Chaos series by Kristen Ashley

Seeing the dilapidated old garage gone, I realized I should have used what I’d already saved just to demolish it. The absence of the garage made the entire yard look better.

Logan led me out the back gate to the large, cleared, and tidied space at the edge of my property and I couldn’t help but to smile.

They’d showed at six. They’d set up. They’d demolished. They’d carted off the remains. And it wasn’t even eleven o’clock.

“They’re fast,” I noted, looking up at Logan, who was still holding my hand warm in his.

“Yeah,” he murmured, glancing around. His gaze came to me. “Now, Millie, you’re cool with it, gonna grade this, gravel it, then build a fence around the perimeter.”

He lifted the hand not holding mine to indicate the entire area. An area that to one side my neighbors had a relatively new fence leading to the very edge of their property line, and on the other side, my neighbors had a shabby fence also leading to their property line.

“Big doors to the alley,” Logan continued. He turned us to the back fence to my property. “Build a new fence there, coupla feet higher. Swing my RV in here. Fence higher at the back, won’t see the RV from the yard. Fence around the RV, keeps it safer. Motion sensor lights out here, makes it even safer. Put smaller gates in at the side.” He pointed. “Easy access to the alley and the Dumpsters.”

Although he clearly had it all thought out, and his vision was a good vision, one could say I didn’t like this.

Logan’s RV was huge. It’d take up the entire space.

Which meant I wouldn’t get my garage, and more importantly, I wouldn’t eventually be able to avoid scraping my windshields.

“You’re not down with that?” he asked.

I looked up to him. “No. It’s cool.”

His hand gave mine a squeeze. “You’re not down with that,” he stated.

I smiled at him. “No, really, I’m cool.”

“Babe,” he said.

“What?” I asked when he didn’t continue.

“You’re not down with that,” he repeated.

I shook my head and replied, “It’s not that. It’s just that I wanted to put a garage out here, a new one. A nice one. One with an opener and one that would mean ice scraping would be history. But you need a safe place for your RV. I’m used to parking in the courtyard. And a new garage would mean putting in motion sensor lights everywhere so I didn’t kill myself in the dark getting up to the house. That’s a big project and a lot of money. So,” I shrugged, “whatever. I like your vision. It’s all good.”

He studied me a second, then tugged on my hand, leading me back through the gate but stopping us on the lower patio.

He looked around. He did it holding my hand but he did it for a long time.

I didn’t know what was on his mind. I wanted to know what was on his mind but I also had a meeting.

So I needed to step this up.

“Low,” I called his attention to me.

When I got it, he declared, “We got a problem.”

I was confused.

“What? How?”

He turned us to the back fence. “ ’Cause if we move that fence in to give you room for your garage and me room to pull in the RV nose-first at the side, you lose at least half this patio, probably more.” He pointed to the brick beneath our feet. Then he turned us to the house. “And we gotta look at building on two rooms. We do that, not only gonna eat up some of your courtyard, also gonna eat up some of that top patio.”

This also didn’t fill me with glee.

To give his daughters their own rooms and the house a dining room meant I’d lose even more of the vision I had for my house that I’d nurtured and fed for eleven years.

That would suck.

Not allowing Logan to have what he needed for himself and his daughters would suck more.

“So grade the back and put the RV in as you planned,” I decided.

He looked down at me. “Means you don’t get your garage.”

“I’ve lived without it since I’ve lived here,” I told him. “I can continue to live without it.”

His hand tightened in mine. “Millie—”

I cut him off. “Alternate scenarios are to extend the pergola over the courtyard or fully roof it so we can park under that. We’d avoid snow on our vehicles even if we didn’t avoid ice.”

This I didn’t like either unless carefully designed. Not carefully designed, it’d look ugly. And that was not only my view out the kitchen window but out the studio windows as well.

“Or,” I went on, “we can make the courtyard into the backyard space. Put in a fountain. Some furniture. Clients can park out front or in the drive. And we can eat up this patio for the garage and your RV space because we’d still have our outside area and it’d be closer to the house.”

“May need part of the courtyard for the dining room and bedroom, beautiful,” Logan reminded me.

I lifted my shoulders and gave it all.

“So, we grade the back, put your RV there, and when it gets to the point where you have the girls more often, we move to a new house.”

Logan’s hand tightened in mine again, doing this firm, and it felt like it was automatic.

This reaction confused me too.

I used his name to ask my question. “Logan?”

“You made this yours. You dig it. Not gonna make you move,” he said.

He was right. I liked that he cared about that for me because I cared about it too.

However.