“But David showed up today and begged me to talk and everything was just so fucked.” Words begin flooding out of her a mile a minute, hands moving like she’s conducting an orchestra. “And then you were there, and I realized I missed you so much more than I thought was even possible, and he was rude to the delivery person, and I didn’t tell you that I resigned my lease on Thanksgiving because we hadn’t talked, and I didn’t want?—”
I cup her flushed cheeks in my hands. “Breathe, Toni.”
She does. Those beautiful brown eyes are wide and locked onto me. For a moment, everything is still and perfect.
“I love you,” she says, with no preamble.
My body goes still. Some part of me is scared that if I move, I’ll wake up from what must be a dream.
Toni covers my hands with hers, pulling them from her face but not letting them go. “That’s not why I chose to stay. I...” She trails off, looking at the city. “I fell in love with this place, too. I want a life here. A home. One that’s mine.”
She takes a wobbly breath, letting go of my hands, to takea step back. “And I want you to be a part of that. I want a life here, with you, so badly it hurts.” She shakes her head, looking anywhere but at me. “But I know I am a fucking hurricane. I’m loud, and messy, and stubborn, and I can be unreasonable, and-”
“And I love all of it,” I say, unable to hold back any longer.
Her attention whips back to me so fast a few curls tumble free from her clip.
I reach for her hand, blissfully happy she doesn’t pull away. “I love all of you, Antoinette. Every loud, messy, stubborn, unreasonable part of you,” A tear rolls down her cheek, and I gently brush it away. “You’re a goddamn force of nature, and my life has been better since you blew into my bar and threatened to punch a frat boy.”
Another beautiful laugh tumbles into the night air. “You’re fucking wonderful.”
I roll my eyes, pulling her closer. “I don’t know about that.”
She reaches her arms around my neck. “That’s ok. I do.”
When our lips meet. It feels like coming up for air, as though I’d been drowning in our weeks apart. I hold her to me, greedy for her, welcoming the world to see that this woman, this glorious woman, is mine.
The End
Epilogue
TONI
I checkmy phone for the hundredth time in the last hour.
Ben and his family were supposed to get in earlier today, but their flight was delayed. Instead of us all meeting at Cillian’s—where, at his insistence, they’d be staying—before heading to the O’Sullivan’s for Christmas Eve, they were coming straight here.
No buffer. No time to prepare—myself more than anyone else. Just straight into the crucible of family holiday chaos.
“Doll,” Cillian places his hand over the screen, “relax. They’ll get here.”
“I know.” I let him pull me back onto his chest, his chin resting on my head as he rubs a hand up and down my back. “I just need nothing else to go wrong with this trip. I just—” I sigh.
The thing I don’t want to admit, even to Cillian, is that I want my older brother to approve of him, of my choice to stay, of all of it. Because, according to the little Toni in my chest—the one who always wanted a home that feltwelcoming and a family that felt safe—if Ben approved, maybe we could have more Christmases together.
A gentle rap at the bedroom door draws our attention. “I don’t wanna interrupt anything,” Kitty says cheekily.
“Ma!” Cillian groans. “Just open the door.”
She laughs, poking her head inside, an apron partially covering her over-the-top Christmas sweater. “Toni, I just wanted to double-check that the boys are good with seafood. I don’t mind making them something else.”
I sit up. “Kitty, I promise you, they’ve grown up on a steady diet of both seafood and swamp food, they’re going to be thrilled.” While she wasn’t doing the full Seven Fishes meal, she was going all out with several dishes that had this house smelling divine.
“Alright then. How’s the leg, sweetheart?” she asks Cillian.
“A little better,” he assures her. The cold that rolled in yesterday was taking a toll on him, but he was determined not to let it ruin the festivities.
“You want any help?” I offer, even though she’d already turned me down several times.
