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“Brag about it, why don’t you?”
He looks better than ever as he nears the end of his stay at Westgate. There’s color in his cheeks, clarity in his eyes, weight on his frame that speaks to regular meals and actual sleep.
That’s not to say he’s ready for Milan Fashion Week, per se: His hair badly needs a cut, as it’s begun curling past his ears, and he’s growing what can only generously be called a beard. No matter how many times I tell him it makes him look less like my baby brother and more like some scruffy grad student who very performatively reads David Foster Wallace and Dostoevsky in coffee shops, he refuses to shave.
“How’s the program?” I ask.
“Good. Great, actually. Chef Martín let me run the kitchen for lunch service yesterday. I made this mushroom risotto that he described as ‘not terrible.’” He beams. “From Martín, that’s basically a Michelin star.”
The in-house culinary program at Westgate was Lukas’s idea. He made a few calls—though he swears none of them involved threats of bodily harm—and arranged for a professional chef to visit Westgate twice a week and work with the residents who showed interest. Gideon was the first to sign up. He’s been obsessed ever since, texting me photos of his creations at odd hours, calling me to debate the merits of shallots versus onions, sending me videos of himself attempting knife techniques that frankly terrify me.
Lukas also insisted on paying for Gideon’s remaining treatment. I fought him on it for a little while before he pointed out, in that infuriatingly calm way of his, that arguing about money when someone you love needs help is a luxury neither of us can afford.
I hate it when he’s right.
“Tell your boyfriend his risotto book is a game-changer,” Gideon says.
“He’s not my—” I stop. Because, well… “I’ll tell him.”
Gideon’s grin softens. “You doing okay, Rae? For real?”
“For real,” I promise. And mean it.
We talk for another few minutes—before he has to go.
“Love you, G,” I tell him.
“Love you more,” he replies. “Don’t forget to eat breakfast. Granola bars don’t count.”
I blow him a kiss and hang up.
When the call ends, I just sit there, phone warm in my hands, sunlight on my face. Gideon is alive and healing. Jillian is safe and thriving. And Kir?—
Well, Kir is Kir.
He stepped down as CEO right after everything hit the fan. The press release cited “personal matters requiring his full attention.” Nobody’s seen him publicly since. The tabloids claim he’s in Europe—Monaco, some say, or maybe the south of France. I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, I kinda hope he’s at the vineyard. I hope he’s walking through that village square and eating almond croissants at Madame Savatier’s and finding whatever peace that place has left to offer a Lazarev.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, steal one of Lukas’s T-shirts from the chair, and pad downstairs.
Lukas is at the kitchen counter, reading the news on his tablet, coffee steaming beside his elbow. He’s wearing gray linen trousers and a white henley with the sleeves pushed to his elbows. His silver hair is still damp from the shower. He’s barefoot, relaxed, looking less and less like a man facing amurder trial and more like a man who’s learned, after a very long time, how to exhale.
He looks up when I enter.
And his whole face changes.
I don’t know how else to describe it. The granite softens. The ice behind his eyes melts into something warm and liquid. The hard set of his jaw releases, and the corners of his mouth curve upward, and a light comes on somewhere deep inside him that wasn’t there a second ago.
“There she is,” he purrs.
Three silly little syllables. That’s all it takes to make my knees go stupid.
He pushes the stool back, opens his arms, and pulls me onto his lap. His hands settle on my waist and he kisses me like he hasn’t seen me in years.
I melt into it, into him. My fingers find the damp silver at his temples and I hold his face while he kisses me like we have all the time in the world. Maybe we do. Maybe that’s what this is: time, finally, stretching out before us instead of running out beneath our feet.
When he breaks away, he’s smiling. The rarity of those grins hasn’t changed, despite everything else taking a turn for the better. I treasure each and every one of them.
When I look down, I realize why.
