Epilogue #2
"We should probably settle the name situation before Lina starts organizing a protest."
A faint curve hit his mouth. "She already started one. She sent it to Marcus."
"Of course she did."
Bennett crossed the space between us and took my hands, grease and all, folding them into his. His grip was warm, steady, unhurried, like he had decided somewhere along the way that nothing about me needed to be handled carefully to be worth holding.
He looked at me the way he had that morning in the doorway of my shop, when he placed the medal on the counter between us and waited as the outcome belonged to me alone.
"I like Eleanor," he said. "After my mother. Only if you like it too."
"And if it's not a girl?"
"Then I like David. No story behind it. I just like it."
Something eased in my chest, quiet and unexpected, like tension I had been carrying so long I stopped noticing it was there.
"David works," I said. "Eleanor works too."
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He brought my hands to his mouth and pressed a kiss to my knuckles, unhurried, like he had nowhere else to be. Like, I was not something he was borrowing time from.
My chest tightened at the simplicity of it. At how something so small could still feel like a choice being made, over and over.
The shop was still here. The smell of oil, metal, and history I could trace with my eyes closed. I was still my father’s daughter. Still anchored to everything he left behind.
And I was also something else now. Something I hadn’t named until I stopped pretending I didn’t want it.
Chosen.
Not saved. Not rescued. Not managed.
Chosen.
The bell above the door chimed.
Mrs. Petrova swept in like she owned the air itself, housecoat billowing around her, eyes sharp despite her age. She stopped mid-step when she saw us, my grease-stained hands in his clean ones, like the contrast alone offended her sense of order.
“Finally,” she said. “I told my grandson you two would figure it out.”
“Figure what out?” I asked.
“How to stop being stubborn enough to miss what is right in front of you.” Her gaze dropped, then lifted with unsettling accuracy. “When is the baby due?”
A beat.
“December.”
“Good. Winter babies are resilient. Like their mothers.” She pointed at Bennett as if assigning him a task that had been overdue for years. “You. Come help me carry my groceries upstairs. I am too old for stairs.”
Bennett looked at me, a silent question in his glance.
I tipped my chin. “Go help her carry her groceries.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. I have brakes to finish.”
He held my gaze a second longer than necessary, then pressed another kiss to my knuckles. Quicker this time, but no less certain. Like a promise he didn’t feel the need to announce.
Then he followed Mrs. Petrova out.
Her voice carried back through the glass almost immediately.
These young people have no appreciation for basic assistance. I have been waiting three weeks for someone with manners.
I watched the door settle shut, her words still lingering in the space he left behind.
I watched them go, the billionaire and the seventy-year-old woman in a housecoat, and laughed again because what else was there to do.
Six months ago, I had been standing in his lobby crying.
Six months ago, I had been convinced that wanting anything at all was just another way to get hurt.
Now I was watching him carry groceries for my neighbor while I finished brake pads on a bike that had been coming to this shop longer than I had.
The record player in the back still hummed from yesterday, vinyl looping at the end of its groove. I crossed over, lifted the needle, and reset it. Music spilled back into the space as it belonged there more than I did.
Except I was not alone anymore.
The second track started, the one I always ended up humming without thinking. Three soft bars, always slightly off key. I caught myself doing it again, the same pattern I had sworn I did not notice.
Bennett had done the same thing once, at his desk, when he thought no one was listening.
My hand drifted to my stomach again, resting there longer this time. The flutter was still new, still so faint I kept questioning whether it was real. But it was. It all was.
The shop stood steady around me. The someday jar still sat on the counter. The Peugeot caught the morning light like it had earned its place there, like I had earned mine.
And in four months, I would have to explain all of it to someone new. Someone who would grow up knowing this place had been built back from nothing twice, by people who refused to let it disappear.
The bell chimed again.
Bennett stepped back in, slightly out of breath, his sweater sleeve damp where Mrs. Petrova had apparently spilled something on him.
“She had twelve bags,” he said. “Twelve.”
“She’s seventy-three,” I said. “She shops for the week.”
"She asked if you'd come over for tea tomorrow. She wants to talk about baby names."
"Tell her to mind her own business."
"I did. She said you'd say that."
He crossed to me and slid his arms around my waist from behind, chin settling on my shoulder. His hands covered mine where they rested on my stomach, like it was the most natural place for them to be. "She also said Eleanor is a beautiful name."
"You told her?"
"She asked. I'm not going to lie to Mrs. Petrova. She's terrifying."
A quiet breath left me before I could stop it. I leaned back into him anyway, letting my weight settle fully against his chest. My eyes drifted shut.
Music drifted through the shop. Afternoon light shifted across the floor as a cloud passed. Rubber, chain oil, and the stale sweetness of coffee I had forgotten sat in the air around us.
"I'm glad you kept showing up," I said.
"I'm glad you kept opening the door."
The words lingered between us, heavier than they should have been for something so simple.
We stayed like that in the space I had built and rebuilt more times than I cared to count. And for once, I let myself stop bracing for what came next. Stop calculating what I could lose. Stop preparing for the moment it all fell apart.
Just here. Just him. Just this shop that still felt like mine even when it felt like everything was changing around it.
Chosen, not cornered.
The vinyl reached the end of the second track. I hummed the last few notes into the quiet without thinking.
Behind me, almost under his breath, Bennett hummed them back.