Page 106 of The Geography of Happiness

He relaxed and put his hand over mine. “Then we’re good.” He shot me the most beautiful smile that changed his face entirely and then he left. On his way out the door, he paused alongside Morgan and kissed him soundly. “I’ll deal with you later.”

Morgan waggled his brows. “Bring it on, dance boy.”

Judah laughed and left with an added sass to his gait that Morgan watched until the door closed in his face.

With the room quiet once again, Morgan looked my way and grinned. “I think you’re gonna fit into our little group very nicely.”

EPILOGUE

6 months later

Terry

I setmy steaming cup of tea on the side table and slid back into bed with my teeth chattering and my breath fogging in front of my face. Winter in the Mackenzie was no laughing matter and my Painted Bay wardrobe was going to need an upgrade. In Painted Bay I’d greeted the colder months with little more than a switch from shorts to jeans, the addition of a jersey or sweatshirt, and maybe a coat if it was raining.

The Mackenzie Basin was a different beast altogether. Layers of thermals and a polar-rated jacket didn’t go amiss even on a good day, when the sun glistened off the snow-clad hills and a bluebird sky beckoned you outside for a brisk walk. Add a hoar frost and a howling southerly and you didn’t breach your front door without life support and an emergency beacon.

It had taken six months, but Hannah and I had finally finished packing most of our Painted Bay life into storage containers on my parents’ farm, jammed the remainder into avan, and headed south to Mackenzie country. To Oakwood. To Spencer’s house... toourhouse.

Six months of hope, worry, second-guessing myself, second-guessing Hannah, and second-guessing the craziness of what I was doing. But never once did I second-guess Spencer.NeverSpencer. In the bedlam that was our life for those six months, Spencer never hesitated once in his commitment to come to wherever I needed to be. Sometimes for just a few days every couple of weeks, usually longer if he could manage it.

We couldn’t have done it without Matt who made no bones about the fact he wanted Spencer to stay in the Mackenzie and was willing to do whatever he could to make that happen, even though we couldn’t promise him anything at the start. We had to be open about where we landed if this thing between Spencer and me was really going to happen. So much couldn’t be predicted.

I didn’t remember the moment I realised I was hopelessly in love with Spencer, I just was, like it had been that way forever. And if we worked hard, the rest would fall into place, I had to believe that. And finally, there we were. In Oakwood. And I couldn’t have been happier.

There were still a lot of unanswered questions about the future. I had zero idea what I was going to do for work, for one, although that didn’t worry me as much as it maybe should’ve. When Jam found out I was planning to move, he’d been knocking at my door the next day, keen to sign a lease on the hardware store with the option of buying me out down the track. Two weeks before we moved, we made that lease official, which gave me a bit of money to live on whilst I figured myself out.

When I floated a few ideas with Spencer about maybe training as a primary school teacher or a social worker, he’d been super supportive. But I’d also been approached by a friend of Liam’s, regarding a position as a disability support worker forthe regional Otago area, a possibility that genuinely excited me. But I was determined not to rush intoanything.It had been a whirlwind and stressful six months, and the idea of making decisions that were centred more around whatIactually wanted andmyfuture was an entirely new way of thinking. It was going to take time to get my head around it.

I took another swallow of tea, my warm breath puffing white into the milk-grey dawn illuminating the room. My gaze landed on my phone. Ten past eight and all was well.

And it was.

Finally.

Spencer’s first visit to Painted Bay over the New Year had been a nervous one for us both. Although we’d spent a wonderful week together in Auckland waiting for Hannah to recover enough to come home, it had still felt like we were living in a bubble, not reality. Returning to Painted Bay changed all that.

Coming clean with Judah was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. Admitting that I’d once harboured feelings for him had shocked the hell out of Judah, but it went a long way toward soothing any hurt feelings he nursed. I was gonna miss that snarky drama queen in my daily life like losing a limb. We’d been each other’s rock, but our friendship was tougher than any geographical distance. We knew that. And Judah had been stoically in my corner for the rest of the shenanigans that entailed when I came out to everyone else.

Family and friends were... surprised... read: shocked. And I was pretty sure Leroy was still getting over it. All except for Amber, who said she’d wondered about me more than once but was delighted I’d found finally someone who made me happy. Everyone took it on board, ribbed me endlessly for a few days, asked a bazillion questions, and then got on with life. When they finally met Spencer, most everyone loved him from day one.Judah too, although in typical protective Judah style, he took a little more time getting there.

As for Spencer, he fitted into my Painted Bay friendship group like a glove, a fact disturbing in itself. He rolled with all the good-natured ribbing and gave as good as he got. I was so proud of him. In contrast, I could’ve killed Leroy and Fox when they took Spencer out to see the mussel farm and made sure he got a good dunking in the ocean just to see if country vets could swim.

Fucking friends.

But although Spencer enjoyed the ocean and persistently said he was happy to settle wherever it best suited us, I knew in my heart that he desperately missed his mountains and merinos. But even more surprising was the fact that I did too. The Mackenzie had won me over, but exactly how to get us all there had remained an unanswered question for months.

A persistent wound infection had set Hannah’s recovery back by weeks, and with the pressure to give Nolan Academy an answer, I’d almost fucked things up by running scared... again... and deciding she couldn’t go.

Hannah’s reaction had both surprised and dismayed me. Outright anger—something I’d rarely seen in my daughter. She told me I was jumping to conclusions, that I needed to trust the medical team who had no issue with her attending under a strict rehabilitation protocol, and to trust what I’d taught her and how I’d raised her.

I’d stubbornly refused to listen, and it needed Judah and Spencer relentlessly tag-teaming on Hannah’s behalf that allowed me to finally understand that most of my concerns were rooted in my own issues and not Hannah’s. As long as her medical team approved, she should be allowed to go. She deserved to go. She was ready to go. And if anything untowardhappened, we’d deal with it like we’d always done, as a team, only this time with Spencer there as well.

The crisis cemented Judah and Spencer’s friendship.

I started work with a counsellor.

And between Hannah, me, Nolan Academy, Spencer, Judah, and even Amber—God help us—we nutted out a plan.

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