"Yours."
"Mine."
He leaned across the console and kissed me slow and deep, the kind of kiss that made promises.
"Okay," he said against my mouth. "Yours."
Epilogue
Vance
I woke before dawn, as always.
Instead of reaching for my phone, I lay still, listening to Tobias breathe beside me and feeling the warmth of him pressed against my side.
Months since he stumbled into my life. Months of learning how to share space, how to be vulnerable, how to stay.
The apartment felt different now. His reading glasses on the nightstand. Books on shelves that weren't mine. A plant in the corner that was somehow still alive. Blueprints rolled up by the door, ready for his next site visit. Evidence of someone who stayed.
Tobias stirred. "Too early."
"You have a site visit."
"Don't care." He burrowed into my shoulder. "Warm here."
I let myself enjoy this moment. The quiet. The certainty of him beside me.
"Hey." He propped himself up, studying my face. "You're brooding. Talk to me."
"I was thinking about how different this place is now." I looked around the apartment. "It used to be just somewhere to sleep. Four walls. Now it's..."
"Home?"
The word hit harder than it should have.
"Yeah." My voice came out rough. "Home."
He waited. He'd learned to do that. Give me space to find the words. Patient in a way no one had ever been with me before.
"You did that," I said. "Made it feel like something. Made me feel like something."
He leaned down and kissed me softly. "You were always something. You just didn't believe it."
We stayed tangled together until the morning light grew too bright to ignore, until his site visit became impossible to postpone.
"The cottage project is almost done," he said, pulling on his shirt. "Ronan wants to do a walkthrough next week. You should come."
"To a walkthrough?"
"To see what I've been working on. To see what you helped make possible." He paused, something vulnerable in his expression. "I want you there."
"Then I'll be there."
He smiled and kissed me one more time at the door, then twice more, and once more because the third one "didn't count."
The apartment was quiet after he left.
I made coffee and stood at the window, looking out at the Hudson Valley morning. The same view I'd stared at for years without really seeing it. Now it felt different. Everything felt different.
