But everything in me settles with him here, like something that’s been slightly out of place all day finally clicks back where it belongs. I feel it in my chest, in my breathing, in the way my body just... lets go.
He exhales softly against my hair.
We move to the bed and sit, facing each other. His hand finds mine, and I hold on.
“I’ve got something to tell you.” A smile slips through before I can stop it. “Grandad kept the house. It’s been maintained all this time. He says it’s ours.”
I watch his face as the news settles in.
“And Mum and Dad’s estate—it’s all still there. The trust, the investments, everything. We have money, Dane. Real money. We’re not starting over from nothing.”
He goes quiet, taking it in the way he always does.
“Okay,” he says after a moment.
Steady as ever.
“Good.”
It’s subtle, but I see it—the way his shoulders ease, the slight shift in his expression.
Not excitement.
Relief.
The kind that comes from knowing he doesn’t have to carry everything on his own and figure out how to keep us afloat from nothing.
I recognize it because I feel it too.
He leans forward and rests his forehead against mine.
“We’re going to be okay,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “We are.”
For a moment, neither of us says anything.
The moment passes, and I tell him the rest.
“Reporters and documentary people want our story. Grandad said requests are already coming in.”
“No.”
Immediate. Flat.
“I told him that.”
“No one gets that part of us.” There’s no anger in it—just finality. “None of it.”
“I know. It’s ours.”
He nods once.
Then he tells me about his sisters. The social media. The footage of us on the dock and outside the hotel—how it’s everywhere. People watching, sharing, commenting.
Our lives being passed around by strangers like they have a right to our privacy.
Something in my stomach twists as I listen.
