"I was going to surprise you," she admits quietly. "I'd been running numbers, making plans. I wanted to have it all figured out before I told you. I didn't want you to think I was staying because I had nowhere else to go."
"And now?"
"Now I'm realizing that maybe having it all figured out isn't the point." She turns to face me. "Maybe the point is doing it together. The figuring out part, I mean."
I pull her close, and she comes easily, fitting against me like she's always belonged there. "For what it's worth, I like the together version better."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
She tips her head up, and I kiss her under the mistletoe Jett hung, in the space that's going to be hers, with the whole town square visible through the window behind us.
"I'm still terrified," she whispers against my lips.
"Good. Me too. But we'll figure it out."
"Together?"
"Together."
When we finally leave, locking the door behind us and leaving the keys with McKenna, she stops to look at the temporary sign one more time.
"Spring," she says decisively. "I want to open in spring."
"Spring," I agree, and I can already picture it—the grand opening, the town showing up in force, McKenna in her element teaching and building and becoming exactly who she was always meant to be.
Not just my girlfriend. Not just Jett's best friend. Not just the woman I've been chasing for years.
McKenna Monroe. Business owner. Havenwood local. Home.
As we drive back to my place—our place, at least until she decides what she wants to do about that—I catch her smiling at her phone.
"What?"
She turns the screen to show me. A text from Jett:
Jett:
I KNEW IT! Pinterest board vindicated. Also, you're buying me dinner for emotional distress. And by that, I mean happy tears. Noah doesn't like when I cry. Love you.
McKenna is still smiling when she leans over to kiss my cheek.
"Thank you. For fighting for me. For asking me to stay."
"Thank you for staying," I say. "For choosing this. For choosing us."
"Always," she whispers, and I believe her.
Four months until spring. Four months to build something real, something lasting, something that's ours—not just mine, not just hers, but the beautiful complicated mess we're making together.
I can't wait.
Epilogue | Reece
Spring in Havenwood smells like fresh-cut grass and sunshine, but the air still holds that faint sweetness of winter. The square is already buzzing as vendors set up for the spring market, and kids chase each other in and around the closed-off streets. Music drifts from the gazebo, someone tuning a guitar for later, and the whole town hums with that easy kind of contentment you only find here.
But my attention isn’t on any of them. It’s focused on the small retail space across from The Write Brew and the woman on the other side of the window.
