“Dude, we’ll still see each other all the time,” Silas protests.
“Tell me there won’t be nights in the winter where you’d look at each other and decide it’s too big of a pain in the ass to get dressed for the cold and come?—”
“It doesn’t stop me now?—”
I laugh, and they both stop to look at me.“What?”Hunter asks.
“Nothing.Just...this is nice.The three of us.”
Hunter’s expression softens.“Yeah.It is.”
Silas squeezes my knee again, and when I look at him, his eyes are doing that thing—that soft, adoring thing that makes my heart skip.
“I need to say something,” he announces, setting down his fork with unusual seriousness.
Both Hunter and I turn to look at him.
“Bailey.”He takes my hand, threading our fingers together on top of the table where Hunter can see.“I know you’re scared.I know moving back to Here means facing a lot of stuff you’ve been running from.But I swear to you”—his voice drops, getting rougher with emotion—“I swear I’m going to do everything in my power to make you happy.To make Here feel like home again.To show you every day why you belong there.With me.With us.”
My throat goes tight.“Silas?—”
“I mean it.Sunday Fun Days, and helping you deal with your parents, and introducing you to people who’ll love you, and showing you all the ways Here has changed.”He brings our joined hands to his lips, kissing my knuckles.“You’re going to love being a Herevian again.I promise.”
Hunter clears his throat.“Okay, that was actually really romantic.I hate that I have to witness this, but also...yeah, man.We’ve got her.”
“We’ve got you,” Silas echoes, his eyes locked on mine.
And sitting there in my cramped New York apartment, splitting Thai food with my brother and my boyfriend, I realize something.
I’m excited.
Not scared.Not dreading it.Actually, genuinely excited to move back to the place I swore I’d never return to.
Because it’s not the same place anymore.And neither am I.
“Okay,” I say, squeezing Silas’s hand.“Okay.Let’s do this.”
Hunter raises his beer.“To Bailey coming home.”
Silas raises his too.“To new beginnings.”
I lift my wineglass.“To belonging Here.”
We clink glasses, and through the window behind them, the New York skyline glitters with a thousand lights.Beautiful, but not mine.Not anymore.
My home is waiting for me in a small town in the Catskills, with a man who sees me as beautiful and a brother who’ll fight for me and a community that grows and changes.
I can’t wait.
Bailey,Six Weeks Later
“I don’t thinkyou’re going to be able to shower tonight,” my brother says, staring at the boxes of my stuff crammed into Silas’s bathroom.
“He cleared out two shelves in his linen closet for me,” I say.“And I ordered a utility cart and a big mirror to put in the office to do my makeup and stuff in there.”Silas moved his weights down to his unfinished basement, and I think I’m going to buy a treadmill for down there too.It won’t be anything like my gym in the city, but that’s okay.I’ll get to watch Silas lift weights.
Hunter exaggerates a sigh.“He must really love you to tolerate—oof.”
He bends at the waist, holding his side where Silas pinched him.“I don’ttolerateanything,” Silas says firmly.
