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“So, what do you think?”
Leon glances at Connor, who’s standing a few feet away in the driveway of a beautiful family home, clearly excited about the prospect of touring it.
It’s a lovely house, with big windows looking out on a porch and a perfectly trimmed front lawn. It’s painted in a friendly beige color that goes well with the light grey slate roof, there’s a huge three car garage and Leon’s sure the garden around the back comes with a nice terrace, barbecue spot and a swing set.
Leon hates it.
“It looks great,” he says and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. It’s the fourth house Connor has dragged him to in the span of a week, and Leon still doesn’t know why Connor wants to move out of the apartment he shares with Darnell, especially since he spends most nights at Leon’s place a few floors down, anyway. It’s literally the perfect arrangement, and yet Connor declared a few weeks ago that he wanted to buy a house in Edmonton before the season was over.
“Nancy should be here any second,” Connor says with a beaming smile. Right on cue, his realtor pulls up to the house and joins them. She’s a perfectly nice woman, but as she shakes hands with Leon, it’s pretty clear she still doesn’t understand why Connor is looking at houses with a teammate in tow.
“Let’s go in, shall we? This is a four-bedroom, big kitchen, and a gorgeous backyard. It’s perfect for starting a family,” she says as she leads them up the handful of stairs to the large wooden front door, which opens into a well-lit hallway with a wide staircase leading upstairs. It’s got white marble floors that extend into the kitchen to their left. Everything is designed perfectly, the furniture in flawless condition, no clutter to be seen.
“They just finished remodelling the entire house,” Nancy says, before she starts rattling off more details about the square footage and the digital system built in, including a state of the art security system.
As with the previous tours, Connor asks a ton of questions as they’re being led through the house, while Leon just follows along and listens without much interest. The kitchen is the size of a living room, with beautiful wooden countertops and all kinds of quality equipment, but Leon wonders what Connor would even do with a kitchen like this, considering he’s a miserable cook.
Through the kitchen is a big, open living and dining room with parquet flooring. The dining table seems to be made for a big family, the TV hangs above a large fireplace, and next to the corner couch is a dog basket. There’s a long window front with views out into the garden that must be gorgeous in the summertime. Just as Leon suspected, there’s a set of swings hanging from the branch of a sturdy-looking tree.
It’s easy to imagine a perfect little family living here, the smell of homemade meals wafting through the house at lunchtime, kids playing outside with a loyal and beloved German shepherd or golden retriever. Leon wonders of that is the kind of life Connor wants for himself. They don’t talk about this stuff, not much, anyway. There’s no way they can officially live together or have a family and keep that under wraps.
Nancy shows them the upstairs, with the master bedroom and its big en suite bathroom, as well as the kids rooms. One of them has a jungle theme going on, the other is like a cheery and colorful underwater world.
“Why don’t you wander around for a while and get a feel for this home,” Nancy says as they walk back into the upstairs hallway, “and I’ll wait for you in the study downstairs.”
Leon is pretty sure that a study would be entirely wasted on Connor, who lets his lawyer handle practically all of his paperwork.
“What do you think of this place?” Connor asks, once Nancy has disappeared. He looks at Leon in anticipation.
“It’s nice,” Leon says with a slight shrug. “Lots of room, nice garden, good neighborhood, you know.”
“That’s the same thing you said about the other three houses,” Connor says with a sigh.
“They were all nice houses, Con,” Leon says, “I don’t really know what you want me to say about them.”
Connor frowns. “Well, for starters, could you see yourself living in any of them?”
“I mean, sure. They’re all pretty big for just one person to live in though, right?”
“We’d be living here together, so it wouldn’t be too big,” Connor says. He sounds confused and a little irritated. Meanwhile, a lot of the confusion Leon has been feeling about this whole ‘I’m buying a house’-business is suddenly lifting.
“You want me to move in with you?” Leon asks, dumbfounded.
“Of course, what the hell did you think I was buying a big ass house for?” Connor gestures to the master bedroom to their right. “I don’t need all that space for just myself.”
“You never said you wanted me to move in with you, though.” Leon is very certain of that, and he’s not sure how he was just supposed to guess that. “You just said ‘I want to buy a house’ and I didn’t get why, but I guess it makes sense now that you took me to all these tours.”
Connor is quiet for a moment. “I guess I never did ask you to move in with me, did I,” he says then, and runs a hand through his hair. “So do you even want any of this?”
Leon doesn’t reply right away, because they can’t just move in together and pretend like it won’t have consequences. He doesn’t want to keep his apartment and pretend to live there. He doesn’t want to build a life with Connor in secret.
“It’s okay if you don’t,” Connor rushes to say, “I know there’s a lot of stuff to think about. We’d have to come out and we haven’t really talked that through, and I can’t believe I was this stupid, I should have talked to you about this before I decided to go ahead and buy a house for us, with goddamn rooms for kids-”
“I want to,” Leon blurts out to stop Connor from spiraling. He crosses the short distance between them. “I want all that with you, you just took me by surprise.” He presses a soft kiss to Connor’s lips. “I want a big ass house with a bed as gigantic as that one in there, with room for kids, I want that.”
Connor smiles at him and it makes Leon’s heart sing and he wants to kiss Connor senseless, but he has one more thing to say.
“I’m not gonna let you buy us a house, though. We’re going to buy it together, because it is going to be our home.”
“We can do that,” Connor says, his voice a little thick with emotion, and Leon wraps him up in his arms.
“God, I love you so much,” Connor whispers against the skin of Leon’s neck, and Leon knows this is the only home he’ll ever need.