Epilogue
Fourteen months later
Marina is nervous.
I can tell by how many times she’s smoothed her hands down her sides. I’ve been working at my desk for an hour now while she gets ready, and she’s walked past my doorway about a dozen times so far.
“Baby, you ready?” I call out.
A beat or two goes by before she appears in the doorway. “I think so? How do I look?”
She’s not dressed up, but her look has changed.
The food tour business doesn’t require her to wear a suit or dress if she doesn’t want to, but she’s starting a new position today, and she wants to impress.
So she’s wearing her dark jeans, but also a white blouse and a herringbone blazer that looks fabulous on her, makes her look like a sexy college professor.
I’m not sure how she’ll feel about that comparison, though, so I keep it to myself.
“You look amazing. Professional.”
She blows out a breath. “Okay. Good.”
I get up and cross the room to take her hands in mine.
They’re clammy. “Babe. You’re gonna be great.
Chuck already thinks you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to his business.
” Chuck owns Big Apple Food Tours, and he’s said a hundred times over the past year or so that he doesn’t know what he’d do without Marina.
She practically runs the place already. And today is her first day as Tour Coordinator.
“How many restaurants do you visit today?” Asking her to spout facts, I have found, helps her to relax.
“Six,” she says, then pulls out the little notebook I gave her back in Rome because I finally talked her into actually using it, flips through a couple pages, and relays them to me.
By the time she gets to number six, she’s much calmer.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out, then jerks her chin toward my desk. “How’s the writing?”
“It’s coming along.” I’m about halfway into a new script I’m working on, and not being able to write hasn’t been a thing—not even a blip—for over a year now. “Got a meeting with Scott next week.”
“And dinner with Serena at seven, yes?”
I nod. “I’ll grab us some wine and cheese from that place down the street. We’ll head out as soon as you get home.”
She nods, then glances at her watch. “Okay. Gotta run.” Her colloquial English has greatly improved in the time she’s worked here, but her accent is still my favorite thing. She leans in and kisses me. “Love you.”
“Love you. You’re gonna have a great day.” I kiss her again and follow her out to the living room where she stops to kiss Reggie on his furry head. She waves at me one more time and is out the door.
My phone rings before I have a chance to do much else.
“Hey, Jess,” I say, happy to hear from my friend, who is arriving in town this week to meet with her publisher. “Flight okay?”
“Yup. Just checking to see if we’re still on for lunch tomorrow.”
“We absolutely are,” I say, looking around my living room.
“You good? You sound…wistful. In a good way, I mean.”
It amuses me that she can pick up such things just from a few words. “I am. Marina just left for work and Reggie is watching me from his chair in the living room, waiting for our morning walk, and I’m just…thinking about how different my life is from this time even a year ago.”
“You’ve had some changes, that’s for sure.”
I grin as I slowly wander. “I mean, there’s art on the walls now that Marina helped me pick out. Her shoes are next to mine near the door. Her jacket is draped over a dining room chair. My guest room closet is hers now.”
“It’s good, though, right? I mean, she needs a room.”
I snort a laugh. “Oh, no, she doesn’t have a room. We have a room. My room is her room, and the guest room is the guest room. She just needed extra closet space. She has a ridiculous amount of clothing!”
Jessie laughs along with me, then says, “Something else that’s changed? You.”
“Have I?” I’m both surprised and not to hear her say that, which makes no sense, I know. “For the better?”
“Oh, honey, very much for the better. I’ve never seen you this happy. Makes me a little ill.” I laugh, and she goes on. “I admit, when you told me a few months ago that you were going to have her move in, and even stay in your place when you went back upstate, I was a little worried.”
“Did you have visions of me returning to an empty apartment, having been robbed blind by a hot Italian woman?”
“Yes!” She says it adamantly.
I can’t help but laugh. “I very much appreciate your worry. I have yet to be robbed of anything.”
“Except your heart,” she says, and she’s teasing, but also not.
“Except my heart.”
“You sound great, Lil. Truly. I can’t wait to see you.”
“Same.”
We sign off, and I’m left to think about the call as well as the past year or so.
I pick Reggie up and sit down with him on my lap.
Looking around my Manhattan apartment—something I was so proud of when I bought it—I can’t imagine Marina not being here.
Like, it won’t compute. My brain won’t accept it.
“This is it, Reg,” I say softly to my dog as I kiss his head. “This is where we’re supposed to be.”
My phone pings a text notification, and I glance at it, then hold it up for Reggie to see. It’s a text from Marina.
Just texting to say my home is with you and Reggie.
I love you both so much.
Can’t wait to come home to you tonight.
The lump lodges solidly in my throat, and it takes me a couple of tries to swallow it down. I kiss Reggie’s head again as I feel the most wonderful calm settle over me.
“This is where we’re supposed to be.”