“Pick one,” he says.
I turn around. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” He crosses his arms, and there it is, the almost-smile being deployed casually. “Current mood. Post-it. Pick one.”
“I made that board for you.”
“And now I’m using it for you.” He nods toward the wall. “Pick.”
I should argue. I have approximately four hundred things to do before the event starts, Derek is going to arrive in an hour with opinions about shadows, and I do not have time to participate in the emotional exercise I invented for someone else.
I turn back to the board.
My hand moves past red. Past blue and green and yellow. All the way to the small purple section on the side, the one Bennett noticed months ago and couldn’t read from across the room. The one I told myself I was saving for later.
Later is now.
I peel off a note and hold it up without turning around.
Content.
The word sits in the air between us. Simple. Enormous.
I hear him move. Then his arms come around me from behind, his chin dropping to my shoulder, both of us looking at that small purple square in my hand.
“Good,” he says quietly. “Me too.”
I lean back into him and let myself have it—the banner with my name on it, the salon that’s mine, the man who learned to feel things and then turned the lesson around on me when I needed it most.
Carrie chooses this moment to burst through the front door with coffee and the energy of someone who has consumed too much of it already.
“Derek’s parking,” she announces. Then she sees us. “Oh. Sorry. Am I interrupting?”
“No,” I say.
I don’t move.
Bennett doesn’t, either.
Carrie backs toward the door with a grin she’s not trying to hide. “I’ll tell him to park slowly.”
She disappears, and I laugh—surprised and real—and Bennett’s arms tighten around me.
“Ready?” he asks.
I look at the banner. At my name, in print, permanent.
At the purple Post-it still in my hand.
“Yeah,” I say. “I really am.”
The first hour of the official launch is controlled chaos, which is my favorite kind.
Derek arrives with his lighting opinions and a new assistant who hasn’t yet learned that arguing with him about color temperature is a losing proposition. I let them sort it out and focus on what I can control—greeting the Luxe representatives, walking the regional manager through the signature look display, making sure the product arrangement matches the mood board we agreed on in September.
It does. Obviously it does. I’ve checked it four times.
“You’ve checked it four times,” Carrie says, appearing at my elbow.
