Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
ALIX
Everyone loved to talk about grand gestures like they were cinematic moments — brave, sweeping, romantic. Nobody ever mentioned the part where you sat in a café with a stomachache, sweating through your shirt, trying not to throw up in front of a pastry case.
Alix had been brave in theory. Now, she was just nauseous.
The air conditioning in the café didn’t stand a chance against Miami humidity. Her hair clung to the back of her neck, her shirt was plastered to her spine, and Phyllis’s enormous pink suitcase sat beside her like a neon sign flashing Idiot in love.
She’d landed that morning, clutching the handle so tight her knuckles ached, running on three hours of sleep and a single granola bar. She’d taken one step outside the airport and instantly regretted the jacket she’d thought made her look “put together.” Now it felt like punishment.
The plan — if it could even be called that — was to surprise Grace after work. Maybe text her from downstairs. Maybe show up at her condo like a rom-com heroine who didn’t overthink everything. But now, hours later, she was starting to doubt her entire life’s decision-making matrix.
She’d replayed every possible scenario: Grace crying, Grace laughing, Grace panicking and saying What are you doing here? The loop was eating her alive.
She was mid–mental spiral when her phone lit up. Grace.
The next few minutes were a blur. The clatter of her suitcase wheels, the rush of sunlight, the honk of horns as Grace darted across traffic.
And then she was there.
And then Grace was saying she loved her, three syllables she’d never get enough of, and the truth was spilling out.
Alix’s heart thudded painfully in her chest. This was the part no one talked about.
How bravery and nausea could coexist so intimately.
She gave a little laugh that came out strangled.
“We can talk about it after you’re done with work.
I know, you bill in, like, thirty-second increments or whatever. ”
Grace’s expression turned sharp — all lawyer focus, no mercy. “Alix.”
Alix winced. “Yeah?”
“Explain. Now.”
Her palms went clammy. She’d rehearsed this a dozen times, and every version had ended with her either passing out or accidentally proposing. Neither of which was exactly what she was going for.
“I’m here,” Alix blurted. “Forever. If that’s okay with you.”
Grace froze. Her eyes went wide, and then she made a small, disbelieving sound, half laugh, half gasp, before launching herself at Alix again. They stumbled into another kiss, messy and grinning, Alix’s borrowed suitcase nearly tipping into the gutter.
When they broke apart, Alix pressed their foreheads together, breath hitching.
“I want to give us the best chance possible,” she said, a mixture of bashful nerves and headfirst certainty.
“And that isn’t cross-country. Lola already talked to a friend who owns a salon in…
someplace called Wilton Manors? Which sounds fake, like a retirement home for drag queens, but apparently it’s a real place.
And I’m willing to get a car. Like, a real car, not a vintage beater money pit.
And I don’t want to pressure you in any way, so I was thinking I’d find my own apartment first and—”
Grace cut her off with a kiss that was all heat and disbelief and pure, unfiltered joy.
When she finally pulled back, her eyes were glassy. “Do you want to drive my car back to my place?”
Alix blinked. “What? No. I’ll wait for you. I’ve got a good book, and I should probably start figuring out what the hell my hair’s going to do in this humidity before I start charming local business owners.”
Grace laughed. A full-body laugh that made her throw her head back, radiant. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Yeah,” Alix said, trying to steady her voice. “That’s what everyone keeps telling me. But usually in a less romantic context.”
Grace leaned in, kissed her once more, gentler this time. “I can’t believe you’re really here.”
Alix smiled, brushing her thumb over Grace’s cheek. “Believe it, Gator. You’re stuck with me.”
After an afternoon and a chapter she had to re-read four times, she was standing in Grace’s twenty-first-floor condo, staring at two fat Siamese cats who were very clearly judging her.
The larger one, Icarus, she knew from the hundreds of photos she’d seen of him, lounged in a sunbeam like a throw pillow with aspirations of grandeur. The smaller one, Sheila, glared from atop a cat tree with an expression that said So this is the homewrecker I’ve heard about.
“Wow, she’s really sizing you up,” Grace said.
Alix rocked on her heels. “Cool, cool. Love that the cats are leading the inquisition.”
She crouched down, holding out a hand. “Hey, Icarus. You’re very handsome. I can see you’ve been doing your squats.”
He blinked once. The feline equivalent of I acknowledge your presence but don’t get attached. After a beat, he rolled onto his side, exposing a belly the size of a small planet.
“She’s fat-shaming you already,” Grace told him, mock-offended. “I told you they’re Cuban, so of course they’re a little curvier.”
“I’m simply complimenting his core strength,” Alix corrected. “I can respect a man with confidence.”
Sheila responded with a low, offended trill and hopped down to hide under the couch.
“Okay,” Alix said, straightening up. “So fifty-fifty approval rating. That’s a win in my book.”
Grace laughed, that bright, unguarded sound that always turned Alix’s ribs into glass. “You’re doing better than I thought you might.”
“Well, I didn’t forget to get a gift for my tiny Valentines, too,” Alix said, producing freeze-dried salmon treats from her backpack.
Suddenly, the cats were much more amenable to her presence, even if Sheila grabbed her treat and side-eyed Alix as she ate it.
Icarus asked for seconds, then thirds, and finally Grace had to scold her to stop giving him more.
Grace’s waterfront condo was exactly what Alix had imagined: a breathtaking view, warm light, tidy surfaces that didn’t feel staged, books stacked sideways, Post-its on the fridge in an organized chaos that screamed lawyer brain.
A half-empty wine bottle sat beside a vase of fresh daisies.
There was life here, and effort, and the most comforting scent everywhere — citrus and Fabuloso and something faintly floral that Alix couldn’t name but wanted to drown in.
Grace turned in the doorway, suddenly uncertain. “It’s not much.”
Alix looked around, her chest tight with something too big to name. “It’s perfect.”
And then Grace kissed her.
It wasn’t frantic like before. It was slow and sure and unbearably tender. The kind of kiss that said We made it.
They found their way to the bedroom, tripping over the pink suitcase, laughing when Sheila’s indignant yowl echoed down the hall.
The air was heavy with heat and possibility.
Grace’s skin was silken under her hands, her pulse steady and strong.
Every movement felt like a promise — of forever, of showing up again and again and again.
When Grace called out her name, Alix felt all of the tension uncoil inside herself, all the fear she’d carried dissolving into the quiet between them.
They lay tangled together an hour later, the ceiling fan spinning lazy circles above them. Icarus jumped onto the bed like an anvil, curling himself against Grace’s hip with a contented sigh. Sheila appeared on the windowsill, pretending she wasn’t watching.
“Someday they’re gonna like me even better than you,” Alix murmured, eyes half-closed. “I’m gonna be the cool stepmom.”
“Don’t push your luck,” Grace said, stroking her hair.
Alix smiled. “Too late.”
Dinner was Thai takeout eaten cross-legged in bed, sauce packets scattered across the comforter, chopsticks abandoned in favor of fingers.
Grace accidentally dripped peanut sauce on her thigh, and Alix offered to “help with that,” which resulted in another round of breathless laughter and near-toppling takeout containers.
When they finally settled, full and warm, Grace turned serious. “So,” she said. “What now? What does this look like?”
Alix considered the question, tracing patterns on Grace’s arm. “I think it looks like… mornings. Coffee and kisses and traffic that makes us late. You yelling at your phone while I’m late to see clients because one of the cats puked in my shoe. I want dumb, normal days with you.”
Grace’s eyes warmed. “You really moved here.”
“I did,” Alix said quietly. “I mean, I still have to go back and get most of my stuff, but a shocking amount fit in Phyllis’s suitcase. Oh, and get this…” She relayed the story of Phyllis and the Christmas song and her rent money.
Grace laughed, eyes bright. “She’s, like, your guardian angel.”
“Oh God, don’t ever let her hear you say something so nice about her.” Alix laughed.
As their laughter quieted, Grace glanced around the room. “You can stay here, you know.”
“I see what you’re saying.” Alix hesitated, heart hammering.
“I don’t want to pressure you. I’ll find my own place so we can still have space while we figure the rest out together when the time is right.
We can spend as much time together as possible, but I’m not here to derail your entire life.
I know it’s fast, but I just… I don’t want the long distance. I only want us.”
Grace reached up, brushing a tear from her cheek she hadn’t realized had fallen. “You’re all I want, too.”
Alix exhaled, trembling with relief. “Good. Because I’m terrible at pretending otherwise.”
Grace grinned and kissed her again, slow and certain, the kind of kiss that felt like the beginning of a lifetime.
When they broke apart, Alix whispered, “This feels like forever.”
Grace laced their fingers together beneath the blanket. “That’s because it is.”
Icarus purred loudly enough to rattle the bed frame. Sheila flicked her tail and turned toward the window, unimpressed by the sentiment.
Alix laughed into Grace’s shoulder. “These cats are dramatic.”
Grace smiled against her hair. “They get it from their mother.”
Outside, the water stretched out before them and the city hummed below — a low, constant rhythm of traffic and ocean wind, of people living their ordinary, extraordinary lives, of endless horizons just a glance away.
They talked until they fell asleep, wrapped in one another.
Grace’s breathing evened out beside her, the cats had settled, and the air held that sacred stillness that only came when the world finally stopped asking for more.
Alix let her eyes drift shut, her hand resting over Grace’s heart. Love wasn’t the blaze she’d always feared. It was the hush that followed, the safe dark after the storm.