Page 164

Epilogue
Will
ThereweremorningswhenI still expected the sound of boots.
It creeped in just after I woke, that hollow beat of a patrol echoing through the alleys of my mind. I knew it wasn’t real, not here, not anymore. But after everything—Hungary, the river, the silence that followed—I supposed some instincts lingered longer than the bruises.
But this morning, like every morning for the past few months, all I heard was the shuffle of pigeons outside our window and the gentle creak of wood as the city woke slower than we did.
Paris had taken us back in like a forgiving friend.
I loved it here.
I loved our little flat with its chipped tiles and the kitchen hardly wide enough for two people to breathe. I loved the bakery that opened before dawn and the café with the surly waiter who never remembered our order but always brought the right thing. I loved the way sunlight filtered through our curtains—like gold laced with dust—and the hum of mopeds three floors below.
Most of all, I loved that we had returned to it together.
Thomas shifted beside me.
We were a mess of limbs and tangled sheets, his bare chest rising and falling in slow, even breaths. I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began, and I didn’t want to. His thigh was slung over mine, one arm draped across my waist like he’d fallen asleep mid-embrace and never let go. I wasn’t sure how either of us had survived the night without being smothered, but I wasn’t complaining.
Last night had been, well, intense.
Weeks of adrenaline, of not knowing if we’d live or die, had drained out of us and been replaced by something softer, more desperate. We’d made love like it was a promise.
Then again, slower.
Then again, just to be sure.
Now we lay in the quiet aftermath, our bodies sore and hearts unburdened.
I lay there for a long while just watching him.
My partner.
My Thomas.
He was the most brilliant, infuriating, beautiful man I’d ever known.
His lashes fluttered against his cheeks, his hair a tangled mop of curls flattened on one side. A faded scar just below his collarbone caught the morning light, a pale memory of a war neither of us had won.
I touched it gently.
He still didn’t stir.
God help me, I loved this man.
Eventually, I rolled toward him, pressing my forehead against his shoulder and breathing him in. I felt the warmth of his skin, our shared sweat, breathed in a hint of the lavender soap I’d bought in the market because I thought he’d like it—and he had.
Outside, Paris breathed with us.
Footsteps on cobblestones.
A child laughing.
Somewhere, the smell of baking bread drifted up through the window we’d left cracked overnight.
This was home.Ourhome.