Chapter 16 - The Home They Chose
Z
One year after the night Marin saved Noah, Rosalia's Diner hosted a small celebration.
The owner had repainted the front window and asked Marin to design a new sign. She had created gold lettering around a bright blue lighthouse, with three tiny beams reaching toward the street.
Noah stood beside her as the final coat dried.
“I helped,” he announced to the crowd.
“You supervised,” Marin corrected.
“I helped supervise.”
Everyone laughed.
Gideon arrived late, carrying a bouquet of yellow tulips. He had learned that Marin preferred flowers that looked as if they belonged in a garden rather than a palace.
He kissed her cheek.
“You look happy.”
“I am.”
He looked around the diner. The place was crowded with neighbors, artists, children, and people who had once been afraid to say Gideon's name aloud.
He had not brought bodyguards into the celebration. He had not arranged special treatment or closed the street.
He had come as himself.
Later, when the crowd thinned, Gideon asked Marin to walk with him.
They stopped beneath the sign she had painted.
“I've been thinking about our future,” he said.
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Probably.”
He smiled, then became serious.
“I don't want to ask you to give up your studio. I don't want you to stop working. I don't want to decide what our life should look like before you've had a chance to tell me.”
Marin folded her arms.
“That's a remarkably good start.”
“I'd like us to find a place together. Somewhere smaller. Somewhere Noah can have his room, you can have your studio, and I can learn to cook without setting off the smoke alarm.”
She studied him.
“And the estate?”
“It's there if we need it. But it doesn't have to be the center of our lives.”
Marin looked through the diner window.
Noah was showing a little girl how to paint a boat. He was laughing, his voice clear and unguarded.
She turned back to Gideon.
“Yes,” she said.
He blinked.
“Yes?”
“Yes, I'll look for a place with you.”
His smile came slowly, then all at once.
“But I want a say in the kitchen,” she added.
“You can have the entire kitchen.”
“And I choose the paint colors.”
“Obviously.”
“And no black marble floors.”
He grimaced.
“I was afraid you'd say that.”
She laughed and kissed him beneath the painted lighthouse.
May you like
For the first time, the future did not feel like something either of them had to defend.
It was something they could build together.
