“Cash… you are everything to me. I love you so fucking much, and hearing you say all of that made me the happiest man alive.” He pulls me into his arms, and I bury my face in his neck as tears continue to fall. I’m not normally a crier, but shit, the floodgates have apparently opened and refuse to close.

We stay wrapped up in each other’s embrace for several minutes before we finally make our way to the car. He tells me once we hit the road that he’s taking me to his new house to show me everything. He moved all his stuff in last weekend and has been staying there ever since. We drive for about fifteen minutes, the house more on the outskirts of Lubbock than actually in town.

Nerves are eating away at my gut and my knee can’t sit still. Apparently, this entire day is going to be high anxiety for me because I can’t calm the fuck down. The first thing I notice when we pull off the back road is the driveway. It’s long… like at least half a mile long. The house is set way back. As we get closer, more of the house comes into view. It’s stunning.

All white, with a very farm style look to it. On one half of the house, there’s a wrap-around porch. There are barn door shutters on a few of the front windows. It looks to be two stories, and the yard in the front is massive. He parks in front of the house, but it looks like there may be a garage on the other side of the house.

“Stone, this is gorgeous.” I can’t take my eyes off it.

“C’mon, I want you to see the inside.” He turns off the car and climbs out. When he rounds the hood, I’m climbing out, and he grabs my hand, leading me up to the front door. The interior is just as breathtaking as the exterior. The walls are cream colored and there are built-in shelves and a spacious, vaulted foyer once we walk in. Natural light is pouring in from the windows around the house. We walk in farther and see the dining room. It’s bright, with a huge farm style dining room table in the middle. I chuckle when I see a cat tree—a massive one, might I add—set up in the corner of the room.