Page 158 of Go Luck Yourself

Loch’s cheeks go red, highlighting his freckles. “You like it, then?”

I stop. He faces me, and I can see the residual tremors of him worrying what I’d think.

“I love it,” I whisper. “Really, Loch. I—” My chest constricts. “You see me,” is all I can think to put words to.

He grins, a deep, reverberant sort of pleased, and kisses my forehead. “I was na sure how you’d feel about the words I chose. I told you once—there is no greater measure of value than what you give to a piece of art. And I’ve come to mean that in a bit of a different way. There is no value greater than what you have for me.”

I weigh the ramifications that’ll come if I miss the signing of the winter Holidays treaty. Like yes, it would be a huge snub—but god, what am I supposed to do when he says and does stuff like this? How can I not want to shirk every other goddamn responsibility and lose myself in him?

For the first time in my life, I don’t feel any guilt about wanting to give in to those thoughts. It wouldn’t destroy my worth, or my purpose, or who I am. I’d still be all the parts of me that Loch painted in his studio, words and mess and color and chaos and, most important, loved.

It’s a work in progress. But all the best things are.

He takes a step away from me, lips pursed in amusement.

“But,” he starts, “I mostly was na sure what you would think of that line on the bottom.”

“The line on the—” I look back at the studio. What was on the bottom?

“The first line of poetry you spoke to me. You do na remember?”

He takes another step backwards, his smirk cunning.

“I don’t—”

“It was about ‘breaching the agreed upon social constructs of the Spacefinder app.’” He puts air quotes around it. “Pure poetry. I fell in love with you on the spot.”

My eyes slowly widen. “You did not put that shit on our painting!”

Loch shrugs, but he’s smiling so wide I know he very well fucking did.

“You asshole!” I dive after him, and he races up the hall, laughing, but he shuts up once I catch him in the stairwell and kiss the hell right out of him.

But I’m laughing, too. I’m laughing and he presses me against the cold stone wall of his castle. It should be such a mundane thing now, kissing him, but I know, god do I know, that it’ll never stop feeling new and thrilling and vital.

That’s the real happy ending I always wrote about—no big, sweeping orchestral situations, no constant churn of drama and emotion.

Just this.

Lips and tongues and his hips against mine.

Just him, over and over, unfolding into a meandering, uncertain path that ripples far off into the distance.

A happy ever after that we make together.