Page 23 of Claimed By the BRATVA Grump

"I'm not finished. You asked what we're doing. I didn't know, the first time you asked. I know now." His forehead comes down to rest against mine. "I want the café at eight in the morning and the corner table. I want to learn the cats' schedules. I want your mother's approval and Delilah's many opinions. I want to drive you home tomorrow, and then I want to come back the day after that, and the day after that, for as long as you'll allow it. I should warn you that I'm hoping the answer is forever, because that's the term I've already committed to. I told a room full of Bratva. It would be embarrassing to walk it back."

A laugh breaks out of me, completely undignified, and he smiles in that way that makes me feel like I’ve won the lottery.

"You want forever," I say. "You, Mr Grumpy, you want forever. With me."

“I’m greedy. I want the next forever, too. And the one after that.”

And that's it, that's the whole of me, gone, every last held-back piece. I pull him down by the shirt and kiss him, and he gathers me up off the floor entirely, my feet leaving the tile, his arms a closed circuit around me. The kiss goes from salt to sweet to something with a great deal of forever in it.

When he finally sets me down, I keep hold of the shirt.

"Okay," I say, still sniffling, grinning so wide it hurts. "Tomorrow you take me home. But I have terms. I'm told that's how it's done."

"Name them."

"Corner table gets a reserved sign. Real one, laminated. You get a mug with your name on it and it lives on the shelf with the regulars, and I warn you now, Old Bill will talk to you about the weather, that's the toll, everyone pays it." I count on my fingers. "You come for dinner with my mother every other Sunday, because if I have to endure it, so do you. Delilah gets to interrogate you once, supervised. And the sweatshirt stays with me. It's mine now. That's non-negotiable."

He considers me for a long moment, and I watch him take my terms with the full seriousness of state business.

"Done," he says. "Though you should know the sweatshirt was never in question. I've seen you in it." His eyes darken in a way that has become recently, gloriously familiar. "It was always yours."

"Good," I whisper.

He picks me up, and I wrap around him like ivy with abandonment issues as he carries me toward the bedroom.

Epilogue

Sammie

The morning rush hits at the same time as always, and I'm three orders deep before I've finished tying my apron.

Delilah is on bar, pulling shots with the efficient energy of a woman who has had exactly enough coffee herself, and the line is already halfway to the door. October did something dramatic overnight, the kind of cold that arrives without warning and sends the whole city in for hot drinks, and Purr & Pour is benefiting in a way that my quarterly projections are going to be very pleased about.

"Double oat latte, the blueberry, and a black coffee," I tell her, sliding the ticket across.

"Your husband's here," she says.

"He's not here yet, his meeting runs until-"

"Sammie."

I turn around.

Eduard is at the door.

He does the same thing he has done every single morning for the last fifteen months: three steps inside, stop, read the room. Every table, every person, every corner. Four seconds.Completely natural if you don't know to watch for it. Then his eyes find me, which they always do in under five seconds.

He's holding the baby.

Specifically, he's holding Lilah in the grey carrier strapped to his chest, her dark head tucked under his chin, one tiny fist wrapped around the lapel of his jacket with the grip of someone who has decided this is her property. She's four months old and she already has his eyes and my stubbornness, which Valeria called the moment she was born and which Eduard took as a personal compliment. Jasper said this means the rest of them are finished.

The couple by the window already has their phones out. I notice this without judgment because I have also photographed Eduard in the carrier approximately forty-seven-million times and my favorites are in a dedicated album calledEvidencethat I will be presenting to Lilah when she is old enough to appreciate it.

He crosses to the counter. Delilah hands him his black coffee without being asked because we are nothing if not an efficient operation. He takes it with a nod that Delilah has told me twice she finds intimidating and that I know, with absolute authority, is his version of effusive gratitude.

"How was the meeting?" I ask.

"Resolved."