"You okay?" Emma asks quietly.
"Getting there."
"Two weeks isn't that long."
"I know." I scrub a plate. "It's just hard. Being apart when we just figured out how to be together."
"You'll make it work." Emma bumps my shoulder. "You're stubborn, he's stubborn, and you're both too in love to give up."
When I get home that night, I climb into bed and pull up my phone. There's a text from Ryder with a photo attached. Him in what looks like a hotel room, holding up a terrible selfie with a goofy smile.
Ryder:Landed safe. Training camp starts tomorrow. Place feels empty without you. Two weeks, Luce. I'm counting down already.
Me:Two weeks. I love you.
Ryder:Love you too. Sleep well.
I set the phone on my nightstand and stare at the ceiling. Two weeks. Then two weeks after that. Then maybe a month. We'll figure out the rhythm eventually.
Tomorrow I'll open the shop. I'll help customers find their next great read and wrap gifts and start planning the spring author events that will bring the community together. I'll build the life I've been too scared to claim until Ryder showed me how.
But tonight, I let myself feel the distance. Let myself be sad and hopeful in equal measure, because that's what love is sometimes. It's trusting someone enough to let them leave, knowing they'll come back.
Outside, snow begins to fall again. Blanketing the world in quiet promise. Inside, I'm safe and warm and loved, and that's enough.
For now, it's enough.
Epilogue
Lucy
Two weeks later, I'm at the shop when my phone rings. Ryder's face fills the screen, and my heart does that stupid flutter it always does when I see him.
"Hey," I answer, grinning.
"Hey yourself. What are you wearing?"
I look down at my Frost & Ivy polo and jeans. "Why?"
"Because I'm about to walk through your door in approximately thirty seconds, and I want to make sure you're prepared."
I freeze. "What?"
"Surprise," he says, and then I hear the shop door chime.
I spin around. There he is, phone to his ear, duffel bag over his shoulder, that crooked smile on his face.
"You're early," I manage.
"Couldn't wait." He drops the bag and crosses to me. "Two weeks was too long."
Then he's kissing me in the middle of my shop, in front of the handful of customers who definitely recognize him, and I don't care. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back, and when we finally break apart, someone's definitely taking pictures.
"You're insane," I whisper.
"About you." He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. "Always."
And standing there in my shop with his arms around me and customers pretending not to stare, I realize this is it. This is what home feels like. Not a place. Not even a person. But the choice to keep choosing each other, over and over, no matter how hard it gets.
