“Does it make you sad?” Marina asked, taking the small box from River’s hands.
“A little, I guess. In the way that you’ll miss the quirky roommate you lived with. But I can’t stay just because they’ve gotten used to my company.” River put her arm around Marina’s shoulders and smiled at the way she fit so perfectly against her. Over the last year, they’d had their share of blowouts. Marina was all fire, and River was cool mist. Sometimes that created the wrong atmosphere for them to hear each other.
The makeup sex was fucking phenomenal though.
“Come on. Let’s go home.” Marina looked at the ceiling. “Bye, Marjorie!” she called out, but there was no discernable answer. She shrugged and loped down the few front stairs to the car.
“Bye, Marjorie,” River whispered. “I hope you find your way across one day.” The kitchen curtain twitched, and River smiled.
She ran out to Marina’s car and jumped in. “Let’s go.”
Marina held River’s hand as they drove to their new place. It was situated on the edge of South Shore, closer to Marina’s new office but not so far that River had to commute. Echoes was doing more business than ever thanks to the court case against Black Pinnacle being back in the news, along with the pieces about Sheila Black’s strange death; her body had been found at the bottom of a ravine in Spain. River was just glad Sheila’s ghost hadn’t come around to haunt them. She wouldn’t have put it past her. But the influx of business meant she’d been able to handle the repairs needed in the building, and the businesses around her were getting more foot traffic too. The area was remaking itself, step by step.
Kayla had taken Audrey’s place at Echoes, and her marketing wizardry was part of the business’s second life. She spent a lot of time with Leo too, talking through social media aspects, and River felt the subtle, slow building of something special between them. She was also tutoring Leo in how to use their own gifts. Kayla and Marina had lunch several times a week, and River was always excited when Marina came in to get her sister.
They pulled up behind the U-Haul truck, where Rob, Jeff, Billy, and Cari were already helping unload.
“I can’t believe you waited an entire year to move in together.” Rob sat on the truck’s edge and fanned himself. “What kind of lesbians are you?”
“The kind who wanted to find just the right place.” Marina stuck her tongue out at him and grabbed a box to take inside.
River leaned next to him, against the truck. “And the kind who couldn’t decide which of us had to give up our place. Marina didn’t even really like hers, but she couldn’t handle my roommate’s oddities.”
He rubbed at his arms like he had goosebumps. It was eighty degrees in the shade; he didn’t. “Your ghosts can stay out there. Don’t bring them here, or I won’t ever come for dinner, and I’ll miss out on Marina’s dad’s cooking. I’d ask that man to marry us if I thought we had half a chance.”
River laughed and pushed him out of the way so she could jump into the truck. “You have exactly no probability in that department.” She hefted a box and headed inside, Rob grumbling along behind her with another. They’d become good friends over the last year, and she was lucky to have him and Jeff in her inner circle. Billy often hung out with them too, and she was glad to see his world expanding beyond his coffee shop and single-use dates. All three of them had started volunteering in some way at the Center on Halsted, and even Rob said it gave him the warm fuzzies to be giving back to their community.
“How are the renovations in your office going?” she asked when they’d set their boxes down and gone to retrieve more.
“So ridiculous.” Marina shook her head, clearly having overheard the question as she passed them with another armload. “Our office was perfectly fine.”
“Because adequate is a great way to market talent like ours.” He rolled his eyes and motioned toward Marina in a “can you believe her” kind of way.
River had quickly learned to stay out of that particular argument between them. Their main office in the Loop was outrageously expensive, but River hadn’t been surprised that’s where they’d started. She’d hung the painting she’d bought from the exhibition in her office as a reminder of the dreams she was making happen, and River loved that she had that memento of their first meeting up where she could see it each day. What had surprised her was that they’d opened a small satellite office in Pilsen to handle the types of law neither Marina nor Rob practiced. Between them, it had taken four months before they had more work than they could handle, and Cari had taken over the hiring for their expansion.
It took most of the afternoon to get everything unloaded and moved into the correct rooms, and their helpers all waved exhausted goodbyes and received promises of repayment in good food in the near future.
And then it was just Marina and River in their new home, and River felt that sense of rightness click into place the way it always did when she was doing exactly what the Universe had laid out for her.
She turned and saw Marina leaning against the windowsill, looking just a little overwhelmed. “Talk to me.”
Marina rested her head against the wall. “I love you.”
River grinned. “I love you too. Now tell me what’s really going through your head.”
“What next?” Marina tugged, and they sat on the floor facing each other. “I have an amazing woman I can’t imagine being without. We have a new home together. My practice is doing better than I could have imagined, and Echoes has no shortage of people wanting some woo-woo experience.”
River waited, knowing that this was how Marina worked through things. She liked to make lists and get things in order in her head before moving on. Intuition wasn’t something she thought she used. River knew better, of course. Marina’s intuition just worked in more subtle ways.
“What happens when you achieve your dreams? What do you do next?” She frowned, her fingertips tracing the patterns in the wood flooring. “Do you just accept you’ve reached the top and there’s nothing more to chase?”
River started laughing and cupped Marina’s cheek. “Baby, we haven’t even unpacked, and you’re already worried about not having some project in the pipeline?” She leaned forward and kissed her gently. “Can’t you relax and just enjoy the moment?”
“Ugh. You and your thing about living in the present.” Marina’s smile took any sting out of her words.
“Well, I do think it’s the best way to be. But if you want something to look forward to…” River pulled the little box out of her cargo pants pocket, and Marina’s eyes widened. River opened it and held it out. “Will you marry me?”
Marina stared at the ring, her hand over her mouth, and then broke into a huge smile. “Yes!” She tried to leap up just as River went to take her hand, and she ended up head-butting River’s cheek. When she tried to right herself, she lost her balance, and they tumbled over onto the floor together.
