Epilogue One
. . .
Bennett
a year later
I wake up with Hannah’s hair in my face and her leg thrown over mine like she’s pinning me in place.
The pregnancy has made her steal every blanket in the house and then complains that I’m too far away when I try to reclaim even a corner of the sheet.
I don’t mind. I lie there in the half-dark with my hand spread over the soft curve of her stomach and feel the occasional flutter of movement under my palm.
Our daughter. Still months from arriving, already the center of everything.
Hannah stirs when I press a kiss to the back of her neck. “Time is it?”
“Early. Go back to sleep.”
“You’re leaving.” It isn’t a question. She knows my schedule better than I do.
“Deposition at nine. I’ll come by the shop after.”
She makes a soft, dissatisfied sound and shifts closer, tucking herself against my chest. The diamond on her left hand catches what little light is coming through the curtains.
The plain platinum band that sits beside it still looks new to me, even though we’ve been married eight months.
I lift her hand and kiss the back of it, right over the rings.
“Love you,” she mumbles into my shirt.
“Love you more.”
I extract myself carefully, shower, and dress in the dark so I don’t wake her fully.
By the time I’m knotting my tie she’s half-sitting up against the pillows, hair a disaster, one hand resting protectively on her belly.
The sight of her like that—sleepy, pregnant, wearing one of my old T-shirts—still hits me harder than it has any right to.
“Text me when you get there,” she says.
“I will.”
“And don’t skip breakfast. You get mean when you’re hungry.”
I lean down and kiss her properly, slow and deep, until she makes that soft sound against my mouth that means I’ve distracted her from lecturing me. “I’ll eat. See you in a few hours.”
The drive to the office is short. The deposition runs long. By the time I finally loosen my tie and step back out into the late-morning light, I’m more than ready to cross the street.
The coffee shop looks the same from the outside.
Same green awning. Same bell over the door.
Inside, everything has shifted in quiet, permanent ways.
Hannah doesn’t just work here anymore. She manages the place.
The owner is older, ready to slow down, and the two of them have been in serious talks about Hannah buying in over the next couple of years.
She’s good at it—better than she gives herself credit for.
She remembers every regular’s order, handles the chaotic morning rushes without losing her temper, and somehow still finds time to lean across the counter and make people laugh.
I push the door open and the familiar scent of espresso and pastry hits me.
The line is short. Hannah is behind the counter in a soft black top that stretches gently over the curve of her stomach, her hair in that same messy bun she’s never quite tamed.
The second she sees me her whole face changes.
It’s the same private look she’s been giving me since the beginning, only deeper now. Fuller.
“Hi, husband,” she says when I reach the counter.
“Hi, wife.”
She already has my cup in her hand. Black. No sugar. No nonsense. She passes it over and our fingers brush the way they always do. I take a sip, watching her over the rim. She looks tired in the best way—like someone who is building a life she actually wants instead of just surviving one.
“How was the deposition?” she asks.
“Long. The other side’s counsel likes the sound of his own voice.”
“You hate that.”
“I do.” I set the cup down carefully. “How’s our girl?”
Hannah’s hand drifts to her stomach without her seeming to notice. “Active. She started kicking during the rush and wouldn’t stop. I think she likes the noise.”
“She’s going to be trouble.”
“She’s your daughter. Of course she is.”
I smile and pick the cup back up. Take another sip. Then, deliberately, I tip my hand just enough that a thin stream of hot coffee spills down the front of my white dress shirt.
Hannah stares at me.
The dark liquid spreads across the fabric in a familiar, disastrous pattern. A couple of customers glance over. One of the newer baristas makes a startled sound. Hannah’s mouth opens, closes, then opens again.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I look down at the mess like I’m only just noticing it, then back up at her. “Worked pretty well for me the first time.”
For a second she just blinks. Then a disbelieving laugh bursts out of her, bright and incredulous. “You’re an idiot.”
“You married me.”
“I’m rethinking it.”
“No, you’re not.”
She’s trying to look stern and failing completely. The smile keeps breaking through. “That was a perfectly good shirt. And a perfectly good cup of coffee. You’re ridiculous.”
“You love me.”
“Unfortunately.” She grabs a handful of napkins and comes around the counter, still shaking her head. “Come here. You’re going to stain it worse if you just stand there.”
I let her blot at the front of my shirt even though we both know it’s a lost cause.
Her free hand rests on my chest for balance, right over my heart.
The diamond on her finger flashes under the shop lights.
Up close I can see the faint shadows under her eyes from the pregnancy insomnia and the soft glow that seems to live under her skin these days.
She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
“You’re lucky I already know how you take your coffee,” she mutters, still blotting. “And that I keep a spare shirt in the back for you because you apparently can’t be trusted.”
“You keep a spare shirt for me?”
“Someone has to plan ahead. You’re out here recreating our meet-cute like a maniac.”
I catch her wrist gently, stopping the napkins. She looks up. The shop noise fades the way it always does when it’s just the two of us in a pocket of quiet.
“I came in here a year and a half ago wanting caffeine,” I tell her, voice low. “I walked out with the rest of my life.”
Her expression softens. The teasing drops away, leaving something tender and a little wet at the edges. “Bennett…”
“I mean it.” I brush my thumb across the inside of her wrist. “Empty house. Work. The same black coffee every morning. Then you spilled a cup of black coffee down my shirt and looked at me like you thought I was going to sue you into next year. Best thing that ever happened to me.”
She swallows. “You’re going to make me cry in the middle of my shift.”
“You’ve cried over worse. You cried when we picked the paint color for the nursery.”
“That paint color was important.”
“It was light green.”
“It was the perfect light green.”
I laugh, quiet and helpless, and lean down to kiss her. She rises onto her toes to meet me, one hand still fisted in the ruined fabric of my shirt. Someone in the line makes an affectionate sound. Someone else quietly tells the new barista that this is just what they’re like.
When we break apart Hannah rests her forehead against mine for a second. “I love you. Even when you’re destroying perfectly good dress shirts for the sake of nostalgia.”
“I love you.” I slide my hand down to cover hers where it rests on her stomach. “Both of you.”
She smiles, watery and real. “Go change. You’re not sitting through the rest of your day looking like a walking coffee stain.”
“Bossy.”
“You like it.”
“I do.”
I let her push me toward the back hallway where she keeps a spare button-down for exactly these kinds of emergencies—though she couldn’t have predicted I’d create one on purpose.
When I come back out in the clean shirt she’s already returned to the counter, taking orders again, the rhythm of the shop closing around her like it was always meant to.
I stop at the end of the counter and just watch her for a moment. My wife. The mother of my child. The woman who once thought she was only ever temporary and who now has her name on the mortgage next to mine and a ring on her finger and an entire future growing under her heart.
She glances over, catches me looking, and raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
The smile she gives me then is the same one she wore beside the lake when she said yes and handed me the rest of my life.
I pick up the fresh cup she’s already poured—black, no sugar, no nonsense—and lift it in a small salute. She rolls her eyes, but she’s grinning.
I came into this shop wanting caffeine.
I found everything else.