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I glance down at our joined hands, my chest aching with a mixture of disbelief and relief, and smile to myself.

Keeping her at the convention had turned out to be surprisingly easy because Daria, Raffi and Naithan decided Bri was their new favourite person. I’d barely introduced them before they swept her into conversation, asking about her writing, recommending books she’d absolutely have to read, and debating which fictional worlds would be the worst places to accidentally wake up.

I’d slipped away while they were busy. The little independent book stall near the back of Hall Three had exactly what I was looking for. Earlier this weekend she’d mentioned that as a little girl she’d always wanted one of those beautiful leather bookmarks with embossed dragons on the front, but she’d never owned one—they’d never had spare money. She’d shrugged it off like it wasn’t a big deal.

“I used scraps of paper mostly—they worked just as well,” she’d said. It was such a Bri answer, practical, unassuming, and making light of something that probably hadn’t felt very funny at the time.

So, when I’d spotted a handcrafted leather bookmark, embossed with an intricate dragon emblem, tucked inside a matching gift box, I didn't hesitate.

It wasn’t expensive or flashy. It was simply… Her.

I also purchased a set of notebooks with matching pens—she’d told me she always wrote her ideas out by hand first, plotting scenes and untangling her thoughts onto paper before they ever became books. It was such a wonderfully Bri habit that I couldn’t leave them behind.

I’d suspected her birthday was close, ever since the other night when she’d said, “I’ll be forty…” Then she’d corrected herself—I’m forty-one.

Classic Bri, never wanting to make a fuss or believing she deserved one. I’m just grateful Ember figured out today was the day. Even if it was at the eleventh hour.

“Is something going on?” she asks, glancing at me.

I laugh. “Not at all.”

Her eyes narrow suspiciously before returning to the road. “I don’t believe you.”

“I know.”

That’s my girl, always so astute. I knew she was starting to suspect something when she caught me glancing at my phone for the hundredth time, manufacturing another excuse before we could leave, whilst I waited for Ember’s text to arrive.

How did this happen? What did I do right to end up here, with her? I honestly have no idea. All I know is that over this weekend she became my favourite part of every day. That silence changed from a source of fear into something to look forward to, because it means I get to share it with her.

She snuck under my ribs and into my heart with such grace I never even saw it coming, until she stopped being just someone I’d met and transformed into someone I couldn’t imagine not knowing.

I came to this convention expecting another weekend of pretending. Smiling for photographs, signing autographs and feeling like a fraud—surrounded by people who knew Jackson Shaw but didn’t know me. I thought I'd leave feeling empty. Instead, I found a family.

Lennie, with his endless wisdom and terrible jokes. Luna, who somehow makes everyone feel loved. Ember, who notices everything and says exactly what everyone else is thinking. Enzo, who turned strangers into a family worth staying for, one meal at a time. Saint… one of my closest friends, born out of unimaginable grief. And then… There’s Bri.

She arrived unapologetically, calling me ‘Captain Asshole,’ I thought she hated me—I laugh quietly at the memory—how wrong I was. She saw every broken part of me, every mistake, and every ounce of guilt I’d been carrying, and she never flinched. She stayed, listened without judgement and understood me in ways even I don’t understand myself.

She chose me.

I never realised how desperately I needed someone to do that.

The lodge appears between the trees ahead and Bri smiles. “We’re home.”

Home. Funny how a week ago I’d have said home was wherever I could lock a door behind me and disappear from the world. Now… Home looks like a life filled with laughter. It smells like Enzo’s cooking. It sounds like Saint’s dramatic commentary echoing across the courtyard, alongside Lennie’s wisdom. It looks like Luna and Ember comforting others with their endless empathy and care. And it feels like sitting beside Bri while she sings the wrong words to the radio without a care in the world.

Maybe home was never a place. Maybe it was always the people. And somehow, against every odd imaginable, I’ve found mine.

Chapter 52

Bri

“Welcome home, darling.”

I barely make it three steps into the courtyard before Saint appears, practically materialising out of thin air. I narrow my eyes at him. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re up to something!”