“Literally,” I say, placing my hand over his.
“Your palettes are better,” he adds. “The cedar tone works with the terrain.”
“And your storage ideas are smarter,” I reply, letting our fingers intertwine.
He starts talking through the window seat design, tracing structural supports and light angles. “The reinforced corners create stability without losing the open sight lines you wanted,” he says. “I love how it transitions from inside to out.”
I blink. Wait.
“You what?” I ask, straightening.
He pauses. “What?”
“You said you love it.”
“I do,” he says, still distracted. “The design is?—”
“No.” I put my hand on his. “You said ‘I love.’ You’ve never said that to me before.”
He looks at me, genuinely surprised. “That can’t be right.”
“Oh, I’d remember,” I say. “That’s a first.”
“I’ve thought it,” he says, brow furrowing. “A lot.”
“Thinking and saying are different.”
Silence stretches. Then, slowly, deliberately, he reaches for both my hands.
“I love you, Winslow,” he says. “Have for a while now.”
It’s not flashy. It’s not scripted. It’s pure Owen: steady, intentional, unshakably true.
And somehow, it still manages to knock the air right out of my chest.
“I love you too,” I reply, my voice steadier than I expect. “Even when you veto my decorative tassel concepts and insist color-coding the tool chest is ‘unnecessary.’”
“The tassels are growing on me,” he admits, tracing slow circles on my palm. “And your color system in the kitchen? Surprisingly efficient.”
Coming from Owen, this is practically a lovepoem. I lean in to kiss him, still marveling at how natural it feels—this closeness that once would’ve triggered every flight instinct I had. Now it feels like the firmest ground I’ve ever stood on.
Finn, not one to miss a shift in emotional dynamics, wedges himself between us with a dramatic huff, clearly offended.
“Look,” I say, pointing to the floor plan on the table. “Finn already approves of his custom door between the houses. Very forward-thinking design.”
“He has good taste,” Owen says, scratching behind Finn’s ears. “Unlike some clients, he doesn’t question necessary structural elements.”
“I still maintain that beam removal was the best decision we ever made,” I counter, grinning. “And I have the open-concept living space to prove it.”
Later,after we’ve pored over the new design and added a dozen shared notes, I find myself drawn to the window seat—still my favorite place in this house. Moonlight washes across the floor, casting quiet patterns on the hardwood. Through the glass, I can just make out the outline of the birdhouse, weathered now, but holding strong.
I open my postcard box—the one that once held a life in pieces. At the top sits San Diego, the coastline faded, my ten-year-old handwriting still legible:Have you found somewhere that feels like yours?
Beside me, Owen flips through a stack of magazines, relaxed in the kind of silence that doesn’t need filling. Finn is curled by the stove, legs twitching in pursuit of phantom squirrels.
“I’m donating some stuff tomorrow,” I say, holding up a box labeled ESSENTIALS. “Finally going through the things I couldn’t let go of when I first moved here.”
He looks up, recognizing the box instantly. The ‘emergency’ items I once kept within arm’s reach. “Big step.”
