Page 224 of Ex Somnis

I keep running my hand along the steel counter to make sure it’s solid.

To make sure I have both of them to serve a cake later.

No breadstick fingers. Real. Mine. With yellow nails with little citrus faces on them.

When I step out of the kitchen and into the wildly decorated restaurant themed part Christmas, part birthday, Ridge is at the corner table with his laptop, typing fast, the little furrow between his brows that means the words are coming easily today. He hasn’t stopped writing in weeks. Apparently, what’s coming out of him now is the best thing he’s ever written, and he knows it, to the point he’s unbearable about it.

I love him so much I can’t look directly at him sometimes.

Nevan is setting the long table, moving down it with stacks of plates. Mr. Muffin is propped in the center of the table as a centerpiece because Jasper insisted, and every time Nevan passes him, he turns him a quarter turn so he’s facing the party.

Jasper said he wanted to help, but instead, he’s doing a tarot spread on the windowsill for Tessa, who’s wrapped in approximately nine blankets, sitting in a wheelchair, still pale, thin, and tired, but her eyes are open. Her eyes are here.

Finally, she has stopped doing a reality check every five minutes.

Derek is hovering over her shoulder with a cup of tea she hasn’t asked for, exactly as he has been every single day for five weeks.

Nora is standing next to a nurse on Tessa’s other side, pretending not to cry, which is Nora’s resting state now.

“The Star,” Jasper announces, flipping a card with a flourish. “Healing. Renewal. The long dark turning back toward the light. On the solstice. On our birthday.” He looks up, eyes shining. “Tessa, the universe is being so heavy-handed right now it’s almost embarrassing.”

“Mm.” Tessa’s voice is still rough, but the dryness is in it. “Read me one that says I get to stop drinking this tea.”

“You don’t drink enough, then you don’t heal. You don’t open the restaurant with Lennon, you don’t get the dream.” Derek sets the cup in her hands and folds her fingers around it. “Drink the tea, angel.”

She drinks the tea.

She also, when she thinks no one is watching, leans into him a little. I see it. I’ll never tell either of them I see it, because I know they’re going slow. But they have time now. That’s the whole point. It’s the thing I almost gave up everything to get her and would do again without thinking twice.

The door opens, and the cold comes in, bringing Paul in with it, Mabel on his arm, both of them stamping snow off their boots. Paul has a folder under his arm. He’s wearing the green cardigan with the elbow patches and, God help me, it’s fucking sexy.

“Can everyone sit down for a second?” he asks, making Ridge scoff, but he wheels over, and Nevan abandons the plates. Jasper bounces up, and even Tessa motions for Derek to wheel her toward Paul.

Paul smiles at me when I step up beside him, his hand gliding once down the side of my lemon dress like he can’t quite pass me without touching. He’s the one who had my things moved from the storage unit in Boston. He gave me a whole empty room in his house for a dressing room and filled the drawers with stockings and pretty dresses he picked out himself.

When it was done, he never once told me to keep any of it behind that door. A cardigan started living on the back of the good armchair. Nail polish took over a corner of his bathroom counter. And he never asked me to put any of it away, so somewhere along the way the rest of the house started filling up too.

It’s still white and full of plants, but now yellow curtains hang on the windows, and citrus cushions sit on the couch. And all around, there are small, silly things on the shelves that are mine.

“Looking good today, darling.” He kisses my cheek, then he sets the folder down on the table in front of Nevan and opens it.

Nevan frowns down at it. “What is that?”

“Paperwork.” Paul slides it toward him. “For you to take over the inn.”

“Fucking finally,” Ridge mutters, but everyone else has gone quiet.

Nevan stares at the pages. “What?”

“It’s yours, Nevan. The deed, the license, all of it. You take it over.” Paul nods at the folder like it’s obvious, like he hasn’t dropped the floor out from under the man. “It’s done. It’s waiting on your signature.”

Nevan looks up at Mabel, and his face is doing about nine things at once.

Mabel holds up both hands. “Don’t look at me. The stars said the time was right.”

“Mabel.”

“Fine.” Her mouth twitches. “Not the stars. You. You kept this place alive when there was no reason it should have stayed alive except that you refused to let it go under.” She reaches up and pats his cheek. “You earned it twice over, boy. I’m just signing what was always true.”