Chapter 15

“T hank you,” I said, and turned the object over in my hands. It was metal, not too shiny, and very light. There were no markings on the bottom and the shape was irregular, like a bumpy blob. “This is so nice, Gracie.”

My littlest sister nodded. “I saw it and I thought of you,” she told me.

“Well, thank you for thinking of me, too.” I smiled at her, so glad that I’d been on her mind and also that she’d followed through and done her part in the holiday gift-giving system we had going in our family. There were too many of us for individual presents so we all drew names, but Grace hadn’t ever been great with participation after she got her assignment. I was genuinely happy that she’d given me a…I studied it. Well, I was so happy that she’d given me this thing because I thought it showed a lot of maturity, and it also showed love. So far, this was a great Christmas.

We moved on to Juliet opening her gift from my dad, and Granger leaned closer to me. “ O que é isso ?” he asked quietly. What is that?

I had no clue. “ N?o sei ,” I whispered, although I was fairly sure that no one here would understand me. I smiled at him and he grinned too, then he slid his arm from the back of the couch to rest on my shoulders. Since the night that I’d fallen asleep on him, he was definitely more touchy. I didn’t mean that he was quick to anger or take offense, but that he was touching me, and I also didn’t mean that anything weird was going on. It was just little actions, like how he’d give me a mug of coffee in the morning and then he’d tug a piece of my hair. When we finished our cold runs and were walking the last block home, he’d reach over to hold my hand, mentioning that it was to warm up my fingers. They were just little things but I found them to be very significant. I also found it significant that we were seated like this on my parents’ couch, how I was cuddled against his side and his arm held me there.

Some of my family members apparently felt the same way about that. Grace was looking out the window and Brenna was busy complaining about the gift that our grandmother had sent for her, but my other sisters and my dad were staring at me and Granger. Both Sophie and Juliet had one of their eyebrows raised way, way up, so I looked at the metal lump in my lap. Maybe it was an asteroid.

My mom was also focused on something else. She cleared her throat and then announced, “If we’re all done with opening gifts, I have a wonderful Christmas surprise.” Now most of my sisters and I glanced at each other warily, because sometimes her surprises weren’t as wonderful as she’d anticipated. There was the time when I was ten that she’d said, “Surprise!” and then announced that she was leaving on a month-long yoga retreat (it had been very hard to negotiate around the loss of her driver’s license for all those weeks). Her last big surprise had been that my brother was going to be a father, and this one was about him, too.

“Patrick’s home!” she said, smiling delightedly. We all looked at the doorway, waiting for him to appear. Silence stretched and I felt Granger shift a little.

“Where is he?” Nicola finally asked, and our dad shook his head.

“He’s out with friends right now, but he’ll be back for dinner,” Mom said, then quietly added, “I think.”

“He went out with friends on Christmas?” Sophie wondered, and turned to Patrick’s twin. “Did you know about this, JuJu?”

“No, not until this morning,” Juliet answered, and she didn’t seem very happy about things. She’d been a little off all day, I realized, kind of quiet and not very participatory.

“And I have other news,” my mom continued, and we got wary again. “He’s coming back to stay when the baby is born, and they’ll both live here, with us!” My dad looked pained, and the rest of the gift-giving devolved into arguments about why this was a good/not a good idea. I mediated but I had to agree when my oldest sister concluded that wherever he lived, Patrick had to take responsibility and that my mom, who didn’t work outside of their home, also needed to step up and help. Nicola clearly didn’t believe that either of those things would happen. After a while, we stopped the dispute and went to eat, but my brother never made an appearance.

“I guess Juliet was right,” I said once Granger and I were in the car and heading home. “She told me that she was going to have to travel before the baby comes because she’ll be busy helping Patrick afterwards. Someone is going to have to take care of the poor little thing.”

“What about the mother?” Granger asked, which echoed the question that had come up several times during the pre-dinner discussion. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a clear answer. Nicola had done her usual interrogation but Mom just didn’t seem to have much information to give us. Patrick would have custody, that part she was somehow sure of, but the reasons behind her certainty were also vague. Eventually, she had gotten mad and said we were looking a gift horse in the mouth and being party poopers.

“I hope this works out,” I went on. “I’m sorry to say that I don’t have faith in my brother’s abilities as a father. Not after the fish.” I explained, briefly, what had happened when he had failed at pet care. “But that was a long time ago, and anyway, we all live close by. We won’t let anything happen to his baby.”

We were quiet for a while and I examined the gift from Grace again. Maybe it was a piece of lava? It seemed like it might have been heated or melted. I’d never seen lava in real life but shouldn’t it have been dark? This wasn’t heavy but I could try use it as a paperweight, if I ever had a lot of papers, or maybe Cacau would like it.

“Is it going to end up as yours?”

“Yes, Grace gave this thing to me…oh, do you mean, would I take in Patrick’s child?” I hesitated. “It’s not like I haven’t considered that. I had this fear that he’d drop off the baby with Nicola and run, but that won’t happen now that she has Jude and they’re starting a family of their own. Sophie won’t do it, my mom isn’t capable. I guess I would be next in line.”

“And you want that. Kids, et cetera.”

“I do,” I agreed. “I really want all of that. I’m not going to grab a guy and march him in front of a judge to marry us, and I’m going to wait to have kids until everyone is ready for the responsibility, but I won’t wait forever. I won’t spend another three years with a man like Briggs, making believe that he’s someone he truly isn’t.”

“How are you so sure that’s what you want? How do you know that will make you happy?”

“I don’t know for sure,” I answered. “I hope it will make me happy, though. It’s something that I’ve always planned on.”

“When I was a kid, I planned to be an astronaut. It was all I wanted in life,” he mentioned. “Things change and that’s normal. You have to roll with it.”

“When I was a kid, I planned to be a horse trainer. Then I stood next to a horse in real life and decided it wouldn’t work. I rolled with that, but I’m not going to be Mina or Mr. Campbell’s wife, either. I don’t want to look back and wish I’d done things differently, and I don’t want to give up on things that are important to me.”

“But you don’t know if that would happen. You don’t know if you’d look back with regret,” Granger stated. “Plenty of people lead great lives without kids, plenty of people don’t want to be with someone for fifty years.”

“I know that’s true and that’s fine for them, but it’s not what I want.” I looked at him closely, not understanding. “Why are you arguing with me? I should lead my life as I choose, just like you should. I don’t tell you that you shouldn’t have a restaurant.”

“I shouldn’t have a restaurant,” he echoed.

“No, I’m not saying—”

“I’m saying it. I shouldn’t have a restaurant. I fucking hate it.”

“You do?” He’d never seemed to enjoy being there and he did seem angry—no, he’d seemed resigned and regretful about how much time it required. He’d never gotten excited or happy when he was talking about it, not like he did when he discussed the cat, or cars, or even his new couch. I’d never believed that he loved being a restaurateur, but I hadn’t known that he felt like this.

“I hate it,” he said again. “It was Benedetta’s dream and I went along with it. I bought the building for her, I figured out how to run it. Now it’s real.” He sighed. “I keep her picture on my desk like she can somehow see it, but it only reminds me that she’s missing out.”

I thought of the beautiful woman in that frame. “I’m sorry.”

“Making Amunì happen was the least I could do after she uprooted everything for me.”

“But she wanted to be with you.”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” he said. “She didn’t know what she really wanted. She didn’t know what was best for her and it sure as hell wasn’t marrying me. She was miserable and lonely almost immediately, and all I did was run off to another country and leave her again.”

“Wasn’t that your job?” I asked. “Didn’t you have to?”

“It didn’t make it any easier for her,” he answered. “She must have been so pissed at me.”

“Maybe she was, but logically...” When had I ever acted logical in my own relationship? I stopped talking.

“She died because she had stayed in Detroit so we could talk about our future,” Granger continued. “I had already told her that I thought we were over. I was done. I was going to give her the building and anything else she wanted, but it was time to move forward with separate lives. We had stuck it out for a long time and it didn’t make sense anymore, but she wanted to convince me to keep trying. We hardly saw each other and when we were together, we hardly spoke. We were strangers who were married. I didn’t understand why she wanted to hang on.”

“Well, even if you felt like strangers, sometimes it’s hard to give up on things,” I ventured. “Maybe she was hoping that the situation could turn around.”

“Maybe. Maybe she was hoping that I would be a better person, but I didn’t step up. And then it was too late.”

“But you still love her,” I said. Hadn’t he stayed single because he couldn’t imagine another woman replacing the one he’d lost?

“I love the memory of the girl I met a long time ago. I’m so sorry about what happened and I wish that I could go back and fix it somehow. I’m not still wedded to her memory, though. I just don’t want to repeat the same mistakes and ruin the life of someone else that I love.”

There was the answer: he would never commit to another woman because he didn’t believe it could work. “You feel how you feel,” I said. “That’s ok.”

“Is it?”

Well, besides my own heart breaking, it was totally fine. “You should do what makes you happy. If it means selling the restaurant and moving to Brazil, you should. You already speak the language.” He was totally fluent by this point. If it meant being single, then…then good. I wanted him to be happy, too.

“Obviously I’m not moving to Brazil, but maybe I should sell it,” he said. “Getting it off the ground and open was something I thought I had to do for her, in her memory.”

“And you did it,” I reminded him. “You’re financially secure. Now you can do what you want.”

“You’ll be a lot more financially secure yourself when the estate gets settled,” Granger pointed out. “Have you thought about your future plans?”

“Yes, a lot,” I answered. “I want to be happy, too, and I think you were right. I should try to go into landscape design. I need to take classes and train for it first, but that’s what I’m the most interested in.”

“Good for you.”

“Mina plans to be a professional astrologer. She likes it so much, I bet she won’t even charge people.”

“She won’t have to. She can do whatever she wants.”

So could I, to an extent. Except, of course, that the other thing I wanted was to be with him. But that just wasn’t going to happen and somehow, I’d have to come to terms with it. We walked quietly into the house and I went to my bedroom with my gift from Grace. Maybe it was a weapon, although it was so light that it would have been hard to do much damage with it.

“Hey,” Granger said from my doorway. “I have another present for you that’s going to be easier to ID than that metal thing. I’m thinking it might be melted cans, by the way.” He handed me a box.

“I got you something, too. It’s kind of small, but that’s temporary.” I picked up a bag from next to my bed. “I was just going to give it to you. Go ahead and open it.”

He sat next to me and took the gift bag, then parted the tissue paper and slid out the clear collector case. “It’s a model of a T-bird,” he said. “In Raven Black.” He turned the box in his hands, studying it. “They got every detail right. Thank you.”

“For now, I’m giving you this little one,” I explained. “But when I get the inheritance, I want to give you a real one. A 1956 Thunderbird that you could restore.”

“What?” He stared at me. “No, no way. That’s a very nice thought but I could never accept it.”

“You want it more than anything,” I countered. “I’ve been talking to that guy with the auto shop, Digger Brody. He says that he was serious about helping you with the project.”

“You talked to him?” Granger was shaking his head but he was smiling at me. “I’m not going to take a car from you. But thank you, Addie. Thank you very much.”

We’d have to see about the car. Digger was already on the lookout for the right model year.

He put his arm around me. “Now yours,” he urged.

I slid off the ribbon, opened the box, and took out two pieces of paper. “What is this?” I scanned the writing on the pages but still didn’t understand. “What? Tickets?”

“My gift to you is two airline tickets to Florida and a hotel room, too. You could take Juliet or maybe you could try to get Sophie to leave her house and go with you.”

“A trip?Really?”

“You’ve had so much shit happen this year and you deserve get away for a while.”

“Thank you, and I love this,” I said. “It’s also a big present.”

“I feel like it’s not enough. You were going through all that but at the same time, you made my year a lot better. A lot happier.”

Had I? I looked up at him. “It wasn’t all bad for me. I’m so glad I got to know you.” I touched his cheek with my fingertips. “I’m very glad.”

“I thought you’d like to bring one of your sisters, but I could go with you on the trip.” He bent closer. “Just the two of us.”

I nodded, feeling a bit of a flush start in my cheeks. “I would like that.” I could hear Mina’s voice in my mind asking if I was going to change what I wanted for my life—no, forget it. What I wanted was him, right now.

“Would you like it?” He tilted his head and kissed me softly. “Us together?”

I nodded. “I would like it a lot.”

He kissed me a second time. It went longer and deeper and his arms pulled me closer. “Like that?” he asked.

I had lost my breath so I nodded again. Like that and more.

Granger leaned over and I leaned back until we were sprawled across my bed. He held himself off me but I put my arms around him and tugged, and I lifted myself, pressing against him. It wasn’t enough. I let go and wiggled away to get the space to pull up my shirt, over my head and gone. And there I was.

“I didn’t expect you to do that.” He smiled and yanked off his own shirt, popping buttons and flinging it away. He kissed me and started to touch me, his hands moving over my bare skin but I felt like it still wasn’t enough. He was in agreement and when we broke away again, both of us reached to remove the rest of our clothes, bras and briefs and everything else until it was full-on nudity happening in my bedroom.

He rolled onto his back and moved me on top, and he slid his palms from my shoulders down to my butt, then down to my thighs. He parted them and I felt him against me, his erection nestled against my clit in a way that made me gasp and cant my hips. That was good.

“That’s good,” he breathed, his eyes closed. He opened them and looked into mine, and he smiled again. His hands moved to hold my breasts, to touch and massage them, and yes, it was so, so good.

Granger touched me in places where no one ever had, no one else besides me. Like, the spot behind my knees was so sensitive, and I hadn’t known it until he kissed me there. He slid his cheek down to my ankle and kissed that, too. He kissed each of my toes and moved up my body and nibbled my hipbones. He told me how good I smelled when he nuzzled my ears, and how beautiful I was when he looked into my eyes.

I touched him, too, across his chest and over the muscle of his arms, and sugar, his butt. That was literal perfection beneath my fingers. But there was a problem in that this bed was just not perfect for two, not if one person was the size of a bear. I found that I’d been right several months ago, when I’d told Juliet that he looked like he could pick me up. He could, and he did, and he carried me into his room instead, where everything was bigger and that meant we could fully stretch out against each other. I kissed his arm all the way to his knuckles, and he put his palm against my cheek.

“I’m glad about this,” he said.

Every man liked sex. “Me too,” I answered. Unlike other experiences I’d had with this type of activity, it all felt so amazing. I was glad to be with him, even if it was for just a little while, and I wasn’t going to worry about anything that happened in the future regarding plans and expectations. I certainly wasn’t going to think about loving him. I decided to try to make this as memorable as I could, so that down the road when I crossed his mind, he’d remember how good I’d made him feel, too. I hoped that down the road he might be thinking about me.

I focused on pleasure, in the form of my mouth meeting his penis. I licked and tongued and it definitely worked to make him feel great, because he told me so. “Holy…Addie, come here,” he panted, and pulled me up his body. He kissed me hard and moved to touch between my legs, too. He stroked me there until I was also panting again, and then he told me that he was getting a condom. “Ok?”

“Yes, yes.” The words were a moan because he was still touching me, and now my hips undulated against his fingers.

Granger rolled us onto our sides and he kept stroking as he entered me, and I started to orgasm almost before he could move again. “Damn, Addie,” he burst out, and as I came he pulled me tightly to his chest. My body arched and I felt his go taut, and then we lay together and gasped for air and luxuriated in the pleasure of it. He took off the condom and hugged me again and I felt his breathing slow. I tried to soak up every detail, like the way that the soft hair on his calf tickled mine and the callouses I could feel as his palm cradled my breast.

“Are you asleep?”

I tilted my head. “I’m awake.”

He leaned and kissed me. “I wanted to look into your eyes. They remind me of a place I saw once.”

“What place?”

“The Band-e Amir lakes in Afghanistan,” he answered. “Your eyes are the same bright blue as the water was that day. I didn’t think I’d ever see anything prettier, but now I get to every time I look at you.” He kissed me again. “I love to look at you. You’re so…”

I waited, because the lead-up sounded promising but it also could have turned into something similar to what Briggs had told me when he got angry, something like “squat,” “ugly,” “a clown.”

“I don’t know how to say it.”

“Try,” I encouraged, my anxiety mounting.

“It’s like I can see how beautiful you are inside. It shines out of you. It’s not just that you’re so pretty, it’s that you’re so…do I sound like an idiot? Is this too blunt?”

“No, go on,” I urged.

“I can see how kind you are. I can see how much you care about people,” he continued. “I watched you thank your sister for that hunk of metal and it made me want to kiss you. You know I don’t have a way with words.”

“No, I think you do. Thank you,” I answered. “Thank you very much for giving me the nicest compliment I’ve ever heard.” I snuggled and he responded by adjusting his hold so that I was even closer.

“We could travel more together,” he suggested. “Not to those lakes, but there are so many places to see. What about Brazil? It would be something different but that wouldn’t have to be bad. I’d be there with you.”

I lay and listened as he talked about faraway destinations and us, together. Then I turned so that I could kiss his neck and chest. Gradually, he stopped talking about other places and focused on the one where he was, his bed with me in his arms.

It was funny to get up the next morning in a room that was down the hall from the one I usually occupied, and to feel strained muscles in unusual areas. That was what happened when you had sex four times in one night, I supposed. I’d never personally experienced that before, but I thought that the slight soreness now was very worth it. I saw that I had a little bit of a flush on my breasts and inner thighs from Granger’s stubble, and my cheeks and neck also seemed warm. They weren’t red, but my skin was slightly irritated. I remembered how his mouth had felt in those areas and decided that it was all absolutely and without a doubt worth it.

I was alone in the bed, which was my usual state in the morning, but then he came in with coffee and acted like everything was totally normal, that of course I would have been under his sheets and naked. I did my best to behave the same way, and not get awkward and overwhelmed by emotion. I smiled and sipped and then stood up carefully as he opened the new curtains. But then I thought that my act may not have worked, because he stared at me in the morning sunlight.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“If you mean emotionally, I’m not even upset at all,” I assured him. “Why?”

“I meant that you’re r—a little flushed. I can see it better now.” He looked closely at my face, and then gently tugged on the comforter I’d wrapped around my shoulders. It opened and he saw the rest of me. “Fuck, Addie! Did I do that?” He brushed his fingertips over my breast, softly touching my nipple. “Does that hurt?”

“No, not at all.” I leaned forward, leading with my chest. “That’s very nice.”

His face changed from worry to something else. “Would my mouth be better?” he suggested.

That was also wonderful and we moved into a lot of other activities in which both of us used our mouths, hands, and other body parts. The result was that we didn’t leave the house until a couple of hours later, and then I shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat because now I was slightly sore in my personal areas. This was what happened when you had sex three more times, I supposed.

The restaurant was closed today so Granger was coming with me, and I merged onto I-94 towards Grosse Pointe. As we’d been warned, Berthe, Tweedledee, et al. had hired attorneys and were already coming full-throttle after Mr. Campbell’s money. Everything was frozen while their litigation proceeded. But today, Mina and I were allowed back into the mansion to remove our personal items and to perform some general housekeeping, like emptying the refrigerator and taking out the trash. Since Gwenyth, Matilda, and the rest of that group didn’t trust us not to “pilfer,” the deal was that we would be shadowed by a security guard, because they were still patrolling (so that no pilfering could happen at other times, either).

Granger and I were quiet on the way over. I was thinking about everything that had happened, including many things that I’d never personally experienced—like a lot of orgasms. A whole lot, and I’d found that I really enjoyed…I felt myself flushing as I recalled certain places his tongue had gone. But I was also thinking that everyone, all my sisters and Mina too, would tell me that it had been a mistake.

Well, too bad, because I didn’t care. At least I’d have a lot of wonderful memories, and I didn’t mean only those orgasms. I would remember lying with my head on his chest as he drew swirls on my back with his fingers. I would remember how he smiled at me and the expression he had when he watched me come, like he was equally satisfied. I would remember how he laughed when I swore in Portuguese, the brush of his stubble on my thighs, and how he’d talked so quietly in the darkness, so softly and sweetly. I wouldn’t forget any of it, not ever.

He put his hand on my knee, and every once in a while he looked over at me. “What is it?” I asked.

“It’s cold today. I was thinking that Florida would be nice right now,” he answered, and we talked about vacations again for the rest of the ride.

Out of habit, I drove around to the tradesman’s entrance, where the security guard let us in and told us that Mina was in the study. Without Mr. Campbell’s presence, the house felt empty as we walked through it—he had been physically small, but his personality was large. Oversized. It was even stranger to see his usual chair empty in his favorite room.

Mina walked over to hug me and cry again, and although we were all supposed be under observation, Granger said something about waiting in the kitchen and quietly left. The security guard eyed him but didn’t follow; he was older, and maybe he’d decided that arguing with someone the size of a bear wasn’t worth it. He hovered just outside the room as Mina told me about a bad transit she saw coming for my sister.

“She needs to be careful,” she warned, and I nodded. I’d talk to her. My friend glanced in the direction of the security guard and the kitchen. “Has anything changed between you and Granger?”

I knew what she meant. “No, it’s the same.” Despite how he and I had slept together, and slept together, and slept together, nothing had fundamentally changed about either of us. “We’re not going to end up as a couple, at least not how I want us to be.”

“But your synastry charts—”

“Mina, he doesn’t believe in astrology. It doesn’t matter if our charts are perfectly compatible, because…well, you’re going to get mad at me when I say this, but I think that a relationship has to be more than what you can see in the stars and planets. And please don’t tell me again about our seventh houses,” I warned.

“I want you to be happy, Addie.”

“That’s what I want, too,” I sighed. “I wish this would work, but it won’t because I can’t have just a little of him and be satisfied. I want it all.”

“A little isn’t enough,” she said, nodding. “I’m living proof.”

I nodded back. “When you told me about you and Mr. Campbell, I couldn’t understand why you would have stayed with him, but I do get it now. I get loving someone so much that you’d accept less, because that’s how much I love Granger.”

“But you’re not going to do that.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to. I deserve to have what I want—I deserve the opportunity to try for it, anyway, and he deserves to be with someone who doesn’t put expectations on him. But he thinks that he’s better on his own. He doesn’t want anyone at all.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” I bent and picked up the paper wrapper of a throat lozenge that had missed the trash can. “I’ve been so afraid of things changing and I worked so hard to keep them the same, but so much is different now. In the past year, I’ve lost my boyfriend, my apartment, and my job. And still, I’m ok. I can be ok without Granger, I can adjust again.” I wiped my eyes. “I don’t want to, but I can do it. Mr. Campbell told me to stop cowering and I will. I have faith in myself.”

“I have faith in you, too,” she said, and also wiped her eyes. “I really wanted it to work out between you two, though. I didn’t have a happy ending, and I wanted one for you.” She hugged me again. “I need to wash my face and I’ll make us some tea. Does that sound good?”

It did, and the guard followed her toward the kitchen. I sat in my usual chair, the short one, and looked at the books I’d read aloud to Mr. Campbell. Instead of letting himself love someone, he’d paid for me to take care of him and he’d strung along his relatives so that they’d keep visiting. He’d lived a life very rich in possessions and bank balances, but very poor in ways that mattered a lot to me.

“Addie.” Granger knocked lightly on the doorframe.

“Hi,” I told him. “We haven’t even started the clean-up. Mina just went to wash her face.”

“I know. I heard.”

“What?”

“There’s a radio in the kitchen. Like what parents have for babies,” he explained.

“Oh.” Yes, there was. We had used it to listen to Mr. Campbell, and it had worked great. We’d heard every word…

“I could hear you talking,” he continued. “I started to turn off the speaker when I caught my name.”

“Your name,” I echoed.

“I heard you say to Mina that you loved me, but that you weren’t going to stay. I wasn’t going to give you what you want.”

“You don’t have to,” I told him. “You’ve been clear—”

“No, I don’t think so.” He walked to the low chair and offered his hands to pull me up. Then he hugged me, pulling me in very close. “I told you that I was bad at this.”

“With people?”

“With talking plainly in a language that we both understand. I was asking if you’d take your brother’s baby, because I thought that I would be a part the kid’s life, too. I was talking about selling the restaurant because a change like that would also affect you. I want to be sure of what you want so I can give you those things.”

I looked up at him. “You have to say what you mean, right now.”

“I mean that I’d be a part of your life like you’re a part of mine, because I love you,” he stated. “I love you very much. I thought it was clear how much I want you.”

“For now. That’s ok—”

“No, not just for now. For tomorrow, and next week, and the next fifty years. I am afraid, but I can’t stay away from you because of that. I can’t be away from you, because I’d be miserable. I want us to be happy together.” I felt him tense. “I just don’t want you to make the wrong choice with me.”

“It’s my choice to make. I want to choose you, but I won’t force you into a life that’s my dream and not yours.”

“I don’t want to get married. Not until you’re sure about me,” he cautioned. “When you are, we should have a wedding. I don’t want kids, not until we put on rings, and then I would like to start a family with you. I guess I’m a selfish jackoff but I don’t wait too long for those things to happen.”

“You won’t have to wait for very long,” I answered. “I think spring would be a great time for an engagement. That will give us time to fix up the back yard for the wedding, and then also to buy some new furniture. We’ll need a bassinet.”

“I’ll get one of those. Just tell me what it is.” He kissed me. “I love you.”

We were still kissing when Mina and the security guard came back in. She must have left on the baby monitor too, because although it was still early for drinking, she had a bottle of champagne rather than tea. I also saw that she was going to need to wash her face for a second time because she was crying again. “I saw this coming,” she announced. “It was written in the stars.” She nodded at the guard. “Didn’t I tell you?”

He took the bottle and popped the cork. “Congratulations,” he told us. “Taurus and Capricorn are a good match.”

“I agree,” Granger said. “I think we’re a very good match.” He held up his glass.

“ Saúde ,” I told him. “To us.” This was something else that I hadn’t expected. Maybe that was going to be true for the rest of my life: there would be a lot of changes, some good and some unhappy, but I could deal. I wasn’t going to be meek and afraid. I would stand up and face them.

And I’d have someone to stand up next to me. He kissed me, and I looked forward to what was coming next.