“You flew over two hours to kill me?”
“I flew over two hours to tell you I love you, but murder is also on the table.”
The grin softens into something quieter, making my chest crack wide open. “Say it again.”
“That I’m going to murder you?”
“The other part.”
I step forward into the doorway, into his space, into the mostly packed remnants of the life he’s leaving for me. “I love you.”
He pulls me into him, and his arms close around me. I press my face into his chest and breathe him in. And I am crying—actually crying, not the silent leak from a couple of weeks ago, but the real, ugly, shaking kind—and he’s holding me so tightly his heartbeat thumps against my cheek, and he says, into my hair, so quietly it’s almost just a vibration, “I love you. I’ve loved you since you fell asleep on my couch, mumbling about a load-bearing wall.”
“That’s a very specific moment to fall in love.”
“I’m a very specific person. But if I’m honest, I think I’ve loved you since the moment you licked the spicy salt from the rim of my glass and handed it back to me.”
I laugh into his shirt, and he laughs into my hair, and we stand in his doorway holding each other, surrounded by boxes, in a city that belongs to neither of us, but it doesn’t matter. None of the geography matters.
Not Toronto, not Halifax, not the two hours and fortyish minutes between them.
Home is this. Home has always been this.
“Take me back to Balsam Bay,” I mumble against his chest.
“Working on it.” He pulls back enough to look at me, wiping my tears with both thumbs. “Flight’s tomorrow morning. But tonight, you’re here. I have a mostly functional kitchen and exactly one pan that hasn’t been packed.”
“Eggs?”
“Eggs.”
“You always make me eggs when I’m a disaster.”
“You’re not a disaster. You’re the love of my life. And you happen to show up at my door in crisis with alarming regularity.” He kisses my forehead. “It’s my favorite thing about you, really. Except you’re not covered in mud this time.”
I grab the front of his shirt and pull his mouth down to mine. Our kiss tastes like salt from my tears and the strawberry gum I chewed on the cab ride and the beginning of everything. When we finally pull apart, I look past him at the boxes one more time.
“I’m glad you’re going back.”
“I was always going back, Beth.” I meet his deep brown gaze, believing his words down to my marrow. “I was always going to go home.”
EPILOGUE
A week later
BILLIE
September in Balsam Bay can’t make up its mind.
The morning is warm enough for bare feet on the deck. By the time I’m hauling chairs out of Peter’s garage, there’s a bite in the air that smells like woodsmoke and turning leaves. The hydrangeas along the front of the cottage are still blooming—big, stubborn, blue-purple heads that refuse to acknowledge summer is ending—and I relate to them on a spiritual level.
“Those go by the firepit,” I tell Amanda, who is carrying two Adirondack chairs like they weigh nothing, because my crew is made up of women who could bench-press most of the men in this town.
“You got it, boss.” She sets them down and surveys the yard. “Place looks good. Like, really good. Hard to believe it’s the same house.”
She’s right. The cottage Peter bought as a half-gutted impulse decision is unrecognizable. New siding, new roof, Leo’s cabinetry throughout, and Neve’s interior design tying it alltogether and making every room feel like it’s been lived in for decades. It’s the best work my company has ever done, and I’m not being modest—I’m being accurate.
The guesthouse is perfect. Dana and Rob are going to love it when they come to visit, and I’m going to love not having to refrain from sex with my boyfriend because they’re across the hall. Everyone wins.
