Page 109 of Hunter

Hunter chuckles and pulls me a little closer. “No plans to.”

The night flows easy after that. We laugh, we dance (badly), we tease each other. At one point, Clay tries to drag Hunter onto the dance floor and Hunter actually goes, shooting me a helpless look over his shoulder. I watch them from the table, heart swelling as Hunter moves stiffly at first, then loosens up, laughing when Clay spins him dramatically.

He’s happy.

We’re happy.

Later, when we’re back at my apartment and Sofia is demanding midnight snacks, Hunter pulls me into bed and wraps himself around me from behind. His lips brush the back of my neck as he speaks.

“Thank you for checking in tonight,” he murmurs. “Means everything.”

I thread our fingers together over my stomach. “Always. We’re a team now.”

He kisses my shoulder, slow and reverent. “Yeah. We are.”

I fall asleep to the steady rhythm of his breathing and the quiet purr of Sofia curled at our feet, feeling safer and more loved than I ever thought possible.

We’re not perfect.

But we’re ours.

And that’s more than enough.

Epilogue 1 - Hunter

Six months later

It’s not too soon. I know it’s not. When you know, you know.

My knee bounces with nerves as I wait near the snow leopard enclosure. The zoo is closing soon, golden evening light filtering through the trees, but I paid for a private after-hours visit. Just me, Charlie, and the animals that started everything.

This is where our first real date happened and our first real date after we got back together. The place where we stopped pretending and started choosing each other for real. It felt right to come full circle.

I hear footsteps on the path and turn. Charlie is walking toward me, curls tousled by the breeze, wearing the same cropped t-shirt he had on that first zoo day. When he sees me standing there alone with the string lights I had strung up around the railing, his steps falter.

“Hunter… what is this?”

I take his hands, my own shaking slightly. My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat.

“I brought you back here because this is where it started again,” I say. “Right here, in front of these picky cats. This is where I realized I didn’t just want you—I wanted to deserve you.”

Charlie’s eyes are already shining. He squeezes my hands, silent, waiting.

I drop to one knee.

“Charlie,” I start, “you’ve seen every broken part of me. You stayed anyway. You loved me when I didn’t know how to love myself. You taught me how to show up, how to be patient, how to choose better every single day. I don’t want another six months, or six years, without calling you mine in every way possible.”

I pull the small black box from my pocket and open it. The silver band catches the soft light.

“I want to marry you. I want to build a life with you. I want to fight over what to name our next cat and argue about whose turn it is to feed Sofia and grow old watching you paint and dance and light up every room you walk into. I want all of it. With you.”

Tears slip down Charlie’s cheeks. He’s smiling so wide it looks like it hurts.

“Yes,” he says, voice cracking. “Yes. A thousand times yes.”

I slide the ring onto his finger with trembling hands. The second it’s on, he drops to his knees with me and kisses me hard—messy, tear-soaked, full of months of love and healing and hope. I cup his face, kissing him back like he’s the only thing I’ve ever been sure of.

When we finally pull apart, both of us laughing and crying, Charlie rests his forehead against mine.