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Because I’ve seen and felt it before.

Oscar turns back to me once Skylar has been swallowed up by the living room. “He is not doing well at the moment.”

“Is that why Mal’s keeping his hands so busy around here?”

“Probably, though I think Mal does the things you won’t let Folk do for you.”

“I let Folk help me.”

Oscar snorts, not arguing, but letting me know he doesn’t agree either. And maybe I should fight my corner a little harder. But I’m too caught up in how good Oscar smells. How silky the hair is at the nape of his neck, and how glad I am he didn’t follow through on a threat to cut it shorter when winter hit.

His throat calls to me. I press my face into his sea-breeze and jasmine-scented neck for the length of a soul-deep breath. “Why don’t you live here yet?”

Oscar chuckles. “I don’t know.”

“You said you would if I finally thought of a name for the farm.”

His laughter vibrates against my cheek again before he pulls back so I can see his face properly. “I did say that, didn’t I? Right after you said it didn’t need a name and you haven’t shown any sign of changing your mind.”

“Maybe I was worried about pressuring you.”

“Were you?”

“No,” I admit. If I know anything about Oscar, it’s that every thought and feeling is his own, and if he doesn’t want to do something, he’s not shy about saying so. That little house on the seafront, though. It’s the first home he made with Aras. They have memories there I haven’t wanted to drag them away from. And so I’ve never thought of a name for my farm, until…

Yesterday.

I was gazing over the land, looking for Oscar’s car on the road, if I’m being honest, and the sun came out, catching on the wet granite of the old wall by the gate. The stones turned gold, and if I hadn’t known it before, I knew then that this place—this land—was my forever home.

Sunstone came to me later. When I was in bed with Oscar and we were still awake. But I didn’t tell him. I wanted to see if it felt right in the morning.

It did.

It does.

“Sunstone Farm.” I press my forehead to his. “Earth and light, like you.”

Oscar’s smile softens. “Like you. I had all but forgotten the pull to the land before I met you, and still, even after the ocean almost broke me.”

“You remember now?”

“I remember, Poet. And Sunstone Farm…it is already home to Aras and me.”

“Then come home,” I whisper.

He kisses me. “Taip. Yes. Wherever you are is where I am meant to be.”

EPILOGUE - OSCAR

I wake up on Christmas morning as close to hungover as I ever get. When our friends had gone home, gin and laughter followed Poet and I to bed, but we did not have sex. Because I fell asleep while Poet was locking up, a reality I regret as I reach past the empty gin bottle for the apple juice he sets out every night whether I am here or not.

I am always here.

And now I live here. Aras lives here—and when he doesn’t, I can see his bedroom window from the one I share with Poet.

The hole in the wall is gone.

I think Poet would’ve kept it, but it was mysteriously repaired on a rare night he slept in my bed when the autumn winds arrived, and now I don’t have to worry about him being cold.