"Less annoyingly qualified."
I roll onto my back. She tucks against my side immediately—automatic, her head finding the space below my shoulder, her hand settling on my chest.
My hand finds her back. Slow circles. She’s warmer than I remembered. Better than three weeks of memory.
“I love you so much, Jane Cooper.”
She's quiet for a moment.
Outside, Cedar Falls sits in February gold, unhurried and warm and not going anywhere.
Then, against my chest, quiet enough that it’s only for me:
"I know. I love you too. Nowcall them."
I close my eyes.
Sign the contract.
Choose her.
Both feel exactly right.
Chapter 24
Epilogue
April 5 | New York
Jane
West’s New York apartment looks like a shipping facility had a nervous breakdown.
Boxes everywhere. Tape. Bubble wrap. The chaos of a man who owns too many things and hasn’t purged anything in eight years.
I stand in the kitchen holding a colander.
“Why do you own three of these?”
“I don’t know.”
“You live alone.”
“Aware.”
“When have you ever needed to drain three separate pots of pasta simultaneously?”
He looks up from the box he’s taping. “Are you genuinely asking or is this rhetorical judgment?”
“Both.”
He crosses the kitchen, takes the colander from me, and tosses it into the donate pile without ceremony.
“Happy?” he asks.
“Deeply.” I make a face at him, which only makes him grin.
We work in silence for a while. I wrap glasses in newspaper. He labels boxes in handwriting so neat it looks like a font.
