"Yes. She tried her best to play it cool, but I've known her for five years. She absolutely was thrilled. I just learned to read her body language and her expressions. She's really good at keeping a straight face. You have to be, when you're dealing with real estate clients. So many of them come in with a small budget and want a mansion and you have to learn how to keep your reactions hidden. So she's had good practice."
He appreciated the information.
"What are you looking for?" Jenny asked.
"Ideally something on the edge of town." He preferred to just walk out his back door and shift but if he couldn't, that was fine. He would deal with it.
He didn't want to invest a lot of money in a place yet either. His goal was to get Everleigh to agree to them living in the same house. He wanted to ask her to be his mate. And then propose marriage since she lived in the human world too, but it was far too soon for that. They had to work through quite a few things.
He also had to go back home and tell everyone, and if they still wanted him to be a part of the Anchorage pack, then he’d visit them regularly as well.
If she never agreed to any of those things, he would still have a small house here and he’d be near his daughter.
And he would be near his mate, even if she never took him back fully.
He would never date again. Even if Everleigh never committed to him, then he would just be single and a permanent bachelor for the rest of his life. That sounded dramatic, but it was true.
He'd known that dating wasn't really working out for him for some time, and now he knew why. He wasn't going to force it again. It would hurt her even if she was the one to reject him. It would make her sad to see him with someone else, even if she didn't want him. That was the way mating worked, for better or worse. Their biology had dictated it and then their emotions followed.
Plus, he loved her so much. He admired the hell out of her. And he respected her for what she had done.
He liked pack life; there were parts of it that he craved. But she had such a different experience. She'd opened his eyes to all the ways that pack life wasn't enjoyable if you weren’t the lead male Alpha.
She would've had no independence whatsoever had she stayed in her brother's clan.
Yet she had proved that she was more than capable of supporting herself, by moving to a brand-new city not once but twice, and raising a child on her own, in addition to having a successful career. A child that was different and couldn't just be dropped off with any nanny or in any day care.
He wanted to say all these things to her, but once again he didn't want to overwhelm her or make it seem like he was trying to manipulate her. He'd screwed up so badly last time that he had a lot to make up for.
Her coworker smiled. "I think I found something. It's a small two-bedroom cabin, and it's not upgraded at all. You'll probably want to remodel it."
He would've been satisfied with a tent if that's what it had to be. "It sounds perfect."
She went over the price and the rental agreement with him, and he went ahead and signed it. "Can you print off the contract for me?" he asked.
"Yes." She handed him the papers. "Good luck. Are we going to be hearing wedding bells anytime soon?"
"If it was up to me, yes. But I'm trying not to move too fast. I don't know if Everleigh told you, but when we were together before, I screwed up, big time,"
"Oh, yes. I don't think she meant to tell me, but she let it slip one day when you first came back and started showing up here. She mentioned that the two of you were together a few years ago, and that it didn’t end well." She gave him a stern look. "You broke her heart, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did, in a pretty bad way. I wasn't very mature about it."
She crossed her arms. "What's changed between then and now?"
"That's exactly what Everleigh asked me. My feelings haven't changed. I loved her then too. I just chose my career over her. And my family and my hometown." It was nearly impossible to explain to a non-shifter, but she didn't ask for more information.
He left, armed with his sheaf of papers. Now he just had to bring this up to Everleigh.
He would like to take her out. But he knew it was a hassle for her to arrange childcare for Eliza. So, he would show up after their daughter was asleep and talk to her. And show her the papers and hope that she would agree.
It still gave him a rush to think of Eliza as their daughter. He assumed that the little girl did not know that he was her father yet. That was another question that he had for Everleigh. When was she going to tell Eliza that he was her father? And how would she take it?
No matter what, he was moving to Juneau to be a part of both of their lives.