"I can handle late nights." He kissed me. Slow and soft. His hand found my hip, thumb tracing circles against thin cotton, his shirt, the old FDNY one I'd claimed as mine. "As long as you come home to me."
Home.
The word settled into my chest like it had been waiting for permission to land. "Always."
"Always," I said.
He kissed me again. Deeper this time. His weight shifting over me, his hand sliding up my side, and for a moment I forgot about Marianne and deadlines and billionaires laundering money through shell companies.
Then his phone alarm went off.
Garrett dropped his forehead to my collarbone with a groan. "I hate that sound."
"Go." I pushed at his shoulder, laughing. "Save the city. I'll be here when you get back."
He lifted his head. Looked at me with something soft and fierce and a little bit wondering, like he couldn't quite believe I was real.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "You will."
One more kiss. Quick and warm. Then he was up, heading for the shower, and I lay there watching the morning light shift across the ceiling.
Eight years. We'd lost eight years.
But we had the rest of our lives to make up for it.
The New York Times building gleamed in the afternoon sun, all glass and steel and the weight of a hundred years of journalism pressing down from the masthead.
I'd worked here for five years. Walked through these doors a thousand times. But today felt different. Today felt like the start of something new.
Marianne looked up when I knocked. "Good. Sit."
I sat.
"Engagement numbers came in this morning. Strong across the board." She pulled off her reading glasses. "People are paying attention. That's what good journalism does."
Something warm in my chest. Weeks of work. Late nights in his living room, connecting dots, building the case piece by piece.
All of it leading to this.
"That's good to hear."
"It's excellent work, Harper." A thin smile crossed her face. "I've already fielded two calls from city officials asking who our sources are. I told them to pound sand."
That sounded like Marianne.
Seven years of filing reports no one read. Seven years of watching violations get buried. He'd built that documentation alone, in the margins of his shifts, never knowing if anyone would care.
Now the whole city was paying attention.
Now people cared. Now the whole city was paying attention.
I wished he could be here to see this. To know that all those years of careful, quiet work had finally meant something.
"Now. The arson story." Marianne leaned back. "Publishing Marsh's photo should help NYPD track her down. When Diaz makes an arrest, we run the full piece. Everything."
"And until then?"
"We wait." Her pen tapped against the desk. "Timing matters. We get one shot at this."
