“But…Emma? I’d be invading her space, I don’t want her to feel—”
“I already talked to her,” he says, his thumb stroking my jawline. “She said, and I quote, ‘That would be the bestest thing ever.’”
“…three… two…ONE! HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
A roaring cheer erupts from the television, a wave of synthesized horns and shouts. Confetti explodes on screen.
Leo doesn’t look away from me. He kisses me again, deep and sure, as the new year officially crashes over us. This kiss isn’t celebratory for the ball drop; it’s a promise for everything after.
I get lost in it. In the familiar taste of him, the solid warmth of his chest under my palms, the way his hand cradles the back of my head. And as I melt into him, a clear, quiet thought cuts through the fizzy haze of champagne and joy:
This man, who once dragged me out of a taxi by my ankles, has become my person.
The absurdity of it is almost funny. The grumpy, skeptical stranger I fought on a dirty curb is now the steady ground beneath my feet. And his fierce, magnificent daughter, asleep on the couch, has become the heart of my home. Not the sprawling, silent houses of my childhood, but this—this warm, cluttered, paper-chain-decorated apartment full of real life and mismatched socks and the best kind of noise.
In such a short, dizzying amount of time, they have become my home. Not a place, but a feeling. A feeling so solid and real it makes twelve million dollars feel like Monopoly money in comparison.
He breaks the kiss, resting his forehead against mine. “Happy New Year, Annie.”
“Happy New Year,” I whisper back.
He pulls back just enough to see my face, his thumbs stroking the apples of my cheeks. “So,” he says, his voice still low and intimate in the post-midnight quiet. “Any resolutions? Big plans for this brave new year of ours?”
I hum, pretending to think. The truth has been forming in my chest for weeks, a quiet, hopeful seedling. “Actually, yeah. I have one. A big one.”
“Let’s hear it.” He settles back against the couch, pulling me with him so I’m tucked into his side, my head on his shoulder.
“I want a house,” I say, the words feeling wonderfully solid as they leave my mouth. “A real one. With a yard and actual grass. Room for a garden. Maybe a tree for a tire swing. A kitchen with a window over the sink, so you can look out while you’re doing dishes. A porch. Definitely a porch. With a glider or one of those big, cushy swings.”
I tilt my head to look up at him, suddenly nervous. “Is that…a terrible idea? Too much?”
Leo shakes his head slowly, a smile spreading across his face that’s so full of warmth it makes my breath catch. “I love that idea. A yard for Emma to run in. A porch swing.” He kisses my forehead. “I can picture it.”
“And,” I add, the practical part jumping ahead, “with the trust, I could afford to—”
“Nope,” he cuts in, gentle but firm. He shifts to look me in the eye. “If we’re living in a house together, we’re buying it together. We’re a team, remember? I’ve got savings. Financially, I’m doing well. We’ll both contribute. It’sourhome, not your purchase.”
The wordsour homeland in the center of my chest and expand, warm and bright. I beam at him. “Okay. Deal.”
I’ve never owned a home before. The concept is thrillingly, horrifyingly adult. But the images come easily, painted in the quiet colors of real life: Leo at a built-in grill in that yard, squinting through smoke. Emma chasing fireflies as dusk falls, her laughter floating through an open screen door. Pancakes on a Saturday morning in a sunny breakfast nook. Rainy afternoons on that porch swing, watching the world go by. Mismatched mugs in a cupboard. A place where we could paint the walls any color we wanted, where the memories would be ours alone to make.
“Any other grand plans?” Leo asks, his fingers tracing idle patterns on my arm.
“One more.” I take a deep breath. This one feels more vulnerable. “I want to use my degree. Like, actually use it. I want to be a reporter.”
“Yeah. I’ve…I’ve actually been talking to someone.” I feel a flicker of the old, impostor-syndrome fear, but I push it down. “My mom called not too long after she came to see me and told me she’s doing this film with a producer who knows Diane Sawyer. Not like,knows herknows her, but has a connection. I guess my mom mentioned that I’d studied journalism in college. The producer passed my name and a writing sample to a producer at60 Minutes.”
Saying it out loud still feels surreal. Diane Sawyer. The name belonged to the gleaming world of network news, to my parents’ television, not to me.
“Annie, that’s incredible news!” Leo says, his voice full of genuine awe.
“It’s just an informational interview,” I rush to clarify. “With a junior producer, not with her. And it might lead nowhere. It probably will. But…it’s a foot in the door, at least.”
I look down at our joined hands. “The money…it’s freedom. It means I don’t have to work. But Iwantto. I want to dosomething that matters. I want to have a purpose that’s mine. Not my parents’. I want to be Annie, the person who asks questions and finds stories that matter. Even if I have to start by fetching coffee and logging tapes.”
Leo looks at me for a long beat, his eyes dark and full of something that feels a lot like pride. He doesn’t say I don’t need to work, or that twelve million dollars means I can retire at twenty-five. He just leans in and kisses the tip of my nose. “I think you’d be scary good at it. You’re stubborn, you’re observant, and you have a way of getting people to talk to you. It’s how you infiltrated this family, after all.”
I laugh, shoving him lightly. “I didnotinfiltrate.”
