Finally, he dropped the scraps into the trash bag I was holding.
I managed, “You sure?”
Eli stepped into my space. He cupped my jaw—right over the streak he’d left there—and kissed me, slow and sure and claiming.
“Never been more sure about anything,” he murmured against my lips. “Well… except maybe marrying you. Falling in love with you. Promising you for?—”
I kissed him before he could finish, laughing into his mouth because the alternative was crying. Or both. Honestly, both were likely.
Eli grabbed my shirt and pulled me even closer. His smile pressed into mine, warm and certain and bright enough to light the entire damn room.
Epilogue: Promises Kept
ELI
The first warm Saturday of spring felt almost scripted, with blue skies, a soft breeze, and sunlight striping across the dashboard. A blessing by the universe for making it this far.
Adrian had one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around mine, his thumb tracing idle patterns across my wrist the way he always did when he wasn’t thinking about it. We were almost out of town when he slowed, just barely.
He turned his head to the right as we passed Decatur Street.
Once upon a time, that house had been my north star. Then it became a ghost. Then a wound.
Now?
It was just a street.
I didn’t tense. I didn’t brace. Didn’t glance over to check if the porch light was on or if someone else was making a life I thought would be ours.
I just let the moment pass like scenery.
Adrian noticed—of course, he noticed. He watched me more carefully these days, not out of fear, but out of devotion.
“Not even a glance?” he asked, his voice warm, cautious, maybe hopeful.
“Nope.” A grin spread slowly across my mouth. “I’ve got everything I want right here.”
He lifted our joined hands and pressed a kiss to my knuckles, soft and lingering, sealing the words between us.
The road curved. Golden light spilled across the windshield. Our reflections glowed faintly in the glass—two men leaning toward each other, relaxed and smiling, finally done running from the life we were actually meant to live.
For once, I wasn’t thinking about the past or the street receding behind us. I thought about the future stretching out ahead, wide and warm and ours.
We settled into the kind of comfortable silence only people who had clawed their way through hell together could enjoy. The highway disappeared beneath the tires, warm wind curled through the cracked windows, and Adrian kept stealing glances at me, stoking a fire low in my gut.
“You sure you don’t want me to blindfold you?” he asked, glancing over with a smirk.
“No,” I said dryly. “I’d prefer to witness my last moments.”
Adrian chuffed warmly. “This road is perfectly safe.”
“You said that right before you nearly rear-ended a mail truck last month.”
He groaned. “You’re never letting that go. You know, I’m actually agood driver.”
“Not according to the postal service.”
But he was smiling, and so was I, and the miles melted under our wheels. We’d earned this—the bickering, the banter, the calm.
