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“Oh wow. It would need a lot of work.”

“I know,” he says. “But I feel like with a little construction and a lot of cleaning, it could be great. Can you see it?” There’s hesitancy in his voice.

I don’t know why, but I know this means a lot to him, so I look around the garden with fresh eyes.

“Over there.” I point to the side. “That could be seating and then a gazebo back there. You could put a barbecue over there if you did barbecues on the weekends. And inside is ginormous. You could have a main kitchen for people to gather around, and over there, you could put a stage if you decided to do comedy nights.”

He comes up behind me. “That sounds like a great idea. I’d name it after Charlie. Maybe Charlie’s Home for Veterans or something like that.”

“I think Charlie would love that. What made you bring me here?” I ask, looking around some more.

“I don’t know. I wanted you to see it.” He pauses. “Plus, I figured I should get someone else’s opinion before I bite the bullet and buy a piece of property, right?”

“I’m not an expert on buying property,” I say.

“No, but you’re an expert on good ideas.” His voice is low, and we gaze at each other.

This is more than whatever arrangement we were talking about. This is more than friends with benefits.

“I’m glad you brought me here,” I say, reaching out and squeezing his hand. “If you end up buying it, I’d love to help. I don’t have many skills, but I can paint and scrub. Don’t tell Sage though. She’ll wonder why I never did much cleaning, growing up.”

He starts laughing and reaches down to stroke the side of my face. “Nothing’s guaranteed yet. I still have to see if I get the trust. But if I do …” He nods and looks around. “I can see this being a vibrant place. A communal place. A place where happy memories get made.”

“Yeah, I can see that too,” I say. “Now, we need to convince your granddad that we’re desperately in love and engaged and going to get married.”

“I don’t think it’ll be that hard,” he says, leaning down to kiss my cheek. “I don’t think it’ll be hard at all.”

* * *

“Oh my gosh, what are we doing here?” Lucia asks as we step into the Comedy Cabin.

“I’ve only come to get some information from Marcus. It’s going to be okay.”

“Oh, sorry. I’m not trying to bitch at you.” Lucia shakes her head. “I’m so annoyed with Roman right now.”

“With Roman? Why?” I ask in surprise.

“Now that Dalton’s busy with wedding stuff with Sage, Roman thinks he needs to take over as my overprotective big brother, and he’s getting on my last nerve. He literally texted me this morning, trying to find out my plans for making money and paying rent and some other stupidness. I deleted the text without responding.”

“That’s weird. Why is he doing that?”

“I don’t know if Dalton asked him to or if he thinks he’s entitled because he’s been in my life for so long, but please, Roman is not the boss of me.”

“Yeah, he’s not. Maybe you should tell him.”

I’m about to say something else when Marcus heads over to us.

“Oh, hey, thanks for coming, Rosie. I didn’t even see you come in.”

“That’s okay. I just got here. This is my friend Lucia. She gave me a ride.”

“Nice to meet you, Lucia. So, Patrice is in the back, and we’re writing some jokes for the set. What do you think about spending some time going through everything?”

“I’d love to, but Lucia needs to get to work, and …”

“Well, I need to do some housework and stuff,” Lucia says.

“Oh. Okay.” He looks at me, disappointed. “Maybe we can go to lunch later this week?”