Summer leaned in close and pressed her lips just under Lena’s ear, eliciting a tiny gasp that only she could hear.

  “You know what I meant,” Lena breathed out.

  “I’m going back on Monday morning. I’m only staying through the end of the week to wrap up stuff with my dad and the house.”

  “What about the convention?” Lena asked and turned her head.

  “She’s ditching me,” Hailey announced from her seated position after apparently overhearing Lena’s question.

  “What?” Lena asked Summer.

  “Seth is coming back in time. He called me while I was flying here. He’s finally interested in taking on more than just the small stuff in the engineering world. I think he might be finally growing up. He said he even missed home and was looking forward to getting back to the office. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard him say that before.”

  “So, he’s coming back and you…” Lena didn’t finish the sentence.

  “I’m staying here.” Summer smiled at her. “Hailey’s going out there to make sure everything goes well and that my brother really does follow-through. They’re going to start interviewing my replacement next week. I can finally come up for air, and I want to do that here with you.”

  “Are you sure about this?” Lena asked and squeezed her hand.

  “For the first time in a long time, I am 100% sure that this is what I want. I’m not equivocating over it or coming up with excuses to do something or not to do something. I love you, Lena. I love my life here.” She sighed as she looked around. “I finally have a great group of friends.”

  “Amen,” Charlie agreed.

  “I still need to learn to keep my voice down, apparently, though.” Summer laughed and placed a hand on Lena’s soft cheek. “I don’t know what exactly I’m going to do after I finish school, but I know that no matter what it is or where it takes me, I want you there.”

  Lena blushed. Summer loved that shade of red on her.

  “I want that too,” Lena muttered quietly.

  “All my stuff is being shipped to your house. After this week, we’ll basically be living together. I still have the apartment, technically.”

  “Get rid of it. I don’t want a backup plan anymore, Summer. I don’t want one of us to have a place to flee because I don’t want either of us to flee. I want to live with you. I want to make a home with you,” Lena said.

  “I’ll help my dad finalize everything and come back here to you and to our house.” She put emphasis on the word and liked how it sounded. “Lena, you and me…” She motioned with her finger between the two of them. “We’re epic.”

  Summer felt the tension in Lena’s body release. She smiled at her as she recalled the conversation she’d had earlier with her father about finding the one person you were meant to be with. He’d had his and unfortunately lost her. Summer would do everything in her power to make sure that her person, the one she was supposed to be with forever, never left her.

  “Epic?” Lena questioned softly.

  “What all these people have, Lena…” She looked around the space. “We have it too. That kind of love that just seems right and powerful and meant to be. That’s us.” Summer kissed her lips gently. “I may be indecisive at times, but there’s no decision to be made here, because it was made for me maybe before I was even born.” She kissed her gently again. “I was meant for you, Lena Tanner.”

  “And I’ve waited a very long time for you, Summer Taft.” Lena paused. “Like I said before, best birthday present ever.” Lena leaned in and pressed a sweet kiss to Summer’s lips.

  “This isn’t your present,” Summer whispered and then turned Lena’s head slightly so she could continue to whisper in her ear. “Your present is in my suitcase. I have to take it out and put it on for you later.”

  Lena’s blush increased. Summer felt the hand still on her thigh tense while she looked down to see Lena’s thighs squeeze together.

  “Really?” She cleared her throat trying to cover her reaction.

  “Really,” Summer continued to whisper. “It’s in two pieces and is soft and a little on the see-through side. I was thinking I could put it on and then you could take your time taking it off.”

  “Yes,” Lena whispered.

  “How long do you think this party is going to last?” Summer whispered again.

  “Too long,” Lena huffed out in frustration.

  Summer laughed.

  EPILOGUE

  “You sure about this?” Summer asked.

  “It’s a good opportunity. I’m sure,” Emma replied.

  They were at Emma’s going away party that Hailey was hosting for her.

  “Well, at least you’re moving somewhere I go a lot.” Summer shrugged.

  “That’s true. You can always come visit.”

  “Oh, we will. Lena wants to buy something in the city anyway.” Summer nodded in the direction of her girlfriend, who was talking to Hailey and Charlie in the kitchen.

  “You two have been on a buying spree lately. What is that now? You’re up to three houses?”

  “We have this one, but I guess that’s technically just Lena’s. We have one at Cape Cod. It’s a nice summer place for us. It just needs to be restored before we can really take advantage of it. She wants a place in San Francisco so we can have a place to stay when we’re there that’s not at my dad’s house or Seth’s place.”

  “I’m just happy I’ll be seeing you guys sometimes. It’s always hard starting over. I hate to leave Chicago and all my friends here, but San Francisco is calling my name.”

  “We’ll miss you, but we’re out there every few months visiting the family, so we’ll see you all the time.” She reached out and hugged her friend.

  “You’ll have to show me around then. “Despite the fact that I’ll be the one living there full-time, I’m guessing my workload will be pretty heavy to start; and you grew up there, so you’re more well-versed in everything.”

  “Fine, but you’re buying dinner.” Summer winked.

  “Deal.”

  “I’m going to go grab my girlfriend. We should really be heading out. We have an early day tomorrow.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you in Frisco.”

  Summer winced and said, “Oh, don’t call it that. They hate that there.”

  Emma laughed.

  “Babe, you ready?” she asked Lena as she wrapped an arm around her waist.

  “I’m ready. Did you say goodbye to Emma?” She turned.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “I said my goodbye earlier. See you guys later?” She turned to Hailey and Charlie.

  “Sure. Have a good night.” Hailey winked at Summer.

  “What’s with the wink, Hailey?” Summer asked of her former employee and closest friend.

  “Nothing,” Hailey answered, but her tone revealed a bit of mischief.

  “Come on.” Lena laughed and pulled Summer along.

  “What was that about?” Summer asked Lena when they were out of earshot.

  “I don’t know,” Lena answered, and they both climbed into the car Summer had called for them.

  ◆◆◆

  When they arrived home, Summer immediately went to the kitchen, and Lena knew what she was doing. It had become a ritual of sorts during the first year of their relationship. Whenever Summer went straight for the kitchen after they’d been out, she was heading for the freezer.

  “You okay about Emma leaving?” Lena asked as she sat on the stool and watched Summer pull out a carton of vanilla ice cream from the freezer and then move onto the chocolate syrup and cherries.

  “I’m going to miss seeing her all the time, but she’s right. It’s a great opportunity for her. She’ll be working for the health department and teaching part-time, which is something she’s been interested in for a while. I think she caught the bug from Eva, actually.” She grabbed the ice cream scooper out of the drying rack. They’d done this so often, it rarely made it back to the cutlery drawer. “She’ll make more money, and it’s a great city.”

  “It is,” Lena agreed.

  Lena watched her girlfriend prepare their sundaes with precision. They’d lived together for the entirety of their relationship and had never looked back. It was now one year later. Summer was finished with her undergrad degree and was about to embark on her MBA at Northwestern. Lena was doing well at O’Shea’s, and her non-profit in Leo’s name had already done so much good work for the city that she’d considered it a huge success. Strange Joe’s was doing incredibly well and was now in nine locations in the Midwest.

  “We’ll see her a lot anyway. My dad demands quarterly visits now.” She pointed the scooper at Lena accusatorily. “That’s because of you, by the way.”

  “I can’t help it, your dad likes me.” She laughed a little. “Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “Okay.” Summer dragged the word out in obvious concern. “That’s not ambiguous.”

  “Wait here.” Lena laughed at her girlfriend’s tone.

  “Okay,” Summer said again.

  Lena went up the stairs and into her office, which was really more Summer’s office now than her own, and she liked it like that. Summer’s books were on the shelves now and in just the right order. She had a thing with the order of her books. It didn’t really make sense to Lena, but she left it alone. She went to her desk and pulled out what she was looking for. She knew Summer rarely actually went into any of the desk drawers, so she hadn’t bothered hiding it. She went back downstairs and headed toward the kitchen where she watched Summer place two bowls in front of the stools.

  “I added five cherries for you,” she told Lena before she even saw her.

  “And I’ll eat none of them for you.” Lena sat down, placing the paperwork in front of Summer.

  “What is this?” Summer looked at her and then down again.

  “Just read the first page.”

  Summer picked up the small piles of pages in front of her and lifted them to read.

  “Lena…”

  “What do you think?”

  “This is a business,” Summer stated.

  “It could be, yes.” Lena began. “We don’t have to do it, or we can just do it part-time. I don’t plan on quitting O’Shea’s anytime soon. I know you’re about to start your MBA program, but I thought this could be something we could share.”

  “You want to start a venture capital firm with me?” Summer turned to her.

  “Well, Strange Joe’s turned out well. Hayden’s business is booming, and we both played a part in that. You and I have enough money to start a company like this on our own. We could help people like Seth, Van, and Hayden, who have big dreams and good business plans but don’t have the money to get things started.”

  “Is that what Hailey was winking about earlier?” Summer asked.

  “No, that’s something else.”

  “So, you do know what was up with her?” Summer pointed the papers at Lena.

  “I do. I’ll tell you in a second, but what do you think about this? Feel free to say no, or even to just say no right now. I drew up the paperwork so you could see what it could look like if we went through with it.”

  “Taft Investments.” Summer read from the top page where Lena had to identify the name of the company to draw up the paperwork. “Why just Taft? Shouldn’t it be Taft & Tanner or Tanner & Taft?”

  Summer looked over at Lena, whose face was now a bright shade of red. Lena had tried to hide it, but there was no way she could.

  “Because I want your name one day,” Lena revealed. “This isn’t a proposal or anything, but I know that if we do that, I would want your name, Sum. Why bother putting Tanner on there if I won’t be a Tanner someday.”

  ◆◆◆

  Summer gulped as she stared at her girlfriend. Summer wasn’t afraid of commitment or even of getting engaged and married to the woman she loved more than anything, but just the thought that Lena Tanner wanted to become Lena Taft was enough to make Summer go silent for a moment. They’d talked about this, sure. They’d been together for a year. They’d watched Hailey and Charlie say “I do” as they stood on opposite sides of the aisle, smiling mostly at one another instead of at their friends, who were exchanging rings and vows. But they hadn’t yet made it official or even talked about it seriously with any kind of timeframe in mind. That was until recently, when Summer talked to her father again and he gave her the ring he’d once given her mother. He told her it was for Lena and that Summer’s mother would be happy to have her wear it when Summer was ready.

  “Sum?” Lena interrupted her thoughts after a long silent moment.

  “Sorry, that just caught me off guard,” Summer revealed.

  “Oh, we don’t have to call it-”

  “No, I want to. I want to.” She set the pages down in front of her now melting ice cream. “I want that.”

  “The business?”

  “All of it,” Summer shared.

  She thought about going to school and working with Lena side by side, helping other people start their own businesses and maybe doing some charitable work on the side, like they’d been doing with Leo’s foundation. That sounded like the best way she could think of to spend her time. She wanted that. She wanted all of it.

  “So, you think it’s a good idea?”

  “I do,” Summer said and realized those two words had kind of a different meaning at the moment.

  “There’s something else in there.” Lena motioned with her head toward the papers.

  Summer picked them back up and rifled through a few pages until she landed on one that looked different from the others.

  “The house?”

  “Your name is on it now. I thought it should be official. It’s our home; not mine.”

  Summer looked up and then around the space. She looked back at Lena.

  “You put my name on the house?” she asked.

  “We have the place in Cape Cod, and we’re about to buy one in San Francisco, but this is our real home. It just seemed wrong not to have your name on it, so I had it added. It’s paid for, so it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be to do it without you knowing.”

  “Lena, thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. I should have done it a long time ago.”

  Summer stood. She sat the papers down on the counter.

  “Can you give me a minute?” she asked.

  “Sure, but-”

  “Just one.” Summer ran off without waiting for a response.

  ◆◆◆

  Lena sat in her chair wondering what had just happened. She stared down at the melting ice cream and scooped all the cherries Summer had added to her bowl into Summer’s instead.

  “In here” Summer’s voice called from the foyer. “No, wait. Out here.”

  The front door opened. Lena turned and stood to see Summer walking out into the front yard.

  “Summer, where are you going?”

  Lena hurried down the hall and out the door to see that Summer was standing about halfway down the driveway.

  “Here,” Summer said and pointed at the concrete under her feet.

  “What are you doing? Get inside. It’s late,” Lena replied.

  Summer was only lit by the street lights and the light over the garage.

  “This is where I knew,” Summer stated.

  “Knew what?” Lena chuckled and headed toward her.

  “That I loved this house. I got out of the car that first time you brought me here. I looked up at it and I knew that this was my home.”

  Lena smiled at her and said, “It is.”

  “And I’d take you to the first place I knew I loved you, but it would probably be closed by the time we got there.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “The Lantern,” Summer stated as if Lena should have known that. “The first time I saw you, I knew. I questioned it, because that’s what I think we all do when we fall in love at first sight, but I saw those eyes, that wavy blonde hair, the way you walked into the room, and I knew. Then, I heard your voice, and I knew again. I got to know you, and I knew again, and again, and that was it.”

  “What was it?” Lena’s tone reflected the serious turn of the conversation as Summer took several large steps toward her.

  “No indecisiveness,” Summer announced without context. “I could plan it and make a big show, but that’s not who we are. We’re just us, and I love us.”

  “I love us too but, Sum-”

  “Lena Tanner, will you please become Lena Taft?” Summer held out her hand.

  She’d been holding a ring box in it that Lena hadn’t noticed before, thanks to the darkness of the sky and Summer, keeping that hand mostly out of view.

  “Summer, I didn’t-”

  “This isn’t about the name of a company or anything else. This is what I want.” She opened the box. “This was my mom’s ring. My dad gave it to me the last time we were there. I want you to wear it, Lena. I want you to become Lena Taft.” She paused and let out a deep breath. “I love you. Will you please marry me?”

  “Yes,” Lena let out. “Yes,” she repeated a little louder.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  Lena reached for Summer and pulled her in for a kiss that started off slow and steady but turned passionate and fast. One of the sprinklers in the neighbor’s lawn kicked on and pulled them out of their revelry, and they laughed.

  “Can I?” Summer asked.

  “Yes.” Lena lifted her hand so that Summer could place the ring on her finger.

  It wasn’t a perfect fit. Summer’s mom’s finger was a little larger than Lena’s, but they would get it fitted. Despite the size, the ring looked like it belonged there.

  “I can’t believe this,” Lena said after Summer lifted her hand to her lips and kissed the ring on Lena’s finger. “I had this whole thing planned out.”

  ◆◆◆

  “What?” Summer looked up at her.

  “I had this whole proposal thing planned. It was in three steps. Tonight was the first step, with the whole business name thing, just to see what you thought about it. I was going to take you to get a dog, since we’ve been putting that off. We’d have the dog for a while, and then I was going to do a whole cute proposal involving the dog and-”