Chapter 80
HARLAN - DON'T SCREW IT UP
The air smelled like wildflowers and sidewalk chalk.
Kids were laughing somewhere down the block, and the hum of life, real life, buzzed all around the clinic. It wasn’t quiet like the precinct. It was noisy in a soft, human way, like the world was spinning again.
I parked out front, a to-go tray in my hand and nerves in my throat.
Five months since the cabin.
Twelve months until the world would tilt again.
But I didn’t know that yet.
All I knew was that I was about to ask a woman still in her twenties for her blessing to marry her best friend. Her sister. A woman whom, not that long ago, I’d arrested in handcuffs. Who held a mirror up to me that I couldn't look away from.
Who now stood as one of the fiercest pillars of this damn town.
Remi Carter didn’t hand out permission lightly.
I stepped inside and caught sight of her through the front window, sitting out back on the clinic’s rickety bench, one leg tucked beneath her, pen tapping her notebook.
She was in her element. Hoodie sleeves shoved to her elbows.
Hair up in some messy knot. Headphones around her neck but not playing.
Her walls weren’t all the way up today. Not the thick ones, anyway.
I nudged the door open and held up the tray. “I come bearing peace offerings.”
She looked up with a cheeky smile. “Coffee and not a single arrest warrant? What’s the occasion?”
I smirked and handed her the cup with the little ‘R’ scrawled on the lid. “Felt like a day to bribe a woman for her time.”
Remi gave me a suspicious look but took the cup anyway.
We sat in a comfortable quiet for a while. The kind I didn’t get with many people.
But Remi had this feel about her; I could see why people trusted her with their darkest days.
After a few minutes, I cleared my throat. “How’s Ava been?”
Her eyes softened. “Better.” Then she side-eyed me with a smirk. “But you’d know that. You see her more than I do these days, Grandpa.”
I chuckled. “You’re not wrong... kiddo.”
Remi snorted and then looked down at her notebook, a thoughtful look playing across her face. “She seems lighter,” she added, gaze drifting toward the street. “Still haunted sometimes. But… yeah. Happier.”
I nodded, then rubbed my palms on my jeans. “I’ve been thinking…”
“That’s always dangerous.”
“Smartass,” I muttered, but my voice cracked with affection. I looked at her then, really looked at her. And all I could think was how far we’d come. How close we all came to breaking. And how fiercely I loved Ava.
“I want to propose,” I said quietly. “To Ava.”
Remi blinked once. Twice. Then her eyes glazed over faster than I expected. She looked down at the coffee, sniffed hard, then gave a watery smile.
“Jesus, Chief,” she murmured. “You’re really gonna do it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I want to build a life with her. All of it. The hard parts. The quiet ones. The ugly and the beautiful.”
Remi leaned her shoulder against mine, small and steady. “Then don’t screw it up.”
I huffed. “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” she said, smile crooked now. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to her. But she’s also the best thing that’s ever happened to you. Don’t forget it.”
“I won’t.”
She sat with that for a moment. Then pulled one knee up, wrapping her arms around it. “She used to talk about how she wanted to be proposed to. Before everything. Back when we were stupid and hopeful.”
I turned my head toward her, listening.
“She always thought it would be this big romantic thing. String lights. Candles. Maybe music playing. A fancy restaurant with an audience. Something about warm light and being seen.”
My chest tightened. “That’s good to know.”
“But” she added, glancing at me sideways, “that’s not you. And honestly, it’s not her anymore either.”
I swallowed. “No?”
“No,” she said. “Don’t try to recreate a version of her that doesn’t exist anymore. She’s more now. Sharper. Softer in the places that matter. What she really wants is to feel known. Loved. Safe.”
I absorbed that; let it sink in deeply.
“Do something that feels like you,” Remi said. “Like the life you want with her. Show her you see her, every jagged edge, and you love her because of them, not in spite of them.”
She nudged my arm. “Make her feel like she’s home.”
Goddamn if I didn’t feel that all the way through me.
I looked down at my coffee, lid twisted off, steam rising slowly. “You always this good at giving away your favourite person?”
Remi smiled, the kind that ached a little. “Only because she's finally found someone who deserves her.”
I didn’t say anything after that.
Didn’t need to.
We just sat in the sun for a while, listening to the sounds of kids down the block and the distant hum of a world still turning.
And I knew exactly what I had to do.