"Proud of you," Ash says into his hair.
"Ash—"
"Shut up and take the compliment."
When Ash sets him down, Robin turns to me. His eyes are red and his smile is the biggest, most real thing I've ever seen on his face. No performance. No charm. Just Robin, terrified and happy and mine.
He crosses the bar and kisses me. Hard. In front of everyone. His good hand on my face, his healing hand gripping my jacket.
"Thank you," he says against my mouth. "For believing in me before I did."
"Always."
Knox pours. Everyone gets a glass — beer for most of us, something from the top shelf for Knox, lemonade for Toby because it's four in the afternoon and he has to go back to work.
"To Robin's something," Toby toasts.
"To Robin's something," everyone echoes.
"We really need to workshop the name," Robin says, but he's laughing.
"Tomorrow," I tell him. "Tonight we celebrate."
Ezra makes notes on his phone about the LLC filing. Silas has opened his legal folder and is reading it at the bar, occasionally marking something with a pen. Knox and Ash are talking quietly about the equipment trip to Riverside — logistics, timing, whether they need a trailer. Toby is texting Margaret, probably in all caps.
Robin leans against me in the middle of all of it. My arm goes around him, automatic as breathing. His hand finds mine on the bar — the healing hand, the scarred one, threading our fingers together.
"Hey Vaughn?"
"Yeah?"
"I think I'm going to be really good at this."
"Yeah," I say. "I think so too."
Tomorrow we start building. Tonight, it's just us.
Chapter 25
Robin
The café space looks different at night.
Vaughn drove me here after closing — my key, Margaret's trust, the library dark and quiet around us. I wanted to see it alone. Without Toby's plans or Knox's numbers or Ash's hovering. Just me and the space and the beginning of something.
And Vaughn. Always Vaughn.
He leans against the doorframe while I walk behind the counter. I've been here every day this week — sweeping, measuring, planning — but at night it's different. The dust has been swept. Vaughn rebuilt the shelving unit that had collapsed. The floor is still scuffed but the counter gleams, solid wood, warm under my palms.
My palms. Both of them. The scar is a thin pink line across my left palm, tender but functional. I tested my grip thismorning — piping bag, rolling pin, knife. All good. A little stiff, a little sore. But working.
"Just a few weeks ago," I say to the dark, quiet space, "I was bleeding in Gordon's kitchen thinking this was all I'd ever have."
Vaughn doesn't respond. He knows I'm not talking to him.
"And now I'm standing behind my own counter. In my own café. With a business plan and an investor and a spreadsheet that Toby color-coded in four different colors and an LLC that Ezra filed in minutes." I run my hands over the counter. "My name is going on this door."
"What name?" Vaughn asks from the doorframe.