Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
I thought Hutch would push back, but instead, he asked me to show him my accounts.
And thus, we sat in our comfy, warm kitchen and decided how much to set aside to pay for adding onto the house (we’d need more room for kids), updates of the bathrooms (because they were not vintage-fun old, they were just out of date), future college and wedding funds, along with an account to add to our retirement and a little more just in case something crappy happened.
In the end, we’d be keeping a lot.
But that didn’t mean Stony Bluff didn’t get a huge-ass check.
During this discussion, the only dissension we had was that, for some reason, Hutch was adamant about personally paying for my workshop.
This dissension started because I didn’t know that reason.
It seemed logical—since I had the money (we had it), and it would be me who was using that workshop, not Hutch—that I could pay for it.
Not to mention, bottom line, it was half a dozen of one, six of the other.
I was not a woman who would make my own money and do a joint account with my man.
Make no mistake, I trusted Hutch implicitly.
But we were both individuals, and I wasn’t going to ask him to lose that part of his individuality, and I knew without any discussion he wouldn’t ask for the same.
Even so, regardless of what account it was in, it was our money, so who cared what part of it was used to build the workshop? (Yeah, yeah, I know, if this was the case, why was I arguing?—but I just didn’t get where he was coming from.)
Thus begun bickering, bickering that got heated, and finally, Hutch exploded, “I will not have you spend your days doing something you love in a place that man built!”
I immediately acquiesced.
I did this not reminding him that Frank Groove’s money would be building our future children’s bedrooms and be the basis for paying for their college and weddings.
I got him.
The workshop would only be mine.
And that, Hutch couldn’t tolerate.
So Hutch paid for my workshop.
Just to say, when it came down to it, Hutch designed an epic workshop that had everything I needed, along with everything I could dream, including a lounge area with a couch and comfortable chairs, a fridge and well-sealed (so the critters wouldn’t smell it and come looking) cabinets to hold snacks.
Like I said, it had everything.
We put my TV out there, and as such, the cabin remained television free.
Tell you what, I didn’t miss it, and after the workshop went up, I rarely used it.
I much preferred spending my time doing chores and getting the shit out of the way, so I had more of it to hang with Abigail and her family, go to yoga and meditation with just Abigail, grab a meal with Kimmy, go to dinner at Mrs. Matthews’s house, get a coffee with Lillian, Nadia, Cin or Delphine (Cade’s partner, I nearly bricked it when I met someone that famous, it was so cool, then I found she was down to earth, and I chilled out), at the rescue scooping poop or cleaning litterboxes or at the sanctuary, learning how to feed owls and baby moose.
But mostly, I used my added time spending my evenings in a cuddle with my guy on the couch in front of a fire while we both read.
Or with me stretched out on it, again reading (some of the time), while Hutch sat in his chair and strummed his guitar (cuddle time was number one, but it was a close second, being there to witness the miracle of how Hutch wrote his songs).
We didn’t shut out the real world.
But we didn’t let it intrude on the quiet and peace of our patch of land on the mountain.
There was always going to be pain, tragedy, atrocities and discord, and we could feel it, we could care about it, we could do what we could about it.
But not on our patch.
Not on our mountain.
Hutch would pick a night at The Link when I was sitting at a table with Stormy and Jaeger to unveil the song he wrote for me.
It wasn’t like any of his other songs.
It reminded me of “Bloom” by The Paper Kites.
It was gentle. And sweet. Mature. Longing. Loving.
Hopeful.
I sat at that table months after I met my guy—a table I sat at back then with strangers, but sat there right then listening to his song for me, doing it among friends—and I didn’t know whether to throw my beer at him for giving me that extraordinary gift in public, or throw myself at him and kiss him all over…in public.
In the end, I just sat there, mesmerized, as silent tears fell down my cheeks, and my man, my guy, my Hutch sang my song with his eyes never leaving me.