She reached across the table and placed her hand over mine. “I won’t say I’m not a little sad to see you skipping out, but I understand why. The reason is the best you could have given me, and I’m glad. Truly.”
I smiled back at her. “Your advice helped me a lot, you know. You told me to be spontaneous.”
Her knowing eyes sparked. “I take it being spontaneous worked in your favor in more than one way?”
My traitorous cheeks heated. “It did. I have him to thank for a lot, not that he’d ever let me. Theo is…a very stubborn man.”
“Fitting for one of the most stubborn women I know.” She squeezed my hand before sitting back in her seat and lifting her coffee cup. “You deserve so much, Adele. I’m glad you’re realizing that as well. So, tell me. What comes next now that you’re finished with school?”
All I could think about was Theo.
Of leaving.
I gave her a loose shrug. “I’m planning on painting. Selling my work. I think my next big step is to get away from here. Maybe not forever, but for a while. Too much has happened and even though this is the only home I’ve ever had, I’m ready to try finding another one where I can reinvent myself without old ghosts lingering.”
She nodded along. “Sounds like you’ve got a well thought out plan. Just remember that you don’t have to change yourself. It’s others who need to change their perspective.”
It took a moment, but I found myself agreeing with her. “I know. I’m a work in progress.”
“We all are, dear.”
After we said our goodbyes, I called Theo with a relieved smile across my face to let him know I was on my way home. While that was split between our two places, I knew anywhere he was, was as good as home as any.
When I walked into my apartment, I saw Ramsay and Theo on the couch together, our favorite cooking show on the television, and a Denny’s takeout bag sitting unopened on the coffee table.
I stopped and stared, taking a mental picture, and wanting to bring it to life on a canvas full of color. Full of hope. It was the exact image that I would display on my wall and show off to the world because it was mine. A life deserving to be bragged about and shared.
“Theo?”
He looked over his shoulder and smiled, one hand curled around Ramsay’s back. “I got your favorite for dinner. Didn’t think you’d mind. Come sit with me?”
Kicking off my shoes, I sat on my knees facing him, my eyes freely scoping him out while he watched me with a lopsided grin.
“What are you looking at?” he asked gently, leaning in for a brief kiss and trying not to disrupt the pup.
It might have been cheesy, but the words slipped right off my tongue like they begged to be spoken. “My future.”
His grin widened. “Yeah?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions, Theo,” I teased, leaning in again and grazing his lips in a kiss that lasted too long for Ramsay’s liking. He stirred and barked, causing me to roll my eyes and sit back.
I focused on getting the food out of the bag and splitting it between us. “I was thinking about seeing Sophie tomorrow. I texted Lydia and asked if she could meet us. She was free, so…” I paused, passing him a napkin. “Unless you have other plans. I should have checked.”
“I’m free,” was all he gave me.
“You’re not worried about, Sophie?” It shouldn’t have surprised me that he wasn’t. Theo seemed fearless, and not even somebody like Sophie could get under his skin. She’d tried.
His hand came up and brushed my jaw, something in his eyes that was light and amused at the same time. “No, sweetheart. I’m not scared of her at all.”
Epilogue
Della
The summer came with a brutal heat wave that matched the growing tensions portrayed when Richard Pratt’s trial was scheduled for late August after his arrest by NYPD and Federal Agents for first-degree murder, and drug, weapon, and counterfeit money manufacturing. Special Agent Michael Flamell assured me during a short meeting at the beginning of June that I wouldn’t be needed in the trial and that Pratt wouldn’t be getting off.
Thankfully, I escaped the city by July when Theo set up appointments with real estate agents in upstate New York, far enough from the city where the spectacle of Pratt wouldn’t find me but close enough that day trips weren’t impossible. It’d taken only a week to find a home that I always pictured living in, a space perfect for two people and a dog with plenty of room to run around and be comfortable without the luxuries or complications that the city came with. The house was set back from the rest that surrounded it with more acreage than we needed and held a serenity foreign to me. On the first night, it’d been too quiet to sleep, so Theo had stayed up with me watching TV even after unpacking and setting up his new home office all day. While he’d need to go to the city occasionally, we both knew we’d never truly escape the Big Apple. When he went in for work, I went to see Sophie, Ren, and Tiffany before she’d left for her newest adventure with the Los Angeles Ballet Company.
My biggest obstacle had been telling Sophie and Lydia that I was in love with Theo and had every intention of leaving with him before the new trial began. The sweat that had collected on my forehead and the clamminess of my palms seemed overexaggerated when Theo took my hand and led me into Sophie’s parlor as if he had no care in the world anymore. Lydia had hugged me with a knowing smile and said she was happy as long as I was, and Sophie had told me, “I suppose you could do worse, Adele” with a tight curve to her lips. I’d expected a fight,
