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“Jake.” Just my name. But the hard edges were gone from the consonants, all of them gone soft and warm.

His accent only came forward for the things he loved. His grandfather. Wood that was about to become something. I’d been listening for it since the night he showed me the tabletop. It had never once come out for something he was about to give up.

I had my answer before he said another word.

Nico nodded and moved to his workbench.

“What are you doing?” I asked as he picked up his phone.

“What I should have done the minute he called.” Nico tapped on his phone and connected a call. “Hi, Mr. Kowalski? It’s Nico Stolyarov. About the warehouse space...”

I listened to Nico’s side of the conversation with my heart pounding.

“No, I’m not interested in it,” he said, and my breath caught. “But I would like to reserve my original space when it’s ready in March. Yes, I understand it’ll be a full commercial lease this time. Thank you.”

He hung up and set the phone face down on the bench. When he looked at me, the worry was gone from his expression.

“There. Now I have a plan.”

“You turned down immediate workspace to wait for a space that won’t be ready for months. That’s not practical⁠—”

“Jake, shut up and listen to me.” Nico came to me and took my hands in his. His grip was warm and sure, rough in different places than mine. “I’m not staying here because I don’t have anywhere else to go. I’m staying because I don’t want to go anywhere else.”

His consonants had gone soft again. He didn’t hear it. I did.

“But your business⁠—”

“Will be fine. I can handle the commissions I have space for and turn down anything too big until March when I can reopen my shop.” Nico squeezed my hands. “But this? What we’ve built here? This is where I’ll come back every night.”

I looked at him, dressed in his usual flannel, even though he’d decided to keep my old jersey. He stood in front of me as if he were already home. “You mean that?”

“Yes.” The smile he gave me was small and absolutely sure of itself. “I’ve been thinking about yesterday, about combining our traditions. Let me show you something.”

He gestured to his bench, and I moved closer. Instead of cut wood, paper was across the surface. A detailed sketch, drawn with the precision of an architect’s blueprint.

Two maker’s marks, enlarged and carefully rendered. My grandmother’s Celtic knot on the left, Nico’s grandfather’s Cyrillic pattern on the right. But they weren’t separate. Nico had drawn them touching at one point, the woodgrain of his grandfather’s mark flowing into the interwoven lines of my grandmother’s knot. Distinct but joined. Individual but inseparable.

“It’s a template,” Nico said, his voice soft. “For burning into wood. I was thinking... the workshop door. A panel we could inlay, so everyone who enters knows this space belongs to both of us.”

The sketch wasn’t just beautiful. It was a mark for every piece we would ever build together.

“I love you,” I said, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. “Christ, Nico, I love you so much it scares me.”

Nico’s head snapped up, his blue eyes wide with surprise mixed with relief. “You love me?”

“I think I’ve loved you since the first night I walked into your workshop.” My pulse raced like I was skating sprints. I’d put myself all the way out there, and I couldn’t take it back.

“Jake.” Nico stepped closer, the sketch forgotten. “I love you too. I’ve been terrified to say it. That maybe it was only me.”

“It was never only you.”

I kissed him then, pouring weeks of hope and fear and the new certainty into it. He came up on his toes into the kiss, his arms around my neck. When we broke apart, we were both breathing hard.

Nico released me and held up the sketch. “And for future pieces—the things we build together, that carry both our traditions—we use this as their mark.”

I looked at the point where the marks connected. “You’d never guess they were drawn an ocean apart.”

“Good joinery,” he said simply. “Just like us.”