Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Three hours later, Edie stood in the center of the camper, surveying her belongings.
It wasn't much. A few suitcases of clothes.
Her art supplies. The tote bags full of chargers and sketchbooks and the random detritus she accumulated in every town she visited.
Almost everything she owned fit into such a small space.
Tarmek was outside, having insisted on checking the camper's undercarriage after their... activities... had shifted it noticeably on its foundation. She could hear him muttering something about tire pressure and structural integrity.
Such a control freak. Such a meticulous, obsessive, infuriating, wonderful control freak. Who loves me.
The thought still knocked the breath out of her.
Edie grabbed a random sweater and held it to her chest, remembering how she'd arrived in Greenwood Hollow just two months ago. Detached. Guarded. Already planning her exit before she'd even unpacked.
And now?
Now she was terrified and hopeful and about to do the scariest thing she'd ever done in her life.
She was going to stay. Not because the camper was broken, or because she had nowhere else to go, or because a storm forced her hand.
But because she wanted to. Because for the first time in years, the thought of leaving felt worse than the thought of staying.
The camper door opened, and Tarmek ducked inside, snow dusting his hair.
"Good news. The frame held. Bad news—you really need new tires before spring."
"Maybe I'll just leave it parked."
He went still. "What?"
"The camper." She set the sweater down and turned to face him fully. "I'm thinking I'll leave it parked for a while. You know. Since I'll be staying at the condo."
Something flickered across his face. Hope, quickly suppressed. "The heater's still broken. It makes sense to—"
"Tarmek." She stepped closer. "I'm not staying because of the heater."
"No?"
"No." She took his hands—massive compared to hers, rough with calluses, warm despite the cold. "I'm staying because I want to. Because you're there. Because—" Her voice caught. "Because I'm choosing you."
The words hung in the air between them.
His grip tightened on her fingers. "You're sure?"
"I'm terrified," she admitted. "I don't know how to do this. I've never stayed anywhere long enough to figure it out. But I want to try. With you. If... if you still want—"
He kissed her tenderly enough to make her eyes sting.
"I want," he murmured against her lips. "More than anything."
"Okay." She let out a shaky breath. "Okay. So I guess we should take my stuff to the condo."
He looked around at all the things she hadn’t packed—the fairy lights and the pillows and the postcards—and frowned.
"What about the rest of it? We can hire movers."
"They don’t exactly go with your decor.”
“If you want them, then I want them too,” he said, trying not to wince as he glanced over at a pink sequined pillow.
“Liar,” she said affectionately. “But it's really not necessary.They belong here."
"If you change your mind, let me know and I’ll help you move them." He released one of her hands to cup her face. "That's the deal. You don't have to do things alone anymore. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
I'm not going anywhere.
She had heard those words before. From foster families who gave up after a few months. From friends who drifted away. From her own mother, probably, before she'd left Edie at a hospital at XXX three days old.
But standing in her cramped camper with snow falling outside and an orc who looked at her like she'd created the stars—for the first time in her life, she believed it.
Moving in took less than an hour.
Her possessions barely filled one corner of his living room.
Two suitcases and half a dozen tote bags and art supplies and the miscellaneous collection of items she'd gathered over years of transient living.
They looked small and almost pathetic against the backdrop of his organized, adult furniture.
"I'll buy a bookshelf," he said. "For your sketchbooks."
"You don't have to—"
"And we should clear out the second bedroom. Make it a studio space."
She blinked at him. "A studio?"
"For your art." He was already moving towards the hallway, cataloging space in that methodical way of his. "The light's good in there. We can add adjustable lamps for night work. I saw some at that home goods store, the one with the ugly garden gnomes—"
"Tarmek."
"—and if we move the guest bed to storage, there's enough room for an easel, maybe two if we orient them—"
"Tarmek."
He turned back and raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"You're planning my studio space."
"Yes?"
"In your condo."
"Our condo." He said it like it was obvious. Like it had always been true. "Is that... is that okay? If you'd rather choose the setup yourself—"
She crossed the room in three steps and threw herself at him. He caught her automatically, lifting her off the ground, confusion radiating from every line of his body. "Edie?"
"No one's ever done that before."
"What? Offered you a workspace?"
"Made room for me." Her voice was muffled against his chest. "Literally made room. Without me having to ask or making me feel like I was imposing."
His arms tightened around her. "You're not imposing. You could never impose. This is your home now."
Home.
The word used to make her flinch. Now it made her want to cry.
"I'm probably going to leave paint everywhere," she warned him. "And forget to put things back where they belong. And drive you absolutely insane."
"I know."
"I'm not going to follow your label maker system."
"I'm aware."
"And I'm definitely going to keep rearranging your magnets."
He paused, then said grudgingly, "I've learned to live with it."
She pulled back to look at him. His expression was softer than she'd ever seen it—open and vulnerable and full of something that looked like wonder.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you too." He set her down but didn't let go. "I need you to understand something. This isn't a trial period. I'm not waiting to see if it works out. You're my mate, Edie, and that means something to me."
"What does it mean?"
"Permanence. Commitment." He hesitated, then pushed forward. "A promise."
Her heart stuttered. "What kind of promise?"
"The kind that lasts forever." His eyes searched her face. "Does that scare you?"
It should have.
Three months ago, it would have sent her running for the camper so fast she'd have left skid marks. But standing here, in the condo that was somehow theirs now, surrounded by her meager possessions and his organized existence and the strange magic they created together…
"No," she said softly. "It doesn't scare me."
His smile could have lit up the whole town.
That evening, they had dinner at the counter because Edie's sketches for the new mural at the community center had taken over the dining table again. He didn't say a word about it.
In fact, she caught him studying the drawings while pretending not to, the same way he'd done weeks ago, when she'd first spread her work across his pristine table.
"You can look at them properly, you know."
He jumped. "I wasn't—"
"You were absolutely ogling my artistic process." She leaned over to nudge his shoulder. "It's okay. I'm flattered."
"I wasn't ogling." He set his phone down, dignity affronted. "I was... observing."
"Observing?"
"The composition. It's different from your original sketches." He pointed to a section she'd reworked earlier that day. "More dynamic. Like it's telling a story instead of just depicting one."
She stared at him.
"What?"
"You just gave me art criticism."
"I said one thing about composition—"
"Thoughtful, perceptive art criticism." She grinned. "From the guy who thought murals were 'ridiculous decorations' two months ago."
His expression soured. "Sam told you about that."
"Sam tells me everything." She jumped off the counter and moved to stand behind him, wrapping her arms around his massive shoulders. "For the record, I think your 'observing' is adorable."
"I am not adorable. I'm the most feared enforcer in the league."
"The most feared enforcer in the league who secretly studies my sketches when he thinks I'm not watching."
He grumbled something unintelligible. She kissed the top of his head—or tried to, given the height difference even with him sitting—and moved back to the table.
"The mural's almost done," she said. "Just a few finishing touches left."
"I know." His voice was carefully neutral.
"You're worried about what happens after."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." She gathered a few of the sketches, organizing them without really seeing them. "I've been thinking about it too. What comes next."
"And?"
"And I called Sam today."
He went very still. "You called Sam."
"She mentioned something a few weeks ago about the league wanting to expand their community outreach program. More murals, other arenas, that kind of thing." She turned to face him. "She asked if I'd be interested in consulting. Helping design projects for other teams."
"Consulting."
"Based here. Out of Greenwood Hollow." She bit her lip. "I'd still travel sometimes, for installations and meetings. But this would be my... my home base."
The silence stretched for an endless moment. Then he was out of his chair and pulling her into a kiss that left no doubt about his feelings on the matter.
"Is that a yes?" she managed when they came up for air.
"That's a 'you should have told me earlier so I could stop panicking about your departure timeline.'"
"You were panicking?"
"I've been panicking for weeks, Edie. Constantly. You have no idea how many contingency plans I've developed."
"Contingency plans for what?"
"For convincing you to stay." He pressed his forehead to hers. "I had spreadsheets."
"Of course you did." She laughed, tears pricking her eyes. "You absolute disaster of a male."
"Your disaster," he corrected. "If you'll have me."
"I think we've established that I will."
"Good." He kissed her again, softer this time. "Welcome home."
Later that night, curled up in his bed, which was blissfully free of structural hazards, she found herself unable to sleep. Not from anxiety, or from the urge to run. Just from the strangeness of feeling... settled.
"You're thinking too loud," he mumbled against her hair. "I can hear it."
"Sorry." She shifted closer, fitting herself against his side. "It's just weird."
"What is?"
"This." She gestured vaguely at the room, the bed, him. "All of it. Being somewhere I want to stay."
His arm tightened around her. "Bad weird?"
"Good weird." She traced idle patterns on his chest. "Scary good. Like I'm waiting for something to go wrong."
"Nothing's going to go wrong."
"You can't know that."
"I can know that I'm not going anywhere. And I can know that you're not either—not unless you want to." He pressed a kiss to her temple. "The rest we'll figure out as we go."
Figure it out as we go.
It sounded so simple. So reasonable.
She had spent her whole life trying to plan for every contingency, to keep her bags packed and her heart protected. She'd convinced herself that staying meant surrendering—giving up the freedom she'd fought so hard to build.
But lying here, listening to Tarmek's steady heartbeat beneath her ear, she realized something.
Staying wasn't a surrender. Staying was a choice. And choosing roots and community and a shared future didn't mean losing her freedom. It meant finding something worth staying for.
"Tarmek?"
"Hmm?"
"I think I'm happy."
Another pause. "Is that unusual?"
"Yeah." She smiled into the darkness. "Yeah, it really is."
He rolled over, pulling her beneath him, and kissed her until she forgot what she'd been worried about in the first place.
Outside, the snow continued to fall.
Inside, Edie finally stopped running.