She laughed, stroking a hand down his back. “Pretty sure you can’t keep racing forever,” she said. “Your knees will mutiny.”
“Traitors,” he muttered. “Fine. I’ll run the shop and be your studio’s in-house mechanic. Hire a couple junior riders to do the dangerous stuff while I yell at them from the pit wall.”
“That sounds terrifying,” she said. “For them. Slightly hot for me.”
He lifted his head, eyebrow arched. “Slightly?”
“Moderately,” she amended. “Possibly extremely.”
He kissed her again, quick and affectionate this time, then rolled onto his back, dragging a hand over his face.
“Timeline-wise,” he said, “we’re looking at permits next week, contracts after that. If all goes well, we’re in construction within a month.”
“I’ll need to go back to Milwaukee,” she said. “Pack up my apartment. Figure out what to put in storage and what to bring here. Maybe help my parents shift some of Bryn’s things from altars to actual life. That’s not going to be easy.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
She turned her head to look at him. “You don’t have to.”
“I know,” he said. “I want to. If I’m buying a building with you and using my power tools in your future studio, I’d like to see where you’ve been living. Meet your parents. Pay my respects to Bryn.”
Emotion punched through her chest, sharp and fierce. “You already did,” she said, voice thick. “When you pulled me out of that hotel room the first night and made me walk on the beach. She’d have liked you for that alone.”
“Then I want to go stand where she’s buried and tell her I’m going to keep trying,” he breathed. “If that’s okay with you.”
She pressed her face into his shoulder for a moment, hiding the sudden sting in her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s okay.”
He wrapped an arm around her, holding her close. “We’ll figure the schedule out after Diaz gives us the all clear on your mystery sedan.”
“Awareness, not paranoia,” she reminded him.
He huffed. “You’re going to throw that back at me forever, aren’t you?”
“Forever’s a big word,” she said. “But it’s getting less scary.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Good.”
"We should also talk to a realtor and find a house."
He chuckled. "I've been thinking that too. I want to live with you. I want you to live with me."
She smiled softly as she stared at their joined hands. "I want that too."
Outside, the sounds of Copper Moon drifted up from the street. A distant motorcycle engine. Laughter from the boardwalk. The faint echo of someone calling out about fresh fish at a stall.
Inside, the room smelled like them: soap, sweat, hotel sheets, and something new that felt a lot like home.
Bree closed her eyes and let herself imagine it. Not just this room, temporary and anonymous, but the upstairs of the warehouse with their life layered into it. Paint-stained floors. The thump of tools downstairs. Hank’s laughter slipping under the studio door. Her parents sitting on a mismatched couch at an opening, pointing out details in the Bryn paintings to anyone who would listen.
The future wasn’t a cliff anymore.
It was a long, winding road, full of potholes and unexpected turns; she knew that. Some people out there didn’t like what they had done with Marcus and the nitrous kit. There were conversations ahead that would hurt.
But she wasn’t standing at the edge of nothing.
She was already walking.
“Hey,” Hank murmured. “You zoning out on me?”
