if he were about to leap out the door. “It’s about time to go, isn’t it?”
“Just about. The GPS is all set. The stops are all mapped out. We’ve triple-checked that everything is packed. Trey isn’t expecting us for two weeks. The open road is ours to conquer.”
Ethan chuckled and pulled her closer, pressing a kiss into her hair. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
“I even made you a playlist.”
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