But something in him had shifted. I could feel it in the way he held his breath.
Like he was trying to find the right words.
“You’re quiet,” I murmured.
He didn’t look at me right away. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
He huffed a laugh. But then he turned, serious now. “I was wondering what you’d think about… making this official.”
I blinked. “Official?”
“This place. Us. You. Me. Moving in together. Making it ours.”
My heart did this stupid little stutter, even though we already spent most nights here, even though I’d taken over half his closet and more than half his bookshelf.
Still, it felt different hearing him say it.
“You want to live with me?” I asked, teasing soft.
“I already do,” he said. “But I want you to feel it. I want this to be your home too. Not just a safe place to land. I want it to be… ours.”
I didn’t answer right away. Not because I didn’t know.
But because something about it made the breath catch in my throat.
We’d lost so much. We’d fought for even more. And maybe now… maybe it was time we let ourselves want more too.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He didn’t grin. Didn’t joke.
He just leaned in and kissed me like it was a promise.
Like this time, we were building something real.
Together.
CHAPTER 80
HARLAN - DON'T SCREW IT UP
The air smelled like wildflowers and sidewalk chalk.
Kids were laughing somewhere down the block, and the hum of life, real life, buzzed all around the clinic. It wasn’t quiet like the precinct. It was noisy in a soft, human way, like the world was spinning again.
I parked out front, a to-go tray in my hand and nerves in my throat.
Five months since the cabin.
Twelve months until the world would tilt again.
But I didn’t know that yet.
All I knew was that I was about to ask a woman still in her twenties for her blessing to marry her best friend. Her sister. A woman whom, not that long ago, I’d arrested in handcuffs. Who held a mirror up to me that I couldn't look away from.
Who now stood as one of the fiercest pillars of this damn town.
