Page 130 of Courage, Dear Heart

She blanches. “You’re messing with me.”

I laugh. “I would never joke about something like this. The building is yours—ours. And I’m really glad you still want me because it would have been a very awkward conversation otherwise.”

Jillian shakes her head. “Elliott, I can’t pay you for my half...I don’t know what to say.”

“I don’t want you to pay me. And you already said it. You want us to be together and that’s all that matters to me.”

Tears flood her eyes, and she brings her palms together in front of her face. “Thank you.” She’s in shock, I know. I’ve dumped a lot on her, but I can’t stop now.

“There’s one more thing.”

“I don’t think I can handle any more things.”

I pull out my phone and show her the designs I created. “This is an architectural rendering I created for the building. We can rebuild it. Make it safe. Build your store again and the apartment above, better, bigger. Make it our own space.”

Her lips tremble. “Our own space...it’s beautiful, Elliott. Better than anything I could have ever imagined. Buthow? I don’t think the insurance money will cover something like that. I have some savings, but that remodel will cost hundreds of thousands, more even.”

I grin. “Remember that trust I told you about? Grace loaned me more than enough to buy the building and remodel it.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “How much money is in that trust exactly?” Then she puts her hand up. “Don’t tell me. None of my business.”

Laughing, I take her hand and kiss the back of it. “I can tell you.”

She shakes her head. “No, don’t.” Then she looks at me. “More than a million?”

I nod.

“Two million?”

I nod again.

“Three?”

I grin and nod again.

Her eyes grow bigger with each nod, and I put her out of her misery. “It’s well over ten million by now. It’s a compounding trust. The money grows and reinvests itself. By the time I turn thirty-five, it should be closer to twelve or more.”

She puts both hands on her head. “I don’t think I have the brainpower to process everything you’re telling me right now.”

I smile. “There’s plenty of time ahead for us to talk about this and anything else you want.”

Jamie’s squeal at the top of the slide gets our attention. He looks at us and then up. He waves at the sky as if saying goodbye to someone only he can see and slides down. Runsto us. Jillian stands up and scoops him up. I follow close behind and hug them. The two most important people in my life.

“I love you both. So much.”

The air is charged, like the world itself is holding its breath. Jillian lifts her head, her eyes bright, her lips parted as if she might say something. She doesn’t—not right away. Instead, her gaze locks on mine, and for a moment, it’s the two of us alone in the universe.

Then she smiles—a smile so full of love, so raw, that it makes my breath catch. A tear slips down her cheek, and she mouths the words back to me, her lips forming each one slowly, deliberately, as if they’re the most precious words she’s ever given away.

I love you, too.

Jamie, still tucked between us, giggles, breaking the intensity of the moment. He looks up at me, his eyes bright and confident. “I know. I love you too.”

His innocence, his certainty, knocks the air out of me. I laugh, a shaky, half-broken sound that spills over with relief and something bigger than any of us could have imagined just a few months ago. I rest my forehead against Jillian’s for a moment, letting the weight of everything settle.

This is it. This is home. This is the family I’ve wished for. The answer to my loneliness. What I’ve longed for and could never name.

Epilogue

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