Someone's called the police. I can hear sirens in the distance.
The developer tries to leave. The crowd blocks him. Not violently. Just present. Immovable.
When the officers arrive, it takes less than five minutes to sort the truth from the lies. The recordings. The blueprints. The assistant crumbles under questioning, throwing the developer under the bus with impressive speed.
Arrests are made. Handcuffs click. The crowd cheers.
I wait in the middle of the chaos, clutching the kitten, who Grath finally handed over, and trying to process that we actually did it.
We won.
The rooftop garden is quiet.Empty. The gala continues below, but muted now, background noise to the sound of my heartbeat gradually slowing to normal.
Grath leans against the railing, his borrowed shirt torn at the shoulder, bow tie long gone. He looks exhausted. Triumphant. Beautiful in the way that broken things sometimes are when they've survived something terrible and come out whole on the other side.
I set the kitten down. It immediately starts grooming itself with offended dignity, as though the evening's heroics were a personal insult.
"You found my note," Grath says quietly.
I did. This morning, slipped under the café door. I'd read it three times before I could make myself put it down.
"You're an idiot," I tell him.
He flinches. I step closer.
"You're an idiot for thinking I don't love you. For thinking you have to earn it or prove yourself worthy or whatever stupid, self-sacrificing thing you've got rattling around in that thick skull."
His eyes widen. Hope flickers there, tentative and fragile.
"I love you," I say. The words feel huge. Terrifying. True. "I've been in love with you since you crashed into my café covered in mud and wouldn't stop apologizing to the kitten. I'm just really, really bad at admitting when I need someone."
"You don't need to need me," he says roughly. "You're the strongest person I know."
"I don't need to need you," I agree. "But I want to. I want you there when things fall apart. I want you there when they don't. I want you taking up too much space in my kitchen and breaking my furniture with your ridiculous muscles and making me laugh when I'm trying to stay mad."
He reaches for me. His hands, still dusty with drywall and champagne, cup my face with a gentleness that makes me ache.
"I'm still terrified," he admits.
"Me too."
"I don't know how to do this. How to be in love without waiting for it to get ripped away."
"Neither do I." I lean into his touch. "But I think maybe we figure it out together. Badly. With lots of mistakes and property damage."
He laughs. The sound is rough, almost broken, but real.
"I can do that."
"Good."
He kisses me. Slow and deep and tasting of relief and champagne-soaked chaos. His arms wrap around me, solid and safe, and for the first time in weeks, maybe years, I let myself relax into it. Let myself be held without flinching at the vulnerability.
Below us, the city sparkles. The café waits. Tomorrow we'll have to deal with the aftermath, the press, the inevitable bureaucratic nightmare of prosecuting corrupt developers.
But tonight, up here in the quiet dark with Grath's heartbeat steady under my palm and the kitten purring at our feet, I let myself have this.
I let myself have him.
