Chapter 25 #2
Her vision blurred. For a heartbeat, she couldn’t see the ring at all, just color and light and the memory of Bryn saying “You deserve a big love too,” on some long-ago night.
She’d thought that promise went into the ground with her sister.
Apparently, it had just taken the long way back.
“Yes,” she said, the word spilling out before her brain could wrap its arms around it. “Of course, yes.”
Relief crashed across his face, chased quickly by joy. He exhaled a laugh that sounded half disbelieving, half triumphant.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay.”
She held out her hand, fingers shaking. He slid the ring onto her finger, the metal cool against paint-stained skin.
It fit like it had been waiting there all along.
She pulled him up before he could say anything else and kissed him, hands fisted in his shirt. The coffee mugs wobbled on the crate, sloshing a little, but neither of them cared.
He kissed her back with everything he’d just tried to put into words and more besides; promises and apologies and wild, startling hope.
When they finally broke apart, breathing hard, he rested his forehead against hers.
“You sure?” he asked, voice rough.
She laughed through the tears. “Ask me again when I’m trying to match paint colors to your torque wrench collection,” she said. “But yeah. I’m sure.”
He kissed the corner of her mouth, her cheek, the spot just below her ear that made her knees go unreliable.
“Good,” he murmured. “Because I’m not returning that ring.”
She pulled back enough to look at him. “Where did you even get it?” she asked, swiping at her face with the back of her wrist.
He winced. “You’re going to laugh,” he said.
“Try me,” she said.
“Harbor Jewelers,” he said. “I went in for batteries for my watch and walked out having an intense discussion about settings with a woman named Mabel who’s apparently known Liz since kindergarten.”
Bree clapped a hand over her mouth. “You went ring shopping with Mabel,” she said, delighted horror and affection twined together.
“Look, she had opinions and pictures,” he said. “I panicked.”
“You did good,” she said, looking at the ring again. “It’s perfect.”
He relaxed, shoulders dropping. “Mabel will be relieved,” he said. “She threatened to hunt me down if you hated it.”
“I’m terrified of her, and I’ve never met her,” Bree said.
“You should be,” he said.
She laughed, the sound bubbling up, untangled from fear for the first time in what felt like forever.
Her phone chimed again. She sighed, reaching for it.
“Do not be Diaz with an emergency,” she muttered. “I am having a moment.”
It was Diaz.
She opened the text anyway.
State’s filing preliminary charges against the shell company guys. Test day vendor flipped. You two are officially listed as cooperating witnesses, not targets. Keep your heads up and your doors locked. And go live your lives.
Bree’s chest softened. She typed back with one hand, the other still curled unconsciously to feel the ring.
We plan to. Thanks for keeping the monsters out of the corners.
A second message buzzed in almost immediately. This one was from Kara.
Inspection scheduled. Sellers are fixing the roof issue. You’re on track for closing in four weeks, and they've agreed to let you rent from them immediately so you can get out of the hotel. Hope you like signing your names a lot.
Bree set the phone down.
“Well?” Hank asked.
“Diaz says the net’s tightening,” Bree said. “We’re officially in the ‘good guys’ column. Kara says the house is moving forward. We can move in right away and pay rent to the owners for the four weeks we're waiting on closing.”
“Big day,” he said.
“You just proposed,” she said. “Understatement of the year.”
He grinned. “That too.”
She looked around the space; the half-sanded floor, the patched wall where Jason had already started prepping for future hanging rails. Bryn’s painting drying in the corner, Colby’s projection marks still faint on the far bricks, and the new canvas waiting.
Her gaze fell back to the painting of Hank.
“I want to finish something,” she said.
“I thought you just did,” he said, glancing at the ring.
“That too,” she said. “But I meant this. I want to sign it.”
She picked up a thinner brush, dipped it in dark paint, and stepped close to the bottom corner of the canvas.
Her hand shook once, then steadied as she wrote her name.
Not the careful gallery signature she’d used in the city, the one that tried to sound older and cooler than she felt.
Just her real name, in the script her grandmother had taught her as a kid.
Aubree.
She stepped back. The letters looked right there, small but sure.
“There,” she said. “First official Copper Moon piece finished.”
Hank slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest. “Second,” he said, nodding toward Bryn’s painting.
“That one’s close,” she said. “Not quite there.”
“It can take its time,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere.”
She leaned into him, feeling the steady beat of his heart against her back.
“What happens now?” she asked quietly.
“Now we get used to calling each other fiancé,” he said. “We meet with Jason and Kara and Liz. We start arguing about tile choices and shop signage. Colby freaks out his captain by asking for transfer paperwork. Brian designs at least twenty terrible logo options before we talk him down to five.”
“And me?” she asked.
“You,” he said, kissing her shoulder, “paint. You teach. You yell at me when I leave greasy handprints on your clean walls. You hang that,” he nodded at the canvas, “wherever you want. And when it all feels like too much, you come upstairs and breathe in this light until it doesn’t.”
She turned, facing him fully. “That sounds like a plan,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “Because I’m not really capable of subtle ones.”
He bent, scooping her up before she could protest. She yelped, arms flying around his neck.
“Hank,” she said, laughing. “You’re going to throw out your back.”
“Rude,” he said. “I’m a finely tuned athlete.”
“You’re a mechanic with good cardio,” she said.
“Same thing,” he replied.
He carried her the few steps to the sunlit patch by the windows and set her down gently on the drop cloth, following her down, bracing his weight on his hands.
The kiss that followed was slower, deeper; less about the adrenaline of new decisions and more about the quiet certainty underneath them. His hands slid along her sides, callused palms familiar and grounding. Her fingers curled in his T-shirt, tugging him closer.
Clothes didn’t come off all at once, but piece by piece; a shirt tugged over his head, her tank top peeled away, jeans half unzipped. The afternoon light painted them in gold, catching the curve of his shoulder, the rise and fall of his chest.
He moved carefully, giving her space to say no at every point, even now. She didn’t. She pulled him closer instead, arching into the heat of him, the ring cool against his skin where her hand slid along his back.
There was nothing frantic in it. No fear they were trying to outrun. Just two people who had chosen each other, again and again, anchoring it in skin and breath.
Later, when they lay tangled on the crinkled drop cloth, the studio smelling faintly of sweat and paint, she traced idle patterns on his chest.
“We’re going to need a couch,” she murmured.
“For the studio?” he asked, eyes half closed.
“For the house,” she said. “I’m not explaining paint stains on the bedroom floor to your insurance agent.”
He laughed sleepily. “We’ll add it to the list,” he said. “Couch, bed frame, and eighteen fire extinguishers to make Colby happy.”
“Bridal registry is going to be weird,” she said.
“Functional,” he corrected. “People will appreciate the clarity.”
"I'll need to go home and pack up my stuff. Give notice to my landlord. Hug my parents. Are you ready to come with me?"
He nodded. "I have to do the same. Let's plan for later this week. We'll need the furniture for the house."
She rolled onto her side, propping her head on her hand. “You know what I’m looking forward to most?” she asked.
“Hot water that isn’t timed by the front desk?” he guessed.
“That too,” she said. “But I meant this. Waking up in that farmhouse, coming here, climbing these stairs, and seeing work in progress. Not in a guest room in my parents' house, not borrowed, not temporary. Ours.”
He reached up, brushing her hair back from her face. “You’re really in,” he said quietly, as if testing the shape of it one more time.
She looked at the ring on her finger, at the paintings around them, at the dust motes swirling in the light.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m in.”
Outside, a gull cried. Somewhere below, the faint sound of the bay door rolling echoed briefly; Jason, probably, coming to grab a tool he’d forgotten. Life, already moving around them.
Bree sat up, pulling her shirt back on, not bothering with the paint streaks. She crossed to Bryn’s painting in the corner, touching the edge of the canvas lightly.
“We’re going to need more names,” she said.
Hank pushed up on his elbows. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Just thinking. Bryn won’t be the only one. There are so many families out there who never got a place to put their grief down. We should start reaching out when we’re ready.”
“We will,” he said. “One story at a time.”
She nodded, then turned back to him.
In a few weeks, this room would be full of easels, tables, and racks. The wall downstairs would start to bloom with color and memory. The farmhouse would creak under the weight of their furniture and their arguments over cabinet handles.
The case Diaz was working on would grind forward. New problems would appear: pipes, engines, permits, and people.
But right now, in this small, bright pocket of time, the future felt less like a cliff and more like a path. Not smooth, not without potholes. Just something they could walk together, one step at a time.
She picked up her brush again, loaded it with color, and turned to the blank canvas waiting on the second easel.
“What are you starting?” Hank asked.
She smiled, feeling the weight of the ring, the steadiness of his presence, the ghosts that felt a little less heavy here.
“Home,” she said. “I’m painting home.”
Outside the windows, Copper Moon glittered along the harbor. Inside, Bryn’s portrait dried in the corner, Hank’s finished painting gleamed under the afternoon light, and on Bree’s hand, the ring caught every bit of brightness it could.
They’d started. They weren’t stopping.