“I want to be clear about something,” she says.
I wait.
“I’m staying in Cypress Grove. That’s decided. This place has gotten into me and I’m not fighting it anymore.” She looks up at me. “You’re also here, which is not a small thing. But I want you to know it’s not only you. It’s the whole thing. Everything is making me stay. Kate, the vibe. You.”
“Good,” I say. “That’s how it should be.”
“I don’t know what we’re doing exactly.”
“We’re figuring it out,” I say. “Together. That’s enough for now.”
She looks at me for a moment. Something in her face settles.
“It’s a little insane, even by my standards. A month ago I was in Italy.”
“A month ago I was planning to sell this place and go back to New York.”
“And now?”
I look at the resort — the white walls catching the morning light, the cypress trees beyond, the path that leads to the springs. My childhood. My parents' dream. Mine now, in a different way.
“Now I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be,” I say.
She squeezes my hand. Then she turns, and I do too, and the distance between us closes naturally.
Our kiss is unhurried and warm and tastes like possibilities and promise, like the springs and the humid air and something that's been building since the night she handed me a heart-shaped stone and pretended it was nothing.
“Yeah,” she says, when we break apart. “Me too.”
