"A lot more things. Art supplies. Clothes. Whatever you want."
"Logan—"
"I'm going to spoil you. That's happening."
She shakes her head, but the smile is already there. "Fine. I get veto rights on anything ugly."
"Deal.” I smile. “Also, I’m going to marry you eventually. Not asking. I’m telling you that in advance.”
She kisses me, then goes back to unpacking. I watch the suitcase get emptier and feel something settle in my chest, slow and warm.
She reaches the bottom.
Her hands still.
She pulls out an envelope — white, crisp, official — and holds it up. Her name on the front. This address.
She didn't put it there. I can see her working through that fact, brow furrowed, turning the envelope over in her hands.
"Open it," I say.
She tears it carefully. Reads the first two lines. Stops.
Before the assault. Before the Gilded Lily. Before I drove to the Atlantic in the dark. I had already done this — already decided her work deserved a door, regardless of whether I'd be on the other side of it when it opened.
She looks up at me. Her eyes are wide and something is building in them that she doesn't have words for yet.
"What is this?"
"I submitted your drawings," I say. "To the Florida School of Fine Arts. I made copies from your notebook — the city sketches, the club, the ones of me. Filled out the application. Sent it in."
"You—" She stops. "When?"
"Weeks ago."
She looks back at the letter. Reads more of it. Her hands have gone still. The pencil callus on her right hand catches the afternoon light.
"You had no right," she says.
"I know."
"I didn't ask you to do this."
"I know."
"I might not even—" She stops again. Her jaw works. "I dropped out. I haven't thought about going back."
"Maybe it's time to start thinking about it."
She looks at me. Her eyes are wet. "You believe in my work. You actually—"
"I have one of the sketches framed," I say. "In my apartment above the club. I asked Gunner to make me a copy the week after you left the notebook open on the dining table — the one of the bay at dusk. It's been on my wall since then."
Her mouth opens. Closes.
"That's the only personal thing in that apartment," I say. "The only thing on any wall. I believed in your work before you gave me any reason to think you'd stay."
She stays on the floor for another moment, the letter in her hands, the empty suitcase beside her.
