“Good,” I murmur, thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. “Because I know I love you, too.”
I rest my forehead against hers, our breath curling together in the cold as I absorb the words.
There’s no fear or panic, just the warmest feeling I’ve ever felt.
And in the quiet that follows, in the space between heartbeats and graves and tears drying on cheeks, two people finally stop haunting each other.
Epilogue
Frankie
December 27th
The first photo comes before I’ve even unpacked since arriving back in Toronto. It’s Mason in the firehouse kitchen, biting into a snickerdoodle I assume Leah baked, a smug look on his stupidly kissable face.
Mason:Hazel says hi, by the way. She wanted a cookie too, and I told her cats can’t have chocolate. She told me to go fuck myself. So here I am eating them all at work.
I grin for two full minutes, and it’s been nonstop.
December 28th
He’s been sending me voice notes from the back lot while snow plows hum in the background, low and raspy and half-laughing.
Voice notes in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. Video calls where he paces his room in low-slung sweats, making sure I can see just how much he misses me.
Texts that are filthy, funny, and so perfectlyhim, I keep catching myself smiling at my phone like a walking cliché.
I lie in bed, pressing play on a voice note from earlier.
“Missed your mouth this morning. That sounds dirtier than I meant it, but also, it doesn’t.”
I scroll through the photos he’s sent today and pause on a blurry selfie of him and Hazel, with his tongue out and her ears flattened in protest.
His uniform shirt is open at the neck and I want to run my fingers under it.
We’ve barely gone a few hours without talking since the day at the cemetery.
Texts, photos, late-night video calls. And yeah, sexting too. But it’s not anonymous anymore.
Now, when I tell him I miss the sound of his voice, it’s not because it’s a kink. It’s because I do.
December 29th
He’s in bed, shirtless, one hand behind his head, the otherholding the phone he’s video calling me on.
I can see the curve of his shoulder, the scruff at his jaw, the softest smile playing on his mouth.
“You still up, babe?”
“You’re the one calling me at eleven.”
“That’s ‘cause I knew you’d be awake.”
“I’m editing a client’s logo and eating leftover pie with a spoon.”
“Hot.”
“Don’t mock me.”
