“Bit of both,” I muttered.
Fifi giggled behind me, her laugh like a small victory every time I heard it.
The banter helped. So did the rhythm of movement. Back and forth, lifting, loading, placing. A makeshift human chain formed between the porch and the truck, and for the first time since this all started, I felt… normal.
Better than normal.
Included.
It was the kind of camaraderie I had never experienced growing up. There were no family move-ins, no housewarming jokes, no shared iced coffee sweats, and teasing. Just loud nights, slammed doors, and people too tired or too angry to care about your new lease.
But this?
This was different.
“Okay,” Fifi said after placing a box labeledRandom Crap Probably Importanton my kitchen floor, “explain this labeling system.”
“It’s layered,” I said. “Strategic ambiguity. Creates excitement.”
Beck groaned. “You are so deeply broken.”
Fifi just smiled at me over the top of her drink, and I felt that smile all the way through me.
Later, as the truck emptied and the last box thudded down beside the bookshelf, I stood in the center of the house and looked around.
It wasn’t perfect. The floor creaked. The kitchen needed a paint job. The thermostat looked like it hadn’t been updated since the eighties.
But it was mine.
And for the first time, it didn’t feel like a temporary landing pad.
It felt like something I could build from, with people, withher.
“You okay?” Fifi asked, brushing her hair out of her eyes as she stood beside me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Better than okay.”
She looked around, too. “It’s cute. Has good energy.”
“I think that’s mostly you.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Don’t make me blush in front of your appliances.”
I grinned.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you getting Beck and Sienna to show up,” I said softly, “but I’m really glad you did.”
She smiled, that real one, the one that made her whole face light up like sunrise, and then she reached up and brushed her fingers against my jaw.
I leaned into the touch.
And that’s when it happened.
There was no warning or dramatic pause, and no swell of background music.
It was just her hand in mine, with the other tangled in my shirt, and the soft gasp she let out as I kissed her. It felt as if I’d been waiting my whole damn life to.
It wasn’t rushed.
