Epilogue
. . .
WHITNEY
Two months later
“No, Pussy, listen to me. We talked about this,” is the first thing I hear when I let myself into Connor’s rental. In his voice, a kind of strained patience usually reserved for hostage negotiations.
I pause in the entryway, gym bag still hanging from my shoulder.
Then Pussy yowls like she has, in fact, never agreed to anything in her life.
“Okay, wow. That felt disrespectful,” Connor says.
I bite down on a laugh before it escapes and set my bag quietly by the door.
Now that I’ve been staying here most nights, the house looks different than it did a few months ago. Better, obviously.
The seashell lamps are gone. So are the fern-pattern throw pillows and at least half the wicker chairs.
There are plants by the windows now, though Connor is still under the delusion that he is helping keep them alive.
There’s a framed print above the console table he pretended to hate until I caught him dusting it.
In other words, I have done excellent work here.
Pussy, sadly, remains unchanged.
I follow the sound of Connor’s voice toward the bathroom and stop in the doorway.
He’s crouched beside the toilet in gray sweatpants and no shirt, one forearm braced on his bent knee, looking deeply serious about a plastic contraption clipped to the seat like this is a normal way for a grown man to spend a Thursday evening.
Pussy sits three feet away on the bathmat, tail flicking with the quiet disdain.
Connor doesn’t notice me at first.
“Look,” he says to the cat, gesturing toward the training seat like he’s explaining race strategy. “You use the litter box. This is basically the elevated version of that. Same concept. Better branding.”
Pussy blinks.
Slowly.
Then she turns her back on him. And I lose it.
The laugh bursts out of me loud enough that Connor jerks around, one hand going to his chest.
“Jesus,” he says. “You trying to kill me?”
I lean against the doorframe, laughing harder now that I can actually see his face. “I leave you alone for an hour and this is what I come home to?”
Connor straightens slowly. “Let’s recall who actually bought the cat toilet-training kit.”
“Yes, as a joke.”
“You seemed pretty committed when you made me watch three videos on feline adaptability.”
I lift one shoulder. “It was worth a shot.”
Pussy chooses that exact moment to stroll out of the bathroom with all the smug authority of a cat who will absolutely not be using the toilet.
Connor watches her go and points after her. “See? That attitude. That’s what I’m dealing with.”
I step into the bathroom, still smiling, and glance toward the toilet with the cat training seat on it. “How’s it going?”
He gives me a flat look. “How does it look like it’s going?”
I tip my head, pretending to assess. “Honestly? You seemed close.”
Connor drags a hand over his face. “Ten minutes ago, she made direct eye contact with me and then peed in my running shoe.”
I gasp. “Not the Hokas.”
“The Hokas, Whitney.”
“That’s devastating.”
“It was definitely targeted.”
I laugh again, softer this time, and reach up to smooth my hand over the back of his neck as I move past him. He leans into it on instinct, just for a second, and the easy familiarity of that still gets me sometimes.
The kind of steady warmth that sneaks up on me, like now while I’m watching him stand barefoot in his own bathroom arguing with a cat like this is a battle of wills he fully intends to win.
Connor glances down at the training seat again and mutters, “I swear to god, I’ve handled Olympic-level pressure better than this.”
“That’s because Olympians are easier to reason with than Pussy.”
“That’s true.”
I hum and step closer, my shoulder brushing his. He smells like soap and salt and him. Through the open bathroom window, the last of the evening light spills in off the water, softening everything.
He looks over at me then, and some of the exasperation in his face eases.
“When did you get here?”
“Thirty seconds before I realized you were in here trying to potty train a demon.”
“That’s actually rude to demons. They’re probably more cooperative.”
I smile and let my gaze travel over him for a second—his tired eyes, the slight scruff on his jaw, the tattoo on his ribs that still does something unfair to my heart every time I see it.
The sailboat catches the light when he shifts, and I have one of those strange little moments where my whole chest goes full and soft at once.
Because this is what it turned into.
There are the big things, sure. Like surviving the video fallout.
Learning how to be together without hiding.
Connor proving, again and again, that one ugly video clip from years ago doesn’t define the man he is now.
It’s Rory slowly getting used to the shape of us as a couple.
It’s Leo giving Connor the kind of honesty that actually steadies him.
And Nico finally becoming what he should’ve been all along—irrelevant.
And then there’s the small stuff, like the couch we picked out together.
My sweatshirt permanently draped over one of his kitchen chairs.
The ceramic bowl on the counter we found at a craft fair that he swore he didn’t need and now uses for his keys every day.
Me sleeping here most nights until his place somehow started feeling like mine, too.
Connor standing in the bathroom trying to convince his cat to use a toilet because I made one offhand joke and he decided to take it seriously.
My heart does that annoying, unmistakable thing where it stops pretending it can hold the words in any longer.
Connor catches me staring. “What?”
“I love you.”
Connor goes completely still.
No movement. No witty comeback. He might not even be breathing.
For one alarming second, I wonder if I’ve actually broken him.
Then he blinks once and says, very carefully, “You’re saying that while I’m losing a potty war to my cat?”
I laugh, suddenly and helplessly. “Yes.”
His eyes search my face like he’s trying to make sure I’m real and this is real and he didn’t accidentally die in this bathroom and ascend into some deeply weird version of heaven.
“Whit.”
The way he says my name makes my throat tighten.
I step closer until I can slide my arms around his waist, pressing my cheek lightly to his chest. His body finally unlocks enough to hold me back.
“I’m saying,” I murmur into his skin, “that somewhere along the way I fell in love with you. Not DreamBoat. Not Connor Fisk the swimmer or the brand or the guy everybody thinks they know. You. The man standing in his bathroom trying to potty train his cat like it’s a reasonable use of an evening.”
Connor lets out a breath that sounds suspiciously wrecked.
“I love you, too,” he says quietly. “And just so you know, saying it for the first time while I’m trying to potty train Pussy seems like the kind of thing we’re going to be telling people when we’re married.”
Married? My stomach flips at the word.
But, yeah, someday.
I laugh and shake my head. “DreamBoat, you are not making my first I love you part of some future wedding anecdote.”
“Too late. It’s locked in.”
“You’re impossible.”
His mouth pulls into a panty-melting smile. “Word on the street is you love me anyway.”
“Unfortunately,” I say, lips quirking.
“Liar.”
He kisses me then, soft and warm and smiling a little into it, and the whole house feels full in that calm, ordinary, miraculous way I still haven’t gotten over.
Behind us, Pussy reappears in the doorway, takes one look at the two of us, then pointedly walks to the hall litter box Connor forgot to put away and uses it with dramatic efficiency.
I pull back just enough to see over his shoulder. Then Connor turns, and we both stare.
“That was personal,” he says flatly.
I laugh so hard I have to grab his shoulders to stay upright.
He looks down at me, deeply offended and ridiculously beautiful, and I think, not for the first time, that maybe the best things in my life have all started out a little chaotic.
Then we both watch as Pussy kicks litter halfway into the hall and stalks off like she’s won this round.
Connor sighs. “I hate that cat.”
I wipe at my eyes. “No, you don’t.”
He looks at me before his eyes flick to the hallway, then back.
“No,” he says. “I really don’t.”
The doorbell rings.
Connor glances toward the front of the house. “That’s Rory and Summer.”
I check my face in the mirror trying to get my emotions back under control. “Okay. They are absolutely not allowed to know I just said I love you while you were trying to potty train your cat.”
“Fine. Then don’t tell them I’m trying to potty train Pussy.”
I laugh, because of course that’s his takeaway.
He steps in, slides a hand to my waist, and steals one quick kiss.
“Connor,” I whisper, smiling against his lips.
“What?” he murmurs. “You just said you love me. I’m allowed one.”
The doorbell rings again.
I touch his chest and give him a little push. “Go put on a shirt.”
He grins, catches one last kiss, then finally steps back. “Worth it.”
Pussy, naturally, trots toward the front door first like she’s been expecting company.
By the time we make it down the hall, Connor has dragged on a t-shirt and I’ve attempted to smooth my hair into something less freshly emotional. It doesn’t work, but luckily Summer breezes in the second the door opens and seems too delighted by the smell of food to care.
“Okay,” she says, stepping inside with a bottle of wine in one hand and a bakery box in the other. “Whatever that smell is, I want all of it.”
“Pasta,” Connor says. “It was either that or eggs.”
Summer hands me the bakery box and pulls me in for a quick hug. “I do love breakfast for dinner.”
Behind her, Rory steps in carrying garlic bread and looking pretty comfortable in Connor’s house for someone who once would’ve rather swallowed a lane rope than voluntarily spend an evening here.
Pussy weaves between his ankles before flicking her white-tipped tail and walking off.
Rory looks down. “That cat still hates me.”
“She hates everyone,” Connor says. “You’re not special.”
“That’s comforting,” Rory mutters.
Summer glances between them and smiles that quiet little smile of hers—the one that says she knows exactly how weird and miraculous this whole thing is and has decided to enjoy it.
I look at Rory then, really look at him. And there’s no tightness in my chest. No old reflex to brace for comparison or shift like I need to be a certain version of myself to fit beside him.
He’s just Rory.
My brother. Summer’s husband. The guy holding garlic bread in Connor’s kitchen while Connor pretends not to care that Pussy has chosen this exact moment to rub against Summer’s leg like she’s looking for a new owner.
It hits me, sudden and simple, that this is what peace feels like. It’s not dramatic like a lightning bolt strike, but simply the absence of all the old static.
Summer follows Pussy into the living room. “I still can’t believe you named a cat Pussy.”
“I didn’t,” Connor says for what must be the thousandth time. “That’s what was on her tag.”
Summer crouches down, delighted. “Oh my god. You’re so sweet.”
Pussy blinks at her with saintly green eyes.
“She’s not sweet,” Connor says. “Ten minutes ago, she peed in my running shoe.”
Rory snorts.
Summer looks horrified. “Not the Hokas.”
I point at her. “See? That’s what I said.”
Connor drags a hand over his face. “Why is no one reacting to this with the seriousness it deserves?”
“Because,” Rory says, setting the garlic bread on the counter, “watching you get bullied by a six-pound cat is the funniest thing that’s happened to me all week.”
Connor narrows his eyes. “You’re welcome to leave.”
“Nah,” Rory says, and there’s a beat where his grin turns easier, warmer, something with no tension at all. “I’m good here.”
Connor looks at him for half a second.
Then nods once, like he heard everything in that sentence Rory didn’t spell out.
Something soft settles in me.
Summer is already uncorking the wine. “Okay, boys, if this turns into feelings disguised as cat commentary, I’m going to need a larger glass.”
I laugh and carry the bakery box into the kitchen while Connor takes the bottle from her and Rory starts pulling plates from the cabinet like he knows where they are now.
Which, apparently, he does. It shouldn’t warm my chest, but it does.
Because a couple months ago, all of this still felt fragile. Connor and I. Connor and Rory. Me and Rory. Like one wrong word could crack the whole thing back open.
And now here we are.
Pasta steaming on the stove. Summer opening dessert. Rory reaching past Connor for forks. Connor swatting his hand away on instinct. Pussy circling all of us like a smug little supervisor.
It’s cozy and warm and a little messy.
It’s us.
Perfect, in the way the best things usually are.
And for one quiet second, watching all of us together, I feel more like myself than I have in a long time.
Then, Rory disappears down the hall, and a second later he calls out.
“Why is there a tiny seat on your toilet?”
Connor looks at me. I look at him. And we both burst out laughing.