Chapter 24 #3
Twelve million dollars. Originally, it was going to be ten million. The two extra million had come from some accumulated interest and a secondary bond my grandfather had set up that even my mother hadn’t mentioned.
It doesn’t feel real. It feels like a theoretical concept, like the distance between stars.
It sits in a new, high-yield savings account at a bank I’d never heard of before last week, and I haven’t touched it.
I can’t even imagine what touching it would look like.
Part of me is still waiting for a team of lawyers to burst in, declaring it all a clerical error.
But Charles’s voice had been so calm. So final. “The funds are available.”
It’s a strange, vertigo-inducing weight. I could buy the building we’re sitting in. I could ensure Emma never has to worry about anything more serious than a glitter shortage ever again. I could give Leo the kind of freedom he doesn’t even know he’s missing.
Leo nudges his shoulder gently against mine. “Hey. What’s going on in there?” He taps his temple.
“Nothing,” I say, but it comes out too quick, too thin.
His brows knit together. “You’ve been quiet for like, twenty minutes.” He laces his fingers through mine, his thumb brushing over my knuckles. “What are you thinking about?”
I let out a long breath, my eyes fixed on the television. It’s a montage of the year’s highlights—grainy footage of the OJ Simpson car chase, clips from The Lion King, people dancing in oversized flannel shirts. It feels like a lifetime ago.
I let out a slow breath. “My mom came by the apartment a few weeks ago.”
Leo carefully sets his wine glass down on the coffee table. “Okay. Is that…a good thing or a bad thing?”
I shrug, the wool of my sweater scratching my neck. “Surprisingly, it went okay. She got a role in a new movie—Scorsese, actually. She’ll be filming here in the spring and summer. She wants to…spend time together.”
“That’s great, Annie,” he says, his voice soft. He pauses, and I can feel the hesitation in the air before he asks, “And your dad?”
I feel the muscles in his forearm tense where it’s pressed against mine. “I haven’t heard from him,” I say, keeping my voice even. “I don’t think I will again.”
Leo shakes his head, a slow, disbelieving movement. “That is just…unfathomable to me.”
“Unfortunately, when my dad says something, he means it. It’s his one consistent quality.”
“Are you okay with that?” he asks, searching my face.
“I’ll have to be, won’t I?” I pick at a loose thread on the cuff of my sweater, watching it unravel. “She came to tell me something else, too.”
Leo raises an eyebrow, waiting.
“Even though my dad… did what he did,” I continue, the words feeling clumsy, “my grandfather left me a trust. A separate one. Before he passed.”
Leo goes very still beside me. He doesn’t say anything.
“For twelve million dollars.”
Leo’s eyes widen until I can see the ring of amber around his pupils. His mouth literally hangs open, a rare lapse in his usual academic composure. “Holy shit,” he breathes. “Twelve? As in…ten plus two?”
I nod. He continues to stare at me, completely unblinkingI wave my free hand in front of his face. “Hello? Earth to Leo? Come back to us.”
He snaps out of it, running a hand through his hair and letting out a sudden, bark-like laugh that catches me off guard.
“What’s so funny?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“I was almost going to feel bad for what I was going to tell you tonight,” he says, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. “But now? I don’t feel bad at all.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “And what, pray tell, were you going to tell me?”
He leans in, his face so close to mine I can see the faint gold flecks in his eyes, the shadow of his lashes on his cheeks. For a second I think he’s going to kiss me. Instead, his voice drops to a low, playful rumble. “You’re fired, Ms. Collier. I’m sorry. You’re out of a job.”
I gape at him. “You are not serious.”
“Dead serious.”
From the TV, Dick Clark’s voice rises cheerfully over the crowd. “Alright, New York! Get ready! Here we go! Ten…nine…”
I smack his arm. “Leo! Why the hell would you fire me? I’m great with Emma! I haven’t lost her once, I know all the words to The Little Mermaid soundtrack, I can make a peanut butter sandwich in under thirty seconds—”
He cuts me off with a kiss—quick, firm, and thoroughly silencing. “I’m firing you,” he murmurs against my lips, “because I want you to move in with me instead.”
The world shrinks to the space between our faces. The riotous countdown from Times Square becomes a distant, muffled drumbeat. “…seven… six…”
“You do?” I whisper, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“I do.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering on my cheek.
A smirk tugs at his mouth. “You’re here all the time anyway.
You have your own toothbrush in the bathroom.
Your weird, spicy mustard is in the fridge.
Half my socks are missing because you keep stealing them.
The apartment feels wrong when you’re not in it. ”
“…five… four…”
“But…Emma? I’d be invading her space, I don’t want her to feel—”
“I already talked to her,” he says, his thumb stroking my jawline. “She said, and I quote, ‘That would be the bestest thing ever.’”
“…three… two…ONE! HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
A roaring cheer erupts from the television, a wave of synthesized horns and shouts. Confetti explodes on screen.
Leo doesn’t look away from me. He kisses me again, deep and sure, as the new year officially crashes over us. This kiss isn’t celebratory for the ball drop; it’s a promise for everything after.
I get lost in it. In the familiar taste of him, the solid warmth of his chest under my palms, the way his hand cradles the back of my head. And as I melt into him, a clear, quiet thought cuts through the fizzy haze of champagne and joy:
This man, who once dragged me out of a taxi by my ankles, has become my person.
The absurdity of it is almost funny. The grumpy, skeptical stranger I fought on a dirty curb is now the steady ground beneath my feet.
And his fierce, magnificent daughter, asleep on the couch, has become the heart of my home.
Not the sprawling, silent houses of my childhood, but this—this warm, cluttered, paper-chain-decorated apartment full of real life and mismatched socks and the best kind of noise.
In such a short, dizzying amount of time, they have become my home. Not a place, but a feeling. A feeling so solid and real it makes twelve million dollars feel like Monopoly money in comparison.
He breaks the kiss, resting his forehead against mine. “Happy New Year, Annie.”
“Happy New Year,” I whisper back.
He pulls back just enough to see my face, his thumbs stroking the apples of my cheeks. “So,” he says, his voice still low and intimate in the post-midnight quiet. “Any resolutions? Big plans for this brave new year of ours?”
I hum, pretending to think. The truth has been forming in my chest for weeks, a quiet, hopeful seedling. “Actually, yeah. I have one. A big one.”
“Let’s hear it.” He settles back against the couch, pulling me with him so I’m tucked into his side, my head on his shoulder.
“I want a house,” I say, the words feeling wonderfully solid as they leave my mouth.
“A real one. With a yard and actual grass. Room for a garden. Maybe a tree for a tire swing. A kitchen with a window over the sink, so you can look out while you’re doing dishes.
A porch. Definitely a porch. With a glider or one of those big, cushy swings. ”
I tilt my head to look up at him, suddenly nervous. “Is that…a terrible idea? Too much?”
Leo shakes his head slowly, a smile spreading across his face that’s so full of warmth it makes my breath catch. “I love that idea. A yard for Emma to run in. A porch swing.” He kisses my forehead. “I can picture it.”
“And,” I add, the practical part jumping ahead, “with the trust, I could afford to—”
“Nope,” he cuts in, gentle but firm. He shifts to look me in the eye. “If we’re living in a house together, we’re buying it together. We’re a team, remember? I’ve got savings. Financially, I’m doing well. We’ll both contribute. It’s our home, not your purchase.”
The words our home land in the center of my chest and expand, warm and bright. I beam at him. “Okay. Deal.”
I’ve never owned a home before. The concept is thrillingly, horrifyingly adult.
But the images come easily, painted in the quiet colors of real life: Leo at a built-in grill in that yard, squinting through smoke.
Emma chasing fireflies as dusk falls, her laughter floating through an open screen door.
Pancakes on a Saturday morning in a sunny breakfast nook.
Rainy afternoons on that porch swing, watching the world go by.
Mismatched mugs in a cupboard. A place where we could paint the walls any color we wanted, where the memories would be ours alone to make.
“Any other grand plans?” Leo asks, his fingers tracing idle patterns on my arm.
“One more.” I take a deep breath. This one feels more vulnerable. “I want to use my degree. Like, actually use it. I want to be a reporter.”
“Yeah. I’ve…I’ve actually been talking to someone.
” I feel a flicker of the old, impostor-syndrome fear, but I push it down.
“My mom called not too long after she came to see me and told me she’s doing this film with a producer who knows Diane Sawyer.
Not like, knows her knows her, but has a connection.
I guess my mom mentioned that I’d studied journalism in college.
The producer passed my name and a writing sample to a producer at 60 Minutes. ”
Saying it out loud still feels surreal. Diane Sawyer. The name belonged to the gleaming world of network news, to my parents’ television, not to me.
“Annie, that’s incredible news!” Leo says, his voice full of genuine awe.