“This is good,” Colby said quietly. “You two. This place. It’s… right.”
“Yeah,” Hank said. “It is.”
The night stretched in a warm, looping way. People drifted out slowly. Tom from the marina had an early morning maintenance window. Lila had to prep the café for the breakfast rush. Jason left with promises to be back at dawn to start framing.
Liz hugged them both tightly. “Take fifteen minutes tomorrow to enjoy this before you dive back into forms,” she said. “That’s an order.”
Diaz left last, pausing in the bay door.
“You know how to reach me,” she said. “Not just for work. This many big changes at once can knock people sideways. If you need a sounding board who isn’t personally invested in your paint choices, my office is open.”
“Thanks,” Bree said. “We might take you up on that.”
When the last car pulled away, and the warehouse settled into a gentler quiet, Hank turned off all but one string of lights. It painted a soft halo over the center of the room.
Bree stood in it, barefoot now, her shoes kicked into a corner, curls escaping her clip.
“Everyone’s gone,” he said.
“I noticed,” she said, smiling.
He walked to her, stopping close enough that their toes nearly touched.
“How’s your panic level?” he asked softly.
“Strangely low,” she said. “High on the ‘holy crap, we just signed our lives to this town’ scale. But the panic’s… quiet.”
He tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “Good,” he said. “Because I’ve got it all scheduled for next week.”
She laughed, leaning into his touch. “You realize this is the part where a normal person would say we should get some sleep,” she said. “Big day tomorrow. Contractors and realtors and mortgage people.”
“Lucky for you, I’m not normal,” he said.
“No,” she said softly. “You’re not.”
He kissed her, slow and sure. The taste of cheap champagne and pizza, and something that felt a lot like the future, slipped between them.
The string lights hummed softly overhead. Outside, somewhere beyond the open bay, the harbor whispered against the shore.
Hank rested his forehead against hers when they broke apart.
“We did it,” he said again, needing to hear it out loud.
“We did,” she said. “And tomorrow we keep doing it.”
“Tomorrow,” he agreed.
He had no idea exactly how they’d juggle construction schedules, loan payments, racing commitments, and house repairs. There would be arguments and setbacks and nights where this string of lights was replaced by flickering work lamps and exhaustion.
But standing here, in the echoing center of the life they were building, Hank James felt something he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Home was no longer an idea he’d lost in the rearview mirror. It was right here, watching him with green eyes and paint on her wrist, asking him to stay.
He planned to.
Chapter 25
The morning after the party, the warehouse smelled like leftover pizza, cold concrete, and the faint ozone of overworked fairy lights.
