Her gaze fell back to the painting of Hank.
“I want to finish something,” she said.
“I thought you just did,” he said, glancing at the ring.
“That too,” she said. “But I meant this. I want to sign it.”
She picked up a thinner brush, dipped it in dark paint, and stepped close to the bottom corner of the canvas. Her hand shook once, then steadied as she wrote her name. Not the careful gallery signature she’d used in the city, the one that tried to sound older and cooler than she felt. Just her real name, in the script her grandmother had taught her as a kid.
Aubree.
She stepped back. The letters looked right there, small but sure.
“There,” she said. “First official Copper Moon piece finished.”
Hank slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest. “Second,” he said, nodding toward Bryn’s painting.
“That one’s close,” she said. “Not quite there.”
“It can take its time,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere.”
She leaned into him, feeling the steady beat of his heart against her back.
“What happens now?” she asked quietly.
“Now we get used to calling each other fiancé,” he said. “We meet with Jason and Kara and Liz. We start arguing about tile choices and shop signage. Colby freaks out his captain by asking for transfer paperwork. Brian designs at least twenty terrible logo options before we talk him down to five.”
“And me?” she asked.
“You,” he said, kissing her shoulder, “paint. You teach. You yell at me when I leave greasy handprints on your clean walls. You hang that,” he nodded at the canvas, “wherever you want. And when it all feels like too much, you come upstairs and breathe in this light until it doesn’t.”
She turned, facing him fully. “That sounds like a plan,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “Because I’m not really capable of subtle ones.”
He bent, scooping her up before she could protest. She yelped, arms flying around his neck.
“Hank,” she said, laughing. “You’re going to throw out your back.”
“Rude,” he said. “I’m a finely tuned athlete.”
“You’re a mechanic with good cardio,” she said.
“Same thing,” he replied.
He carried her the few steps to the sunlit patch by the windows and set her down gently on the drop cloth, following her down, bracing his weight on his hands.
The kiss that followed was slower, deeper; less about the adrenaline of new decisions and more about the quiet certainty underneath them. His hands slid along her sides, callused palms familiar and grounding. Her fingers curled in his T-shirt, tugging him closer.
Clothes didn’t come off all at once, but piece by piece; a shirt tugged over his head, her tank top peeled away, jeans half unzipped. The afternoon light painted them in gold, catching the curve of his shoulder, the rise and fall of his chest.
He moved carefully, giving her space to say no at every point, even now. She didn’t. She pulled him closer instead, arching into the heat of him, the ring cool against his skin where her hand slid along his back.
There was nothing frantic in it. No fear they were trying to outrun. Just two people who had chosen each other, again and again, anchoring it in skin and breath.
Later, when they lay tangled on the crinkled drop cloth, the studio smelling faintly of sweat and paint, she traced idle patterns on his chest.
“We’re going to need a couch,” she murmured.
