“Everything Shep does is excessive.” He pockets the phone. “I should go.”
“I know.”
Neither of us moves.
“Come to dinner Sunday,” he says. “At Mom’s. With me. As my girlfriend.”
The word—girlfriend—hits differently when he says it in the context of family dinners and public acknowledgment. Not just a label. A declaration.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, I’ll come to dinner.” I smile. “I’ve been having dinner with your family for years anyway. This just makes it official.”
“This makes it everything.” He kisses me once more—softer now, almost reverent. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“I’ll text you later.”
“You better.”
He leaves, and I stand alone in my salon, surrounded by the evidence of everything I’ve built.
But it feels different now. Not because the work matters less—it doesn’t. The brand partnership is still exciting. The launch event is still important. My professional life is still entirely mine.
But there’s room for something else now. Someone else. A relationship that doesn’t require me to shrink or wait or pretend I don’t want things I’ve always wanted.
My phone buzzes. Not Bennet.
Margot:Mrs. Henderson just posted a photo of you and Bennett making out in your salon. It has forty-seven likes and nineteen comments already. Sorrowville is LOSING ITS MIND.
I laugh out loud. Actually laugh, alone in my salon, at the absurdity of small-town gossip.
Me:Good. Let them.
Margot:So I take it the conversation went well?
Me:He told the entire team I’m his girlfriend. Texted the group chat while I watched. Then kissed me in front of Mrs. Henderson.
A pause.
Margot:You deserve it, girl.
I sit on the couch in the back room—the same couch where we first kissed, where everything started to shift—and let myself feel what’s happening.
Bennett chose me.
Out loud. In public. Where it counts.
And I chose him back.
Not because I needed him to be complete. Not because my life was missing something without him. But because love isn’t about filling gaps—it’s about choosing to share the fullness with someone else.
I chose this.
And that choice feels like the beginning of something instead of the end.
