“Called my landlord to check in. He’s letting me out of my lease, which is his nice way of saying he’s evicting me.”

The easy we’d fallen into being together together disintegrated when his anger hit the room with a heavy weight, and I felt my back straighten.

“Say that again,” he ordered.

“It’s okay, Ren. If you’re okay with me hanging here awhile, I’ll find a new place.”

“No, Ally, it isn’t fuckin’ okay. Everything you own is ash in an explosion that was not your responsibility. It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with a pot-addled moron in New Mexico you haven’t seen in two years. So it’s not okay that you pay further for that guy bein’ a moron. You’ve tolerated too many knocks in too short a period of time. Your landlord isn’t going to land another one.”

He reached to his champagne, threw some back and finished his alpha badass statement while placing the glass on the table.

“I’ll have a word with him. You’re good to stay here until they repair the damage.”

“Ren, I’m down with being let out of the lease.”

He again turned his gaze to me. “I’m not down with it. I’ll have a word.”

“But—”

“Ally, no.”

I waited for him to say more. But it seemed he figured, Ally, no, was the end of it, and I knew this because he resumed eating.

I took in a deep breath. Then I ate more shrimp. Then I took a sip of champagne. After that, I took another deep breath.

Nope.

None of that worked. I didn’t feel calm. I felt like mouthing off, being a smartass and making a massive point.

However, that was not an option open to me during a special dinner with my hot guy.

So I turned my eyes to Ren and did everything I could to break our pattern of fighting instead of conversing.

That was to say, I struggled to sound calm when I said, “It’s both cool and hot, this gig of you wanting to protect me and stick up for me. But I just want to make it clear right now, honey, that you don’t get to make and carry through decisions about my life without discussing them with me. And just to be crystal clear, discussing is a courtesy I extend to you. My life is my life, and in the end, I make the decisions.”

His head had turned to me while I was talking and I was feeling pleased with myself for dropping the “honey” in my statement, thinking that softened it nicely.

“Your life is not your life,” he replied, and I expected a lot of things, particularly him saying something in Asshole or him dismissing me.

That I didn’t expect. I also didn’t understand it.

“I don’t follow,” I told him.

He shook his head and stated, “I’ve changed my mind. I won’t talk to your landlord.”

That was better.

Surprising. Surprisingly easy. But better.

Maybe he wanted to break the pattern of shouting at each other too.

“Thanks, honey,” I said softly.

“Because you’re movin’ in with me.”

I blinked.

“What?”

He put his fork down and turned fully to me and I didn’t suspect this boded good things.

I would be proved right.

“Ally, your life is not your life. We love each other, and in case you missed it, that means we’ve committed to each other. So your life and how you lead it affects me. So yeah, we discuss things. But you don’t make decisions we disagree on about shit that affects me—in other words, your life. You also need to have a mind to my need to protect you. I know this is not news that I have this need. You picked me, you signed on for that. But all that’s moot. We already decided you’re gonna stay awhile. Yesterday, you lost everything. Today, you found out you can’t go back. Backed in a corner by circumstances, thinking on it, shit often happens for a reason and even bad shit leads to good things. And this particular good thing is that there’s absolutely no reason not to make the arrangement we already agreed on permanent.”

“Zano, making that permanent is a big leap from what we had to roomies.”

“Baby,” his voice (and expression, I’ll add—double whammy) turned sweet, “there is never a time we’re gonna be just roomies.”

My eyes narrowed, not because I didn’t like what he said (a lot).

They narrowed because I was getting a sneaking suspicion he turned on the sweet in order to get his way. I’d missed it for months because usually by the time he turned on the sweet, we were shouting at each other.

Things were now coming clear.

I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my, “Maybe I think there are absolutely some reasons not to make the arrangement we agreed on permanent.”

It should be noted, although I said it, I couldn’t think of a single reason not to make it permanent.

If pressed though, I’d make something up.

He leaned into me. “Tell me, since Sadie’s thing, when you’re not working or gallivanting, when have you been at your apartment and I haven’t been there with you?”

Uh-oh.

He was making sense.

And I wasn’t fond of the word “gallivanting.”

Sure, one could say I gallivanted. My net was not wide, but I got around.

Still.

“And tell me,” he continued, “when have you had downtime at all when you were not in your apartment, with me, or you weren’t here…” He paused to drive his point home. Then he drove it home. “With me.”

More sense.

Gack!

“Babe, we already live together, and we’ve been doin’ it for eight months. It’s just that our clothes were in different closets,” he finished.

Jeez, we were so totally not fuck buddies. No wonder Ren found that amusing.

This thought and his words meant I kept glaring at him, mostly because he was right and that sucked.

But as I did this, something stole through me.

And what that was was the fact that Lee essentially moved Indy in with him the day her thing started. They never separated after that.

And now they were married.

Jet had succeeded in keeping a hint of distance between her and Eddie for about a week. Then he moved her in and she never left.

And now they were married and she was pregnant.

Much the same thing happened with Roxie, Jules, Ava, Stella and Sadie.

And when I said “much the same thing” I meant near on exactly.

Holy crap.

I wasn’t a Rock Chick.

I was a Rock Chick!

That meant…

That meant…

That meant Ren and I were getting married!

Holy crap!

I fought hyperventilating and did it by sucking back champagne.

This was a stupid move because, once done, I started choking.

“Ally? Baby?” Ren called, and I saw him move and then he was leaned into me, hand rubbing my back. “You okay?”

I sucked in oxygen, twisted my neck to look at him, and declared, “We’re getting married.”

His chin jerked back and his brows shot up. “Now?”

“Not now!” I cried, falling back in my chair. He straightened to standing, but I tipped my head back so I could keep my eyes glued to him. “During her thing, Indy and Lee moved in together. The same with Jet and Eddie. Roxie and Hank. Jules and Vance. You get my drift. Now all of them are married. Ava and Luke are getting hitched on the weekend. And three weeks ago, Sadie strolled into a Girls Night Out with a diamond on her finger.” I stretched my torso up to him and announced, “Ren, we’re screwed.”

At that, his brows knit.

“You don’t want to get married?”

“No,” I answered, and completely ignored his expression shutting down in order to continue to have my nervous breakdown. “For the next five years I want to engage in copious amounts of hanky-panky until my biological clock starts ticking so loud I can’t ignore it anymore. Then I want to engage in copious amounts of hanky-panky in order to get pregnant. Prior to part two, I want to get married.”

He sat down but didn’t take his eyes from me as he stated, “This doesn’t sound like a bad plan.”

“It’s not. It’s a righteous plan.”

“Then why are you freaked?” he asked.

“Because no way am I falling into the pattern of meatloaf, Letterman and missionary, and with practice, that’s a possibility.”

His head jerked before he asked, “Ally, what?”

“I like meatloaf but it’s boring,” I explained. “I like chicken parmesan way better. Letterman rocks but I’d prefer to do other things when he’s on. And missionary is my fifth most favorite position behind lotus, cowgirl, scissor and doggie.”

It was Ren’s turn to blink.

Then he again burst out laughing.

When he was done laughing, but he was still chuckling, he calmly picked up his fork and speared some sesame chicken before he said to his plate, “So you’re movin’ in.”

Shit.

“Yeah,” I answered, spearing another shrimp.

“Baby?” he called, and I looked at him.

Oh God.

The look on his face was a new look. It corresponded with the tone of his voice earlier that day. And it was so beautiful, my heart skipped a beat and I lost the ability to think.

And speak (mostly).

“We’re never gonna have meatloaf, Letterman and missionary,” he said softly.

“’Kay,” I replied breathily.

“And if you can pare down that five year fuck-a-thon to two or three, I’d appreciate it,” he went on.

“’Kay,” I repeated.

“Though, during that two year fuck-a-thon, you may have one, then two of my rings on your finger.”

Oh shit.

Even me, Ally, Rock Chick, that didn’t make me warm inside.

It made me melty.

“’Kay,” I breathed, and his eyes warmed.

“Just to give you something to look forward to, we’ll stop the fuck-a-thon when we have to, but we’ll resume soon’s we can after you give me healthy babies.”

Oh God.

I felt my eyes get hot.

Ren and I were getting married.

Not now.

But eventually.

Oh.

God.

“You really love me,” I whispered.

“Do not ever doubt it,” he whispered back.

“How did that happen?” I kept whispering.

“You accepted my devotion to the Bears only dishin’ out minimal shit.”

He was such a liar.

But what he said said it all.

And it meant everything.

He started falling when I did.

I closed my eyes.

I opened them when I felt the backs of his fingers sweep my jaw.

“It doesn’t take much with you, does it?” I asked, trying to be funny.

I didn’t get a smile.

I got heated eyes and the look.

“Yes it does. It takes a fuckuva lot.”

That said it all, too.

Jeez. He needed to stop.

Before I could tell him to do that, he did it.

And he did it by saying, “And most of that fuckuva lot has to do with the fact that you’re a woman who placed cowgirl at two and doggie at four.”

I got over being a big, starry-eyed, head-over-heels-in-love-with-a-hot-guy girl, started laughing and asked through it, “So you approve of my rankings?”

He turned his attention back to his plate, saying, “Cowgirl one. Doggie two. Missionary three. Lotus four, but you’re close enough.”

I kept laughing and through it watched Ren grinning before he took a sip of his champagne.

I quit laughing, grabbed my own champagne and was taking a sip when Ren’s voice—not sweet, instead all kinds of sexy, the kinds that got my full attention when he declared, “Three, one, two.”

I looked at him. “Come again?”

“Tonight,” he replied. “Three, one, two. Maybe during one we’ll also do a four, but I’m finishing you off on your knees.”

My happy place spasmed, my breasts swelled and my mouth got dry.

“That is, after you go down on me,” he finished as he reached for the champagne bottle.

That was when I started salivating.

A knock came at the door.

I stopped salivating and was thankful I hadn’t begun panting as I looked to the door.

Ren threw his napkin down and pushed back his chair, muttering, “Fuck.”

“Are you expecting someone?” I asked as he walked away.

“Are you in my house?” he asked back.

“Yes,” I pointed out the obvious.

At the door, hand on handle, he turned to me and answered, “Yes.”

What did that mean? I’d never had visitors at his house.

Then again, I frequently got visitors at my apartment. Ren knew that because he’d been there a lot when I got them. So clearly he expected this to go on and I made a mental note to do something about that since it sounded like he didn’t like it much.