Page 28

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Two years later

I was never going to reopen Frida’s—not in the same way. Not in the same building, with the same light, memories clinging to every corner. But when Flynn suggested that I take a look at a commercial space in Portsmouth, less than ten minutes from the bed-and-breakfast his parents used to own, I agreed.

“It just…feels like you,” he said, driving me with the windows down. No more bulletproof Range Rover. We’re a Subaru couple now, complete with bumper stickers from all the places we’ve traveled together: Montenegro, Sequoia National Park in California, the rocky beaches of Summerland where my nana grew up.

And Flynn was right. We pulled up to the bank of the Piscataqua River, blue-gray water rushing under a summer sky. As soon as I stepped into the converted dock house, historic floorboards creaking underfoot, herb garden overflowing beyond the plate glass windows, my bones knew I was home.

“Yeah?” Flynn said, looping his arm around my shoulders.

“Yeah,” I whispered back, in the kitchen, all the broken pieces falling into place. I called the real estate agent from the property’s love-worn dock, a late-June breeze whistling through my hair, and purchased the building on the spot.

Alongside a surprise reward from the Summerlandian government (for “going above and beyond the call of duty”), the CIA ended up making good on their five-million-dollar offer—extending another offer to boot. “We’re always on the lookout for talented field officers who can handle themselves under pressure,” Gail said over the phone, “even if they come from, let’s call it, unique backgrounds and circumstances. Have you ever thought about joining the CIA?”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” I told her, laughing. “But hell no.”

She laughed, too, the first one I’d ever heard from her. A short, raucous chuckle. “I can’t tempt you with a healthy insurance package? The possibility of lukewarm coffee in a nondescript bunker?”

“See, if you’d have offered me bagels …”

Gail’s smirk was audible. “Very good. Fair enough. Money will be in your account on Monday.”

After I paid back my parents, enough for both of them to retire, I drove down to York Beach, where Jules lives with her family, knocking on the door just after dinnertime. She answered in a bright orange dress, curls piled on top of her head, her face changing from shock to glee in a millisecond. Porch lights poured on my head as I held up a stack of enormous cue cards. I’d given this apology a lot of thought; I was going full-on Love Actually .

Say it’s your best friend , the first cue card read. (If you’ll still have me.)

Jules paused, then called back over her shoulder into the house, “It’s my best friend!”

Softly smiling, relieved, I wiped away a tear with the back of my hand and told her—through black-marker script—that my mended heart will always love her, and that to me, she’s perfect.

“Finally seeing some sense,” she said, joking, batting away a tear of her own, before inviting me in for dessert. We talked over wild-blueberry pie in her backyard, citronella candles burning low, until we’d hashed out everything. It was never about the money—but with the Summerlandian reward, Jules is putting a large injection of cash into her daughter’s college fund. “She’ll never believe how she got that.”

“Bah,” I said, with a wave of my hand. “We’ll just show her the YouTube.”

By the end of the month, I still had some money left, but I wanted to be frugal about it. Flynn and I did most of the restaurant renovations ourselves: revamping the exterior paintwork, refinishing hardwood in the dining space, and lugging secondhand kitchen equipment through the tiny, tiny back door. Turns out, Flynn’s pretty handy with a hammer. He salvaged boards from the local lumberyard, building us a picnic table for the herb garden—and when the renovations were complete, we sat on the top with a case of craft root beer, clinking bottles, and it felt like the culmination of something thirteen years in the making. The two of us, perched on a picnic table outside of a restaurant— our restaurant—side by side.

“This is all you, you know,” he said, gesturing around us. “Our life. Us together. You built this.”

Playfully, I nuzzled into his neck. “So you’re saying it was a good idea that I accepted that bonkers job offer?”

He snorted, the corner of his mouth tipping up.

“Because I can always do it again,” I said. “Word on the street’s that I look a lot like the prime minister of Liechtenstein, and the CIA’s willing to give me a pony and a packet of mints if I—”

Fully chuckling, Flynn palmed my face and kissed me, root-beer sweetness on his lips. “You might have a hundred twin strangers out there—”

“Doubt it.”

“But there will never,” he said seriously, “ever be another you.”

In the evenings leading up to the grand opening, Flynn curled in bed with me as I honed the menu, opting for sea-to-table favorites, garnished with herbs that we could grow ourselves. He’d rest his head in the crook of my shoulder and say, “If you ever want to add some awesomely cooked eggs to the menu, you know where to find me.”

My fingers lolled through the silk of his hair. “I’ll keep that in mind. You can be honorary sous chef, in between sailing trips.”

After everything that went down in Italy, Flynn did hand in his resignation at the CIA; instead of spending his early mornings with assets, he’s handling sails—watching the sunrise over Piscataqua River. “I’d like that,” he said, leaning up to kiss the tip of my nose. “Although, don’t let me anywhere near your kitchen.”

Now it’s the friends-and-family test run before opening night. I thought I’d be nervous, but the dining room’s crowded with happy people, everyone laughing and scraping their plates—and Flynn’s acting as busboy, for old times’ sake, white towel slung over his shoulder. When I peek out from the kitchen, he’s shaking my dad’s hand, heartily, before pulling him into a full embrace.

I no longer feel like that wonky restaurant table, the one that’s perpetually tilted. Tonight, here, with Flynn and our people, in my element, in my home, I am steady. I am balanced. And I am…being pulled from the kitchen by Calvin and Jules. Each of them has grabbed one of my elbows, and they’re leading me enthusiastically—and also a little conspiratorially—into the center of the dining room. People are standing: Flynn’s family, my family, our friends.

Flynn raises a glass of homemade wine, beaming. “I’d like to make a toast, to the best person I’ve ever known.” With the other hand, he reaches out, interlocking his fingers with mine. “To Max!”

“To Max!” everyone says, so proud of me, and know what? I’m proud of me, too.

“You did good, Starfish,” Flynn says, near the end of the night, as our closest guests linger, and the dining room turns into a makeshift dance floor. He brushes a stray bang from my eyes with a single finger, tucking it behind my ear, as Calvin fires up a playlist on the sound system.

The startling bleat of Summerlandian polka greets my ears.

I burst out laughing, turning to Flynn. “Was this your doing?”

He shrugs innocently, like maybe .

“You know this is my favorite song,” I say. We’ve had a running joke about it for two years.

“Did you know,” he asks, grabbing my hand and gently pulling me toward him, my eyelashes brushing against his cheek, “that there’s an official dance that goes with this particular song?”

Laughter’s still quiet in my throat. “ No. ”

“Yes.”

“I’m intrigued.”

“It’s a little bit of this,” he says, dipping me back, “and a little bit of that, and finally—”

He’s spun me, briefly letting go of my hand, and when I turn around to face him again, he’s getting down on one knee, pulling a small velvet box from the pocket of his jeans.

“Oh, that was so smooth,” I say, breathless.

“Max,” he says, a bit breathless himself. “I’ve loved you for almost half my life, and I want the rest of it. Every second. Every year. I want us to be that old couple still going on date nights, and holding hands over dinner, and laughing at the same jokes. You aren’t just a piece of my heart, you’re all of it. Getting a second chance with you has been the biggest blessing of my life. Will you—?”

“Are you proposing ?” says Calvin, hand to his mouth before bursting into tears. Jules swats him before shoving a cloth napkin in his palm.

Flynn chuckles, running a hand over the back of his neck. “Yep. Yep, Calvin, that’s what I’m trying to do.”

“Go on,” Calvin says, blowing his nose into the napkin. “Don’t mind me. You just—”

Just say yes . In the middle of the restaurant, I crouch down to meet Flynn, my pulse beating faster than the polka, the two of us in our own world. “Yes. A million times yes.”

And I’m sure, more than I’ve ever been sure of anything, that what Flynn said is right. This engagement isn’t the finish line. We’re going to be that middle-aged couple, raising our kids in this restaurant—having big family dinners with plates of delicious food. We’re going to be that elderly couple, taking walks in Prescott Park, stopping for tiny espressos and chatting about our lives. And one day, maybe we’ll return to Italy, where we fell in love all over again.

Next time around, we’ll skip the assassins.