Chapter 21. To Porto

We continue our trip to Porto after Brian leaves. We decide not to scatter Greta in Nazaré after all, since it’s officially tainted. Again, sorry Greta.

I’m sure she’d understand. She’d already been through enough aftermath of his son and me’s carnal recreation since the day he laid an eye on me. Honestly, I’m pretty sure she once caught me going down on him under that glass table on her porch. He came with zero warning, I choked like an amateur, and from inside the house, Greta shouted, “Are you okay?”

I yelled back that I choked on my lemonade because telling her that I couldn’t handle her son’s unsolicited nut would sound a bit crude.

Later that day, with that stern but loving mom voice, she told Sebastian—totally unprompted, by the way—“If you’re about to do something that affects someone, you give the person a warning. Even just a tap on the shoulder.”

Now, was she talking about sex? Probably not. Did we both immediately decide it was a metaphorical slap on the wrist for the whole surprise-dickfire situation? Absolutely.

And that, kids, is how Sebastian and I learned the most important life lesson of all: tap your partner before you come.

Most people would have died of embarrassment. I just took notes. That probably says everything you need to know about my relationship with boundaries.

However, Greta was a great mom.

To Sebastian. To Astrid. And especially, to me.

Everything I know about domestic life, like how to make your bed the second you roll out of it, how to cook something that isn’t just toast and Nutella, how not to burn a house down boiling pasta, all of that skill came from her.

My own parents checked out way too early to teach me that kind of stuff. And boarding schools don’t exactly offer electives in Basic Life Skills for Emotionally Detached Teens.

Greta did, though. No textbooks. No lectures. Just small, consistent reminders that stuck.

She taught me how to be a woman. Not in the ‘sit like a lady’ or ‘wear nude heels to elongate your legs’ kind of way. But in the real way, the kind where you learn how to own your space, how to say no, and more importantly, how to say yes when it matters. She taught me why my voice matters.

That part about consent, boundaries, choices, has shaped me. Saved me, even. Made me fierce.

The only downside was it’s also supercharged my stubborn streak. But she’d probably be proud of that too.

So yeah. It’s not an exaggeration to say I became the woman I am, in large part, because of her.

And maybe that’s why I still can’t bring myself to let her go in Nazaré, where her ashes would spend eternity overlooking the spot where her son and I made… let’s call it a scene.

We’ll find a better place. Somewhere quieter. Somewhere worthy.

Because Greta deserved better than a haunting our legendary crime scene.

Even if she would’ve had something wise and vaguely horrifying to say about it.

The road trip to Porto is smooth. Sebastian’s an excellent driver, always has been. Also wise. He still hasn’t trusted me with the maps or the GPS, which is fair. It once took me three hours to meet him in Bern from Zürich because I got confused with cardinal directions.

In my defense, I can identify every organ in a mammal with my eyes closed, but my brain draws the line at north west. As far as I’m concerned, the only directions that matter are left, right, up, and down.

We make a quick stop in Coimbra to scatter Greta outside the Joanina Library. I figured it was only right to let her haunt the most beautiful library in the world. She loved books, she devoured them like a famished dragon. Not a bookworm. Too gentle. Greta read everything her eyeballs could decipher, even things she absolutely wasn’t meant to read, like my second-year German notes that barely scraped a passing grade. I thought I’d hidden them well.

She found them.

Two weeks later, she shipped me off to spend the summer with her sister-in-law in the Alps, who spoke only German and ran a goat farm. Astrid and Sebastian weren’t even allowed to visit me.

By the end of that summer, I was transformed to Heidi with attitude. I was fluent in German, capable of milking a goat with one hand, and developing a real appreciation for fresh alpine cheese and daydreaming about dick.

I came back a fluent, horny Swiss farm girl.

The first time I saw Sebastian again, I yodelled when I came.

Not even joking.

---

We continue the trip, coasting down the highway with Greta’s ashes nestled securely in the back like a quiet chaperone.

“So,” Sebastian starts, glancing over as he changes lanes, “your next job, are you just going to be Vet Fleury, or are you taking on something bigger?”

“I’m hired as a vet, basically. I think that’s best for now. Get back to actually treating animals instead of… managing people who treat animals.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, not even pretending to buy it as he merges onto the A1.

“No, seriously. I miss vet-ing. Not business-ing. Less meetings, more meows and moo-moos.”

He side-eyes me. “Fleury, we’ve been apart for what—fifteen years? And even now, I know you’re not the type to just do the bare minimum.”

“Okay, fine,” I admit, crossing my arms. “I’ll show up at Marc’s no-kill shelter and see what I can do.”

“So what do you really want to do, Fleury?”

I stare out at the blur of olive trees for a beat. “I want to be useful, me, not just my money. Use my brain. My experience. My body, if needed.”

“You haven’t changed a bit,” he says.

“Thanks,” I mutter, unsure if that’s a compliment or a diagnosis.

Sebastian’s hand slips to my thigh for a squeeze, his hand warm and easy, like we’re somewhere between casual and familiar. Maybe we always were.

“Anaïs,” he says, one hand on the wheel, “you’re still living the same privileged lifestyle. That part hasn’t changed. You can pretty much do whatever your heart pleases.”

“Don’t worry, I tried,” I say, waving my hand. “I took a sabbatical every leap year. You know, to find alignment. Try new things. Pottery in Denmark. Permaculture in Patagonia. I even spent a year hanging out with Paris Hilton and those other socialités. Crazy how when you are in a certain tax bracket, you automatically friends with everyone in it.”

“How was it?”

“Traumatizing.” I shake my head. “But no matter what, my heart always drags me back to animals. Especially farm animals. They’re not sexy like dolphins or pandas, but they matter. You help a cow, you help a family keep their dairy business afloat. That means something.”

He hums in agreement, then throws me that side-eye that used to drive me insane.

“And yet you still don’t have a pet.”

“Pets are different. That’s a whole emotional contract I’m not ready to sign. Plus, I can’t even keep a cactus alive.”

He chuckles, then goes quiet. Which means he’s about to drop something that’ll stick with me longer than I’d like.

“Anaïs… You say you want to do basic vet work. But you forget I’ve seen you. You don’t just treat goats, you built a rotational grazing schedule so the farmer doesn’t lose next season’s milk yield, remember? You didn’t just diagnose mastitis, you wrote them a grant proposal for a cooling tank. You always go too far.”

Says the man who once missed his own mother’s birthday dinner because his oil rig had a 0.3% pressure variance that was still within normal parameters. But I don’t say that out loud. We’re having a moment and I’m not that petty. Today.

I blink. “You make it sound like a problem.”

“It’s not. It’s just… I don’t think you realize how much of your worth you tie to being useful. Not just competent, indispensable. Like you’re still trying to prove you belong in the mud, not the manor.”

I look out the window for a beat too long. He’s not wrong.

“People assume I can do things better because I have money,” I murmur. “So I have to do them twice as well just to be taken seriously.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Sebastian says, not unkindly. “No one who’s watched you arm-deep in a cow at 3 AM thinks about your trust fund. You’re the one who can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Easy for you to say. You earned your position.”

“And you earned yours. The guilt about having money? That’s all you. You work twice as hard because YOU think it’s unfair you have it easy when others don’t, not because anyone else thinks that.”

Goddammit, he’s still annoyingly good at this, at seeing me, at slicing through all my defensive wit like it’s nothing. At making it feel like maybe I’m not a joke trying to prove she belongs.

“You know what farmers see when you show up?” he continues. “Not some rich girl slumming it. They see someone who’ll work sixteen-hour days during calving season and refuse payment half the time. That’s not compensation, Anaïs. That’s self-punishment.”

“It’s called giving back—”

“‘It’s called guilt.’”

“Great. After everything I’ve done, my legacy is cow doula girl.”

He grins. “Hey, that’s some noble shit.”

I jab a finger into his ribs, the one spot on Sebastian Huber’s otherwise infallible physique that turns him into a giggling twelve-year-old.

“Hey! I’m driving!” he shouts, half-flinching, half-smiling as he tries to keep the wheel straight.

“Yeah? And I’m cow doula girl. We all have our crosses to bear.”

He shakes his head, laughing. “You really haven’t changed.”

“Thank you. I strive for excellence in accountability.” I say, prim like I’m accepting a Nobel Prize in being a pain in the ass.

He chuckles, tapping the steering wheel. “Unbelievable.”

We fall into a comfortable silence. The kind that hums between people who’ve seen each other bloody, raw, and gloriously alive.

He nudges the conversation forward again. “So, what’s the plan with Marc’s shelter?”

“I’ll show up, assess. Hopefully he hasn’t turned the place into a luxury wellness center for pets with spa days and indoor pools. I don’t want to be massaging golden retrievers for their chakras. He’s a good guy, even better vet.”

“You’re still going to run it eventually,” he says.

“Probably,” I admit. “But maybe not today.”

He nods. “Take your time. Just know… you’ve never been ‘just a trust fund baby’ to anyone who’s ever really know you.”

“You sound just like your mom.”

Sebastian shrugs like he didn’t mean to. Like it just slipped out, but it didn’t, it never does with him.

I sigh. “God, I miss her. I start to regret all those years I went without contact.”

“Hey,” he says, voice low but firm, “don’t beat yourself up. She’s fine. She’s probably up there right now, rolling her eyes and muttering about how you’re still whining about not doing enough.”

I laugh through my nose, that hot pressure already building behind my eyes. “True. And she’d say, ‘Ja ja ja, Anaïs,’” I mimic in her thick accent, pitching my voice just right.

The car goes quiet. Too quiet.

Sebastian pulls into the next rest area without a word and hugs me. No grand declarations, just the kind of silence that feels like a full-body exhale.

“Sunne,” he murmurs into my hair. “It’s all fine, I got you.”

I bury my face into his shoulder like no time has passed at all.

“Do you need gas?” I ask when we pull apart.

“Nope. But you need either a bathroom or sugar. It’s been two hours.”

I blink. “How do you—”

“You run like clockwork, Fleury.”

Jesus, his man still knows me better than I know myself.

Chapter 22. Sandeman wineyard

We spend a week in Porto, staying at Vinha Boutique Hotel in Gaia, right on the edge of the Douro River, where we scattered one of Greta’s last ash packets for this trip. This time, we stopped being ridiculous and booked just one suite. No more connecting rooms, no more pretending we’re civilized. He already knows my suitcase always looks like a contained explosion, why hide it now?

We didn’t even have to discuss it. It just happened naturally. As natural as me laying my head on his chest every night, and us ending up cuddling–fucking–cuddling. Like those fifteen years apart never even happened.

I kept telling myself that we’re just being practical. Economic. Definitely not sliding into old patterns that destroyed us once already. Yeah. Right. Knowing you’re repeating history doesn’t make you any better at stopping it.

And don’t worry, kids, Mommy’s got a big enough repertoire not to repeat a position twice. But no matter how it starts, me on top, me on my knees, me with one leg up or both legs behind my head like a ballerina on cocaine, it always ends with the sacred missionary. That’s the main course and dessert. And I don’t want it any other way.

Swallowing every last drop, from either end, is part of the game. It’s what he needs. And, lucky for him, it’s what I like.

If you find someone who matches your freak, don’t let them go. Do what I say, not what I do.

We explore Porto the same way we used to explore any new city when we were young, hand in hand, hopping from museums to hidden gems, eating everything that looks good, and taking in the charm like it’s our job. The difference now is we’ve got time and more than sufficient budget. We don’t need to cram five activities into one day. We no longer crash on bunk beds in 12-bed dorms. And we’ve happily swapped nightclub sweat for a good glass of wine on a quiet terrace.

We keep Greta’s last packet for the vineyards in the Douro Valley. She always loved Sandeman port, so that’s where we take her. Sebastian charters a car and a driver so we can both drink like respectable degenerates. Very wise. Very calculated. Very Sebastian Huber.

I remember keeping a bottle of Sandeman Tawny Port for special occasions when I was living with Greta. You know, like not crying after an exam. Greta was making grilled venison with wild mushroom port sauce that night. Long story short, she used what was left of my bottle because she forgot to buy one at the store.

I was furious. I cried. Not entirely because of the Port. Okay, maybe 70% the Port, but mostly because of the exam. I had been holding it in, acting all tough. But with no Port to soothe my academic despair? There was just no point pretending anymore.

Greta gave me her (in)famous lovingly stern talk about how a girl shouldn’t cry over alcohol. According to Greta Huber, the three things a girl should never waste her tears on were: another woman’s lover, a bottle of alcohol, and any kind of rejection. We women are above all that, she said, slicing into her perfectly grilled venison like a sage with a steak knife.

For the record, the venison was exceptional.

She bought me a replacement bottle the next day, along with a follow-up lecture on how much a girl should, or more accurately, shouldn’t-spend on a bottle of alcohol. Another Greta original: three things a girl should never waste her money on. She was full of those. Three this. Three that. She should’ve written for BuzzFeed.

At that point, I just poured her a shot and asked her to try it. One sip, and she was a changed woman.

After that, she always kept a bottle around.

“What’s on your mind?” Sebastian asks, pulling me out of my nostalgic daze.

“Your mom. And her love for Port wine.”

“Sandeman Tawny Port wine,” he corrects, pulling me closer until I settle against his chest.

“Hey, not my fault she liked the nectar of goddesses.”

“I wouldn’t say that. I tasted the real nectar of a goddess this morning—completely different flavor.”

“Oh my God, Huber.” I roll my eyes, blushing. “Shut up.”

He grins, pulls my chin gently, and kisses me. There’s still the faintest taste of my so-called nectar on his lips. Bastard knows what he’s doing.

“Thanks for coming on this trip, Sunne,” he murmurs.

“My pleasure. Thanks for inviting me.”

“I didn’t, technically. It was Astrid’s idea. I owe her for that.”

Right on cue, my phone lights up with a video call from said devilishly clever sibling—Astrid, complete with jam-streaked kids in the background.

I accept. “Grüezi wohl,” she greets us, that signature sparkle in her blue eyes.

“Hi Astrid, guess where I am!”

“Hmm, snuggled up on my brother’s chest? Not that I’m complaining,” she smirks.

“Ugh, sorry. His chest doubles as a travel pillow,” I say, giving one of his manboobs a squeeze.

“Excuse me, can we not?” Sebastian grumbles.

“We’re heading to Edinburgh for the long weekend,” Astrid says, unfazed. “I’ll be bringing some of Mom’s packets too.”

“That’s great! Scatter her in a castle next to a kilt-wearing man. She’d love that.”

“We’re scattering our mom’s ashes, not yours, Fleury,” Sebastian deadpans.

“Oh come on, she’d totally approve. She always appreciated men who weren’t afraid of a little feminine masculinity,” Astrid adds.

“Astrid,” Sebastian sighs, “it’s not your ashes either. I expected better from you.”

Astrid and I burst out laughing.

“Anyway,” I say, catching my breath, “we’re headed to Sandeman for a tasting and to scatter her final packet.”

“Ah yes. Her obsession with Sandeman started with you, Anaïs.”

“Not you too! I didn’t make her addicted, she just had exquisite taste in wine.”

“At Sandeman prices?” Sebastian raises an eyebrow. “She’d be bankrupt before hitting addiction.”

“Her liquid gold, as she used to say,” Astrid chimes in. “Oh! Clara made a drawing of us girls at the funeral. She wanted me to show you.”

The camera flips to a piece of paper covered in stick figures. Despite the artistic liberties, I can still spot myself, I’m the only one with wavy brown hair. Everyone else has spaghetti-yellow hair, which makes them all look like ramen heads.

“Awwww! That’s adorable. Can you send me a picture? I want to hang it on my fridge. And give Clara a big hug from me.”

“Will do! She’s so art-sy, right?”

“Totally.” I smile. “Anyway, enjoy Edinburgh, and don’t forget pictures!”

“Tschüss!” we all say in unison before the call ends.

Sebastian glances at me. “It’s cute. But I wouldn’t call that art-sy.”

“Hey! She’s not even five!” I nudge his ribs. “Besides, you should be grateful she’s not that artsy, or she would’ve documented my tainted Balenciagas.”

Sebastian looks away, suddenly very interested in the window view. “Absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

Mm-hm. Liar.

The road up to Quinta do Seixo, the Sandeman vineyard, is straight out of a dream. Neatly terraced slopes ripple with green vines, the sky beams a postcard-perfect blue, and the Douro River glitters between the valleys like a silver ribbon unspooling in the sun. Our driver takes the scenic route, angling us toward every jaw-dropping vista while Sebastian and I sit hand-in-hand in the back seat, saying nothing, needing nothing but this.

We’d booked a private Port wine tasting and winery tour. Sebastian, being very Sebastian, starts grilling the guide with questions that make the poor guy sweat through his branded polo shirt. I have to nudge him and whisper, “We’re here for the gist, not stealing tehcniques to build our own winery.”

He winks, unapologetic. “You never know.”

Honestly, I loved every minute of it. Learning how my favorite liquid indulgence is made felt like honoring Greta in its own way. Well, until the guide cheerfully mentions they still stomp the grapes the traditional way.

“Greta would’ve loved this,” I whisper, “right up until the toe juice part.”

Sebastian nearly snorts his wine.

At the end of the tour, we head to the tasting terrace overlooking the valley, where a larger-than-life statue of the iconic Sandeman Don, caped and mysterious, stands sentinel. That’s where Sebastian chooses to scatter his mom’s final Portugal packet.

“This is it,” I murmur, my voice thick with tears. “Her last one.”

“For Portugal, yes,” he says. He pulls me into a hug so deep I almost disappear into it. “I didn’t bring all of her. I’m taking her to different places every year. And you are coming with me, until the very last packet.”

I pull back, stunned, tears already forming.

“I mean, if you want.”

“Yes. Yes, I’d love that.” I throw my arms around him and kiss him, full of wine and nostalgia and maybe a little future.

Apparently too enthusiastically, because people start clapping. For fuck’s sake.

“Oh god,” I whisper. “They think you just proposed.”

“Let them,” he says.

“Sebastian—“

“What? You want me to announce we’re just agreed on an annual travel tryst until my mother’s ashes run out?”

The words land like a slap. Because that’s exactly what this is, isn’t it?

But he squeezes my hand anyway, kisses my forehead, and lets them keep assuming whatever they want.

So I don’t correct them. Instead, I crack open a few bottles of the 40-year Tawny Port to share with everyone and raise a glass.

“To us,” I say. “To Greta. And to her annual pilgrimage.”

Cheers echo around us, glasses clink, and somewhere in the sky, I hope Greta’s rolling her eyes fondly at the both of us.

I wonder if Greta would approve of this arrangement, be proud of us for finding a solution, or just pull her hair out at our ridiculousness.

But at least we finally figured out how to orbit each other without colliding, one month per year, with her ashes as our permission slip to love each other without destroying ourselves.

Chapter 23. Back to Quebec

Two weeks later, my life looked deceptively normal again. Quebec air instead of Portuguese sun, shelter animals instead of vineyard tastings, scrubs instead of sundresses.

Except, normal now includes my phone playing an alphorn ringtone at odd hours, a ringtone I’d assigned to Sebastian for a joke, but now it makes me grin like an idiot every time I hear it.

Every morning when I pulled on my boots at the shelter, my phone pinged. Sometimes it was a picture of the sunrise over the Atlantic, snapped from the deck of Sebastian’s rig. Sometimes it was a photo of whatever engineering miracle was holding several tons of steel above the ocean, complete with a caption like “don’t worry, it only wobbles in high winds.” Riveting stuff. Nothing gets me hotter than load-bearing calculations.

So I send him my chaos in return. Today: a guinea pig that looks exactly like Einstein.

“This one’s definitely judging my life choices,” I text.

“It’s not alone,” he fires back, attaching a seagull giving him the stink-eye.

Marc’s been hovering all week, watching me smile at my phone between surgeries.

“New boyfriend?” he asks during a particularly gruesome abscess drainage.

“Ex-boyfriend,” I correct, not looking up from the pus. “Part-time long-distance fling.”

He gave me the look vets reserve for people who feed their dogs kale. “Anaïs, that’s not a thing.”

“It is if you make it one.”

Marc doesn’t say anything else, but his face says it all. He thinks I’m kidding myself. Maybe I am. But we’re not trying to be a couple. We’re just… what we are. Two people who talk every day and have sex through a screen. Totally normal. Nothing couple-y about it.

And every night, like clockwork, when I’m curled on my sofa with wine and a clingy foster raccoon, he calls.

The chat group I’d set up for Greta’s memorial mission hadn’t died after Portugal. If anything, it had become ridiculously active. Astrid spams it daily with Clara’s latest masterpieces and the boys’ “creative menace” projects, and occasional shots of Edinburgh life. I contributed my parade of shelter animals, and today’s star was a three-legged dog named Tripod who’d closes his eyes and pretend to sleep when he hears the word ‘bath’. Sebastian mostly sent sunrise photos from the rig and the occasional ‘WHY’ when we shared something ridiculous. Charles, in peak British form, summarizes us with one-liners that make us all feel inferior.

Last week he’d written: ‘This family’s emotional support system appears to be 40% dead mother’s ashes, 30% animal photos, and 30% mutual exasperation.’ No one corrected him.

Even Brian still in the picture, digitally at least. My exes have somehow become best friends and added me to THEIR group chat. Ninety percent of it is engine porn. Not cars—engines. Last week they spent three days arguing about Lamborghini tractors. I didn’t even know Lamborghini made tractors. Now I do. Thanks, exes.

I tried derailing them once by sending a close-up photo of one of my birthmarks and making them guess the location. They nailed it in seconds, then went right back to debating hydraulics. Men.

Anyway.

The time difference between Sebastian and I should have been inconvenient. Instead, it was perfect. He reminded me to sleep like a sane human. I remind him to leave his spreadsheets and I demand gossip from the rig. Every call. Which means Sebastian, our stoic, engineer, allergic to oversharing, is now my unofficial correspondent on what’s what passes for drama on an oil rig.

I also now eat actual meals because my plate pic of “sangria and a KitKat” doesn’t qualify as lunch. Greta and my body would be thrilled. My waist line, less so.

Who knew long-distance relationships, sorry, whatever this is, come with unexpected side effects.

It’s… domestic, in the most indecently long-distance way possible.

And then there’s my new hobby: Gen Z thirst traps.

Don’t look at me like that. It started with one duck-face selfie, arms squeezed together just enough to highlight the cleavage, sent to make him laugh. Except he didn’t laugh. He… gave me a thumbs-up. A thumbs-up. Like I’d just updated my LinkedIn.

Naturally, I doubled down.

Now I know every stupid angle, every fake-candid sultry look, every “oops my shirt slipped” pose. And yes, I love how it kills him. The man who once built a suspension bridge now forgets English when I stick out my hips for a TikTok move I had to Google.

And then there was The Incident.

One night, his voice was low, tired, warm in my ear as he described the sea after a storm. My brain went rogue. One second I was sprawled on my bed, listening. The next, my hand had wandered south like it was following GPS coordinates. I thought I was subtle. Apparently, I was not.

“Are you—?” he started, and then stopped, like a gentleman realizing he’d stumbled into a live broadcast.

“Sorry not sorry.” I hit speaker, freed both hands, and let him hear it. Hear my every gasp, every wet, filthy sound, every crack in my voice as I narrated exactly what I was doing, like the world’s dirtiest audiobook.

He muttered something in Swiss-German that I’m pretty sure translated to Lord help me.

To be fair, he got me back. Because the very next day I thought it would be funny to hit “video call” while I was in the shower. I expected sputtering, blushing, a lecture on propriety. What I got instead was silence. Heavy, loaded silence. Then his voice, rougher than I’d ever heard it:

“Sunne…”

Reader, I almost drowned under my own showerhead.

And since he never once turned down my 8 p.m. video request after that, I now have… a shower schedule. I don’t even announce it anymore. I just prop my phone, lather up, do my thing. He does his. We don’t talk. We just… exist together, thousands of miles apart, with water and distance between us.

Some couples share dinner tables. We share steam and restraint.

This might be the most intimate thing I’ve ever done.

Chapter 24. Tante Anaïs

I never pictured myself as anyone’s aunt. Godmother, maybe, if you wanted someone glamorous to show up once a year with fancy gifts and unhinged anecdotes that make the parents regret their choice. But aunt? The kind who gets sticky hugs and draws the short straw at board games? Not on my vision board.

And yet, here I am: “Tante Anaïs” to Astrid’s kids.

And I love it. I love being part of their lives and forever grateful that Astrid adopted me back like we were never apart, without fussing about whatever situation I have with her brother. I love how the kids know me as Tante Anaïs, like I have a rightful place in their world despite having no official ties beyond history with their parents.

Friday mornings are now chaos hour. Edinburgh is five hours ahead, which means Astrid’s kids are just home from school and bouncing off walls. She sets up the video call, waves cheerfully, and disappears—“laundry,” which we both know means yoga class. I’m not fooled, but I don’t mind being the virtual babysitter.

Clara immediately shoves her face against the camera to show me her latest loose tooth. Thomas interrupts to announce he got a gold star in maths. They talk over each other, competing for who learned the coolest thing that week, who ate all their veggies, who has the bigger booger. Standard kid journalism.

Meanwhile, Anselm slouches in the background, groaning at his younger siblings’ antics with the exact same exasperated expression Sebastian gets when I’m being ridiculous.

‘Tante Anaïs, guess what!’ becomes the soundtrack to my Friday morning coffee, punctuated by Anselm’s dramatic sighs.

So when Astrid showed up in Quebec that first summer after Greta’s funeral and asked me to keep Clara and Thomas while she took Anselm to Australia for ski competition, it felt natural. Insane, but natural.

Astrid swears she trusts me and apparently decided I was fit to supervise. Me. The woman who once killed a cactus by overwatering it.

But here we are.

The first summer, they turned my unorderly life into beautiful chaos. Basically the same life but with tiny hands and big hugs. And endless Cocomelon jingles playing somewhere in the background like an audio curse.

“They adore you,” Astrid said, in that half-proud, half-exasperated tone only older sisters can master.

And I adore them right back. Like maybe I was built for more than goats and deadlines and clever retorts.

Somewhere between goat barns in Switzerland, vineyards in Portugal, and my very single vet life in Quebec, I’ve found my way back to something I lost fifteen years ago: a family that claims me as theirs. Even if I only see Sebastian once a year, even if Astrid and I are still learning each other’s rhythms, even if my title as ‘favorite aunt’ is built on Astrid’s wild maternal instincts.

And I’ve officially discovered the secret to childcare: unpaid internships.

If Astrid calls it “summer break with Tante Anaïs,” I call it free labor. Tomato, tomahto. The kids think it’s an adventure, I get actual helpers at the clinic and on the field calls, and no one has noticed that technically I’ve reinvented child labor.

Summer at the shelter looks different when you’ve got two pint-sized interns. They take their roles very seriously. I even bought them kid-sized scrubs and lab coats from a costume shop.

The first day, I handed Clara and her brother clipboards and told them they were “special assistants.” You’d think I’d knighted them. Clara immediately drew hearts around her name. Thomas wrote “Boss #2,” effectively promoting himself as my second boss. And they spent half the day doodling on their name tags rather than doing actual work; feeding carrots to the rabbits.

But when they finally remembered their task, they took to their roles with the zeal of saints. Clara crouched in cages, whispering encouragement to every recovering stray like she was Florence Nightingale with pigtails. Her brother tried to haul feed buckets twice his size and nearly tipped himself.

When I get urgent calls from a farm, I pile them into the truck. Clara handles ‘emotional support’ (hugging animals until they wheeze), while Thomas manages ‘inventory’ (carrying feed buckets bigger than him).

The thing about bringing kids to a farm is they tend to wander exactly where they’re not supposed to. I suspect this behavior isn’t unique to farms. I’d find they’d abandoned their post, which is literally in the same room as me, and had charmed the farmer with their toothless smiles into letting them ride the tractor while he worked the land.

At one point, I seriously considered microchipping them like stray dogs. Or maybe those toddler leashes I used to judge parents for using. The farmer just grinned and said, ‘They’ve got good hearts.’ And for once, I couldn’t argue.

When one of the ewes birthed a runt, Clara claimed naming rights. She declared it “Heidi” because it’s the only farming name she knows, and spent the afternoon serenading it with improvised lyrics, while Thomas built a crib out of sticks and stones. The lamb didn’t seem to mind. My phone is now full of Clara cradling Heidi like a newborn, Thomas hovering like proud midwife. I sent it to our group chat with the caption: accidental Nativity scene, except Mary is five and Joseph built the manger from sticks he found by the creek, while Jesus is a lamb with a pink hairclip strangely similar to the one on Mary’s left ponytail.

By August, Astrid, Charles and Anselm come to pick them up. I pretended to sigh like it was a burden, but secretly, my chest felt too full to hold it all.

Clara declared me her favourite because I let her paint my toenails with veterinary wound dye. They’re still purple.

Thomas picked me because I taught him that specific Scottish swear words don’t count as the ‘big word.’ Astrid’s going to murder me when she figures that one out.

Charles definitely didn’t look impressed with how I earn my title from his kids.

“They survived, didn’t they?” I said.

“Barely,” he muttered, but I caught him hiding a smile when Clara handed him a drawing of stick-figure farm animals where Heidi the sheep looks like a marshmallow on stilts with ‘Für Papa’ scribbled proudly across the top in crayon.

Not exactly the résumé I wanted. But when they wrapped their arms around me, sticky-fingered and unshowered, I realized maybe being the “wrong reasons” aunt is still the right kind of family.

Marc gave me a day off to take them to the airport, but I refused. I got back to work right after because I knew the silence in my apartment without the kids would be deafening.

Knowing Sebastian would arrive in a month for this year’s pilgrimage kept me strong through the goodbyes.

I wanted to ask him if I could keep one of her sachets in an urn and place it in my parents’ mausoleum, because she was like my own mother, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

When he told me he’d chosen Quebec deliberately, I cried. He wanted to bring Greta to the place that shaped me. He believed his mother would love that.

I loved that too.

Chapter 25. The vet career

Two years after joining Marc’s shelter as a temporary vet, I’m finally ready to pass my throne to the new resident vet, Olivia Gauthier, Marc’s niece. She’s been shadowing us for the last two years, and she’s finally ready. More than ready, she is even better than Marc and me, she drains puss as efficiently as she reorganizes our entire filing system and somehow made the budget balance.

“Thank you for your guidance, Dr. Fleury,” Olivia says brightly, holding out her hand.

Ugh. “Please don’t call me that unless you’re the owner of the sick animal on my table.”

Marc looks at me with those kind eyes that always feel like a trap. “We’d love you to stay on.”

I laugh. “Marc, I was a temporary band-aid until you found your forever vet. Look at her. Even the chihuahuas like her.”

Olivia blushes, which only made me like her more.

“You’ll be brilliant, Olivia. And I’m never far. I am still the shelter’s sponsor and occasional consultant. Call me if you need anything— a new x-ray machine… or advice about men.”

Marc shake his head like a warning at Olivia, and she giggles.

“You are always welcome here, Anaïs.” Marc says.

“I know.” I wink.

I check my phone after leaving the shelter. Three missed calls from Laurent’s office, the family accountant. The annual financial review, the meeting I ‘accidentally’ rescheduled twice already.

His assistant texts: ‘Monsieur Laurent says if you don’t appear within the hour, he’s coming to find you.’

Shit. Laurent only threatens house calls when I’ve really pushed it. Last year I made him wait until December.

I drag myself downtown, mentally preparing for an hour of nodding while Laurent explains compound interest and dividend yields. It’s not that I’m ungrateful, Laurent’s kept my finances organized since I was ten. But after living with Greta, I learned to live on what I earned myself. The trust fund became… background noise.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the perks. The penthouse is convenient, the driver means I can work during commutes, and the stipend lets me be generous. I get the freedom for buying necessary veterinary equipments, helping shelters, and getting Astrid’s kids giant gifts she refuses to buy them herself. Like a custom-built shipwreck and a tree castle for the backyard, because every childhood should include a pirate-princess phase and at least one dragon tail. And Anselm really loves his new drum set.

Charles? Not so much. He’s been moaning on the family group chat about the nightly rehearsals and how he hasn’t slept properly in weeks.

And fine, I have one indulgence: Miracle Broth from La Mer. It’s technically a face serum, but I lather my entire body with it. Face to toes, twice a day. Do you know how much fermented sea kelp slime it takes to keep me looking twenty-one? Neither do I. The key to my youthful look isn’t a secret. It’s sitting on the Sephora shelf with a price tag that makes grown women cry.

But I’ve never touched the principal. Never needed to.

I make good money as a vet. Made even better money from the companies I built and they still send dividend checks I barely glance at. The trust fund is like having a safety net under a safety net under a safety net. Comforting but unnecessary.

---

The Annual Meeting:

Laurent sighs the way he does every year. “Mademoiselle Fleury, you’re not using your funds.”

“I am! I keep that penthouse at Ritz-Carlton residence in Montreal on top of the one I stay at in Quebec.”

“That came from operational accounts. Your residents, driver, all operational expenses, they don’t touch your annual stipend.”

“Well, I’m self-sufficient. Don’t blame me for affording my own life style, Laurent.”

“Yes, but your annual stipends have been accumulating for years and its graduated increases makes my reporting complicated. Do you even know what this year’s number is?”

What is graduated increases even mean?

I shake my head, suddenly feeling like a kid who forgot their homework. “A lot?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s crumbs anyway.”

“Crumbs? I bought a new BMW cash at nineteen with these crumbs.”

He slides a paper across with numbers written on it.

“Is this a phone number? Do you want me to call someone?”

“This is the whole cake, as you put it, and it becomes available when you turn forty. Not counting tangible assets. I will e-mail you the details, all placements, financial reports—”

I raised my brow because I didn’t even know how to read the number properly.

“I don’t need more money, Laurent.” I say, then immediately start calculating. “Actually, wait. I could get the Marc’s shelter a second X-ray machine. And a smaller one just for smaller animal like rodents because using the big one on hamsters feels like… overkill.”

Laurent blinks at me.

“What did my parents DO exactly?,” I interrupt, half-joking, half-terrified, “Arms dealing?”

I mean what else could it be?

“Money laundering for the mob?” I add.

“They were majority shareholders in ACF Groupe,” Laurent says, like it’s obvious.

“ACF like… Apex Canadian Financial? The ones with billboards everywhere?”

“The very same. Which now belongs to you.”

“So I inherited shares in a company?”

“You inherited THE company, Anaïs. Majority control. It’s even in the name.”

“Holy shit.” I blink. “Wait, is ACF…”

Laurent just stares at me.

I stare back.

“Oh… ACF. Anaïs Catherine Fleury.”

“Yes. ‘Oh.’”

“Jesus, they named a financial empire after their baby?”

“Your parents were many things. Subtle was not one of them.”

“Wow!”

“The final clause activates when you have a biological child or turn forty. Whichever comes first.”

“I’m pregnant?!”

“You turned forty. Two days ago.” Laurent says before taking a deep breath, as if he tries to inhale all the Zen particle in the air.

“Oh. Right.” I pause. “I just stopped counting after twenty-five.”

But I did not stop celebrating. Sebastian called right at 00:01, and Brian sent flowers. We had pizza and champagne at the shelter. I ordered wood-fired pies for us, premium cuts and organic veggies for the patients. Then I dragged everyone to the Aquarium du Québec, rented out the feeding session for the Arctic foxes, their newest residents, and watched Marc pretend he wasn’t having the best day of his life.

So, I’m forty now, huh?

Laurent continues with all that financial details he so passionate about and like every year, I just nod and smile. He sends me off with a folder, “it’s always nice to see you Mademoisselle Fleury, happy birthday, and please, go on irresponsible shopping spree if you must. Isn’t there any other elephant sanctuary somewhere in Vietnam you can save?” he sounds almost desperate.

I never understand these finance people, their mood is literally controlled by numbers.

In the car, I sit in the backseat while Henri drives meback to my penthouse while I’m thinking about what I could buy just to make Laurent happy.

Oh! I could buy Brian a blimp for April Fools. Paint it like his giant ginger head, but distorted to fit the blimp shape, and fly it over Iceland where he’s building his new lab. Imagine the headlines: Evil Genius’s Face Haunts Reykjavik Skies.

My phone buzz, pulling me out from my grocery list. A text from Sebastian.

“For this year Mom’s pilgrimage, I’m taking you to Mallorca.”

“Mallorca?”

“Our first destination abroad together after we met,” he adds.

“Yes, I remember that.”

“So, what do you think?”

“It’s perfect, as long as I can buy you a catamaran.”

“What? No. I don’t drive a catamaran.”

“Not my problem. So, early September works for you?”

Chapter 26. Ritz Montreal

It’s been almost a month since meeting with Laurent. Turns out accessing generational wealth means signing endless papers and learning what I can’t do with my own money. Laurent even gave me a talk about pre-nups. As if I’m planning to get married. The man’s optimism is touching.

I look around my half-packed bedroom. I’m moving back to Ritz Montreal and putting my place in Quebec City up for rent. The listing price makes me laugh, who pays this much to rent? For that money, you could buy a house. With a yard. And a goat.

Then I remember: I don’t know the first thing about equity.

I stare out the window at Chateau Frontenac’s silhouette. Same spot, same skyline, but different me. Last time I stood here, I was the one walking away from Sebastian, my engagement to Brian, my company, everything that required me to bend and compromise, even if for good reason.

This time, I’m the one who was let go. No more shifts from Marc. No more monthly check-ins with Laurent since right now I have all access, we’ll have bi-annual meetings instead. Like real grownups.

Now I’m just… here. The world feels at my fingertips and directionless. Living the dream, apparently.

I stare out the window a little too long, slipping into the haze I always do when the past and present collide. Until my phone rings.

Sebastian. Out of schedule. The man doesn’t do out-of-schedule things. Please let this be a butt dial and not bad news.

“Wow,” I answer, trying to mask my worry. “A rogue call. Should I be honored or concerned?”

“Bad day,” he says. Which, in Sebastian-speak, usually means near-Armageddon.

“You okay, Huber?” I genuinely worry.

The video call icon blinks. I accept.

“I’m fine…” he says on camera, before propping his phone on his night table. I get the full view of him peeling off drenched orange PPE, revealing a white shirt plastered to his chest. I whimper. Quietly.

“Define fine.”

He keeps talking, explaining alarms, machinery failures, storms, the kind of day that would send normal people sprinting for lifeboats. Meanwhile, I’m trying to behave while watching him strip like it’s amateur Magic Mike.

He’s ranting about calculations and some idiot named Jonas who ignored his warnings, his accent getting thicker with every complaint.

“Stupid Jonas,” I mutter in sympathy, eyes shamelessly glued to the pants coming off. White shirt, boxer briefs, boots still on, socks peeking above sculpted calves. I get it now why women go feral at bachelorette strippers.

Not the time, Anaïs..

“And by the way, since when am I your first call?” I tease, trying to lighten the heaviness in his tone and distract myself from his very unfair ass.

He sighed, and I could hear the machinery hum in the background, distant but relentless. “Days out here are either boring enough to make you wish for a storm, or eventful enough to make you wish for boring. Either way… you’re what makes it tolerable.”

“Me?”

“You’re what I have to come home to. Even if it’s just virtually.”

“I look forward to your calls,” I admit.

“Me too. Best part of my day.”

For once, I didn’t have a clever retort. Just silence, and the warmth spreading through me like good whiskey.

He finally flops onto his bed in that plain offshore cabin, the place I’ve memorized in every detail whenever we have a video call, the one I’ve been visiting in my imagination for the last two years.

“So, how’s your day?”

I pan the camera across my disaster of a room. “Turns out I own too much shit for someone who claims not to care about stuff.”

“What’s the plan after the move?”

“Plan? My plan extends exactly as far as Mallorca. That’s it. That’s the whole plan.”

“Very strategic.”

“I’m forty and just discovered I’m accidentally a billionaire. I think I’m allowed a gap year.”

He laughs. “Accidentally? We already went through this, Fleury. You were set for life the day you were born.”

“You’re starting to sound like Laurent.”

“Someone has to, since you clearly weren’t listening to him. Just promise me you won’t change, Sunne.”

“I’ll still be the same Anaïs, that effortlessly awesome brunette. It’s just my impulsive shopping might get slightly more expensive.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” He groans.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be reasonable. I’m only looking at small purchases. Like catamarans.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“So, what color would you like?”

I can hear him laughing and groaning at the same time.

“I miss you, Sunne,” he says suddenly.

I watch him on screen,half-dressed on his offshore bed, machinery humming behind him, looking at me like I’m the best part of his terrible day.

“I miss you too, Sebastian,” I admit. “Mallorca can’t come soon enough.”

“It never does,” he says quietly.

And for once, I know exactly what he means.

Chapter 27. Mallorca

I thought Mallorca would be just Sebastian, me, and Greta’s ashes. Instead, Clara’s pressed against the arrivals glass with a crayon sign: ‘Happy BirthdAy Tante Anaïs.’ Thomas has his entire face squashed flat beside her, nose cartoonishly compressed.

The second I clear customs, I’m ambushed by everyone who wasn’t on the itinerary, including Brian.

“Surprise,” Sebastian says, deadpan. “I didn’t invite everyone.”

“He doesn’t have to, we all want to see Anaïs,” Astrid declares, pulling me into a hug. “Happy birthday, meine Schöne. Welcome to the forty club, you no longer have to sit at the Kindertisch.” She winks.

“Well, Anselm, looks like you’re pack leader now. I’ve graduated to the adult side.” I pat Anselm on his back with mock sympathy. He groans with all the suffering of a true teenager.

And then there’s Brian, grinning like a ginger tabby who ate the canary.

“Happy birthday, Anaïs, and you owe me fifty bucks, Huber,” he calls over Sebastian’s shoulder. “I said she wouldn’t cry at customs.”

Sebastian doesn’t even blink. “She sniffled, same thing.”

This is what I get for introducing them years ago. They shouldn’t be bromancing this hard, let alone running a betting syndicate. At my expense.

That’s it. The blimp moves up to November birthday surprise. Let’s see him explain his giant ginger head floating over Reykjavik to his Icelandic neighbors.

September in Mallorca is perfect, tourists have fled, leaving lazy beaches and water so blue it rivals Clara’s eyes. We spend the week exploring the island and scattering Greta’s ash sachets like the world’s most dysfunctional family on the world’s grimmest holiday. We’re loud, slightly mortifying, and definitely not what other tourists expect to encounter at scenic overlooks. But watching Brian narrate wind patterns while Charles critiques Spanish architecture and the kids chase lizards while we scatter human remains? I’m not hating it.

Not even a little.

And no, forget celestial sessions. I don’t even get a moment alone with Sebastian. Or with myself. Zero. Nada. Apparently, “Tante Anaïs” is far too fascinating to be left unsupervised for even five minutes. I even have a tiny personal anecdote-teller keeping me company during bathroom breaks.

Which means I’ve spent an entire week in Mallorca with the sun, sea, and Sebastian, without once getting him inside me. After all those shower video routines we’ve perfected. Do you have any idea the level of cosmic cruelty that is?

After a week of Clara and Thomas using me as a jungle gym for a full week, everyone finally leaves. Sebastian and I escape to the Four Seasons Formentor. Just us. Finally.

Sebastian joins me in the jetted tub on our balcony.

“Something in your mind?” he says, hand me a glass of cold rosé.

“Just admiring the view.” I’m not lying, the sea meet the mountain view is always something.

Sebastian spread his arm behind my back on the tub. “It is gorgeous.”

I lean in to kiss him softly, just a grateful press of lips. But Sebastian’s hand comes up to cup my jaw, and what starts as innocent gratitude immediately ignites. His tongue traces my bottom lip and I open for him instantly, we’ve never been good at keeping things simple. The kiss deepens, years of practice making it effortless, his other hand sliding into my wet hair as I press closer. When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing harder.

“Never could just kiss you,” he murmurs against my mouth.

I shift to straddle him in the water, and feel exactly how much that kiss affected him too.

“Anaïs, let’s just enjoy the view,” he says, hands on my hips, half-laughing at our complete lack of self-control.

“Oh please.” I stand up in the shallow water, letting him see everything, giving him my best trouble-making smile. “I am the view.”

He blinks, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Did you get in the tub naked?” The words are supposed to sound scandalized, but he doesn’t stand a chance. He never could hold a straight face with me, not when we were reckless twenty-somethings, and definitely not now.

“Never mind that,” he said, and his face softened in the way that still make my heart misbehave. “Sit down, Sunne. I have something to tell you.”

I squint, my heart races but not in a good way Sebastian normally makes.

“What is it?” I sit next to him, bracing for whatever he wants to tell me.

“My company. They offer a new position, chief lead engineer.”

“Oh wow, that’s huge! Congratulations, Huber!”

“It’s an on-shore position. I will be the one responsible for all of their offshore engineering projects. They want me to work from their headquarters in Norway, and travel to the field from time to time.”

“Norway?” I process this. “That’s… cold.”

“And I heard they have wildlife that needs veterinary care. Caribous, reindeer.”

“Huh? And?”

“And they might appreciate care from a professional. And the caribous aren’t the only things that need regular attention up there.”

“Sebastian, what are you saying?”

“Sunne, I’d like you to come with me. Making Norway our ground zero. We have never been there. None of us speaks the language. It’s perfect, we will still have everything we have, doing everything we love, in a whole new place.”

“Are you asking me to move in with you by bribing me with arctic animals?”

“Is it working?”

“Probably… And we will have each other?”

“Yes, Sunne, we will have each other.” He says. “I don’t want to have this moment with you only for a few weeks each year, and I’m not letting fifteen years go by again. Besides, those showers you take? It definitely needs a second character in it.”

“Definitely, definitely.” I nod enthusiastically and grin.

“‘So that’s a yes?’ he asks. “I’ll help you check for Norwegian veterinary licensing requirements.”

“Don’t worry about it. It can wait, but you can help me check for a catamaran sailing permit.”

“What? What’s with you and catamarans?”

“Look, if we will be living next to the sea, we definitely should have a boat. And since you don’t seem to incline to it when I offer, so… ”

“Anaïs.”

“What, it’s just logic!”

“Anaïs’ logic, perhaps.”

“Can this be my 40th birthday gift, please?”

“People don’t gift themselves a catamaran on their birthday.”

“Well, they’re not all trust-fund baby, aren’t they?” I say, reaching my phone to Google where the hell people buy catamarans, can’t be on Marketplace, can it?

As I reach for my phone to Google catamaran dealers, Sebastian’s phone buzzes. Brian’s face appears on screen.

“Did she say yes?” Brian asks immediately.

“OMG, you talked to him about this?” I lean into frame.

“I mentioned the job offer,’’ Sebastian says defensively.

“And how miserable he’s been. Completely different from when I met him in Portugal,” Brian adds.

“I was not miserable!”

“Were you grumpy, sighing, and groaning a lot like an older version of Anselm?” I shoot back.

Brian nods solemnly, then pushes his lips into the most over-the-top imitation pout. “You know the face.”

Sebastian glares at us, “I can see you, and I can hear you!”

“So I figured it had to do with you, Anaïs,” Brian continues, ignoring him.

“Aww… He did ask me to move to Norway with him.”

“And?”

“And I’m buying us a catamaran.”

“Fantastic idea! Living by the sea, right?”

“Jesus, of course you agree to that idea, Brian. You two are exactly alike,” Sebastian groans.

“Anyway, that’s all I needed to know. Happy for you both!”

“Uh… Thanks?” Sebastian says suspiciously.

“Don’t thank him!” I grab the phone. “Don’t you see what he’s doing? Reykjavík to Oslo is like three hours in a straight line.”

’Exactly! We will be neighbours. I can pop over for dinner with my jet. This is perfect! Brian grins and hangs up.

Sebastian stares at the blank screen. “What just happened?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got revenge planned for that ginger scientist’s birthday.”

“What? Oh God, the blimp?”

“The blimp,” I confirm, then set my phone aside. “But that’s for later. Right now…”

I stand up in the tub, water cascading down my skin, and step out onto the balcony. The Mediterranean breeze immediately raises goosebumps across my wet body and gumdrops harden instantly. I lean forward against the railing, arching my back just enough, and look at him over my shoulder.

“You know what I always wanted to try on a hotel balcony?”

Sebastian’s eyes travel down my body, then he glances around. “Hold on, this suite’s on the top floor. No neighbors. Just us and the sky.” His eyes narrow. “Did you actually plan this?”

“I might have…”

He stands, water sloshing over the tub’s edge, and I can see him fighting between desire and his need to point out the obvious. “Your logic remains consistently unhinged.”

“And yet you asked me to move to Norway with you.”

“Here I am,” he agrees, stepping out to join me, his hands finding my hips, pulling me back against him. “Making terrible decisions with you again.”

“The best terrible decisions,” I correct, pressing back into him as his mouth finds my neck.”

Later, considerably more relaxed and sprawled across the king bed in hotel robes, I update my mental checklist. Balcony sex at a fancy hotel? Check. Even if it was technically private.

“What are you smiling about?” Sebastian asks, his hand tracing lazy patterns on my shoulder.

“Just thinking about all the Norwegian balconies we’re going to traumatize.”

“We’re getting an apartment with no outdoor space.”

“We’re getting a house. With guest bedrooms for visits. And a boat dock. For our catamaran.”

He sighs, but pulls me closer, the hotel robe falling open as he shifts above me. “Of course we are.”

His hand slides up my thigh, and I can feel him against me, that familiar weight and warmth that means we’re about to follow our sacred tradition. Because no matter how creative we get on balconies or in bathtubs, we always end up here—him above me, me beneath him, eyes locked in that way that makes everything else disappear.

“Norway’s going to be interesting,” I whisper, already arching into him.

“Everywhere with you is interesting,” he murmurs, and then there’s no more talking.

Something streaks across the Mediterranean sky above us. Could be a shooting star. Could be space debris. Could be Brian’s private jet doing reconnaissance. With our track record, I’m not ruling anything out.

And somewhere, Greta’s probably telling her husband and Jesus about how their son finally figured it out, but only after she literally had to die and be scattered across Europe. She’d taking full credit for this, and honestly, she’s not wrong.

Danke, Greta.

💕-The end-💕