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She sighs as she tips her head back against Joel’s shoulder and Tess feels more than hears his laugh. “Enjoying yourself?”
“Never thought I’d ever take a hot shower this long again,” she moans. Joel’s fingers massage into her scalp in little, soapy circles before combing through a knot. “Let me lounge in peace.”
“Oh, was our apartment not good enough for you?”
Tess clicks her tongue but turns in compliance when he pulls his hands away to stick her head under the spray. The water rolls down her back and she squints against the steam building up in the bathroom. “Yeah, well, I had to share my five minutes of hot water in our apartment with the roaches. Wasn’t exactly a 5-star stay.”
Rolling his eyes, Joel switches places with her to wash his own hair quickly; she flicks at a lock sticking to his nape.
As in most things, Tess had been right — Joel does look like a proper cowboy with long hair.
Their soap smells like honey and cinnamon and once they’re both washed off, Joel relieves the groaning pipes with a turn of the handle. Tossing him a towel, Tess wraps herself in one and shivers a bit when he reaches around her to nudge the door open further.
Joel chuckles. “Already, Tessa?”
She glares at him.
“For that, I’m stealing your shirt too.”
“My pants already barely stay up on you, the shirt ain’t going to be much better,” he retorts and just looks at her tiredly when she swats his ass on the way out of the bathroom; hopping from one foot to the other on the cold floors. “Y’ever gonna give that up?”
Resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at him, Tess settles for instead giving him a blind middle finger as she heads straight for his drawers. She snatches the thickest woolen socks he has and a pair of green-and-blue checkered pajama pants before dropping her towel.
Joel chokes.
“Give a man some warning!”
She glances over her shoulder as she pulls the flannel bottoms on after her underwear, Joel in the doorway staring dumbly at her ass. Tess wiggles her hips at him. “Gonna get back at me, Texas?”
“It ain’t right to hit a woman,” he says dutifully and the residual soreness in her lower back from the previous night twinges as if to directly contradict his statement, “especially if she’s hypothermic. Better put those on before you turn blue. Not very sexy if you ask me.”
This time she really does stick her tongue out at him and is fiddling with the waistband when he steps up behind her. Tess doesn’t even look up.
“Can I help you?”
His front presses against her naked back and Joel’s chin slots atop her shoulder. She relaxes into him. “I should be asking you that, darlin’. Cold fingers?”
“Cold fingers,” she grumbles in agreement and he reaches around to tie off the string in one quick, fluid movement.
Joel’s warm hands settle on the curve of her hips, tracing, appreciating. She’s well aware of his appreciation for her body since they settled in Jackson — she hasn’t been quiet about his, either. They’ve both filled out in significant ways. Sinewy muscle has turned softer but no less strong, Tess’ cheeks are a healthier color, Joel’s hair fuller.
He’s got a bit of a gut, just enough fat around his middle, and Tess adores it. Better for cuddling, she teases whenever he grumbles over it in the mirror. Leave it be. I like it.
Jackson has brought out a gentler side of him she’s never seen before. It’s deeper than physical.
Back in Boston, years ago, Tess never would’ve imagined she’d end up here. Anywhere other than a QZ had been a pipe dream she was fine ignoring because they had the Outside whenever things inside the walls were suffocating. She’d built an empire comprised of dangerous, shitty deals and underground tunnels, supported by flying bullets and bloody fists that not only kept her alive but allowed breathing room. Tess never could’ve imagined leaving it all behind. It was how she survived, how they both survived.
Joel sways them from side to side for a moment before leaving a parting kiss against the slope of her neck and Tess is content to watch how methodically he dresses. If she hadn’t left it all behind on the words of a Firefly resting in the uncertain hands of a 14-year old, she never would have ended up here.
Here. From their apartment to their house. From Tess and Joel, look out, don’t cross them, be careful to Tess and Joel, nice to see you, good morning, thank you for the fresh bread.
They wake up beside each other every morning and don’t reach for their guns first thing. Dinner has guests and leaves them full, satisfied. Water tastes clean, not rusty. Floors creak under their feet and it doesn’t scare them. They still lock the door at night but they don’t jump when someone knocks.
Surviving isn’t what they’re doing. They’re living.
Tess finds she doesn’t miss Boston one bit.
She pads her way downstairs and pours herself a glass of water simply because she can, uncaring of the damp hair against her back that soaks into her shirt. Their house has stone countertops that are cool to the touch, perfect for baking when sprinkled with flour. A fireplace in the living room, an actual dining room table that’s filled every week, Ellie’s drawings framed on the walls, broken up by photographs. Hell, she has a powder room on the first floor.
Joel finds her in the kitchen, staring at the photo on the window ledge above the sink. It’d been a Sunday night dinner at Maria and Tommy’s when he’d pulled out a stack of cards that had Joel groaning as Tess leant forward, eyes twinkling. Despite Joel’s warnings, Tommy had dealt them all hands before protesting loudly when he was the first to lose his full deck. Maria and her had been left at the end as Ellie sketched from the other end of the table, grinning, hair falling in her face.
“You’re so hot when you’re beating people,” he says and she throws him a look.
“In games or with a pipe?”
“Both.” Joel shrugs, plucking the glass from her hands to refill quickly. “Want me to dry your hair before we start? I can put some of that oil you like in it.”
“Yes, please,” she murmurs and Joel sets the water on the coffee table as she sits in front of the couch.
He joins her a moment later, towel in hand, parting her hair into three sections with a comb he’d whittled just for this. It’s been sanded and oiled to perfection. Tess luxuriates into the repeated motion as he gently brushes out any little snags before beginning to braid.
“You’re going gray on me,” Joel notes and she tilts her head back far enough to land in his lap. “Guess I’m not the only old person ‘round here anymore.”
She rolls her eyes. “Well, someone had to keep you company. You, rattling around in this big house all alone? You’d lose it.”
“Oh, good. So it’s charity then.”
Grinning, Tess winks up at him. “Damn. You’ve found me out. Can I still stay?”
“Stay still and I’ll consider it,” he grumbles and maneuvers her head back so he can continue braiding; she catches sight of the thin line of his lips as he concentrates in the glass cover of the fireplace. She swallows a smile; he’s so cute. She’ll never say it aloud.
Joel ties off her hair with a thin elastic, tugs at the end. “All done. Now leave me alone, find someone else to warm ya up. And put on a shirt for Christ’s sake. You gonna walk around like that?”
“Maria might protest,” Tess shrugs as she stands with his hand in hers, extended.
“Like you care.”
Tess turns to face him, cocking her hip, knowing exactly where his eye level is compared to bare upper body. He’s predictable, she loves him. “Mm, you know me so well,” she murmurs and fits a hand under Joel’s chin to lift his eyes to hers instead of her breasts. “But I do know someone I care about who might protest. Any guesses?”
“Might know one,” he agrees and spreads his thighs for her to straddle.
She tangles her fingers in the damp curls at the base of his neck and relishes in how his throat tightens. It’s time to renew the hickeys there; they’re almost completely faded. Tess frowns. They can’t have that.
Despite how she enjoys the other woman’s company, Maria is fun to annoy. It’s so easy that she can’t help herself.
Joel’s beard scratches against her skin when he buries his face in her sternum, warming her skin, little kisses above her heartbeat. She rests her cheek against the top of his head. “Really, now? Tell me.”
“How ‘bout I show you?” he whispers, breath fanning against the curve of her throat.
Tess agrees with a wiggle of her hips to sit heavier in his lap.
“Think you can do it in thirty minutes? We’ve got places to be, people to see.”
“I can do fifteen,” he promises and does exactly that, then does it again, and again. Tess finds herself back in the shower.
An hour later when she joins him at the base of the front stairs, wrapping a scarf — stolen from him, of course — tight around her bruising neck, hair rebraided, Joel laughs heartily before holding out his arm. Rolling her eyes, she threads her elbow through his.
“You’re so fucking sappy,” she laughs but leans into his side as they walk into town, “never change.”
Joel nods dutifully and maneuvers them around a slush-filled pothole in the road. “Yes ma’am.”
It’s not icy at all, certainly not enough to warrant how close they walk, but neither cares.
They’re meeting Maria and Tommy at the Tipsy Bison for dinner and Tess exhales, watching the condensation puff from her lips and slip into the night air. She can trace the constellations from here.
She’d missed the stars in Boston, smog too thick and military flood lights too bright to see anything beyond low-hanging clouds. But Jackson is nestled into a valley surrounded on all sides by mountains with nights so clear she swears she could see the Northern Lights if she wanted to, if she looks long enough.
There’s so many wonderful, lost, shared things in Jackson for communal use and to Ellie’s never-ending delight, one of those in the inventory is a telescope. Their house number and last name is the most common in the notebook used for signing the clunky thing out but Tess can’t deny she loves seeing Ellie’s giddy smile almost as much as the bulge of Joel’s arms as he carries it back and forth.
More than a few people yell out greetings when they step through the swinging doors.
The beer warms her from the inside out a different way than he can and Maria doesn’t say a single thing about how Tess’ flannel stays fully buttoned along with the scarf that clearly isn’t hers, but Joel catches the exasperated furrow of her eyebrows. They share an amused look overtop glass pints. Another round is ordered, they walk home the same way they came.
Jackson glows, framed by sturdy wooden walls and even taller snow-capped mountains in the distance. Tess exhales into Joel’s mouth on the porch as he holds the door open for her and when he kisses her braid in the dead of night as they climb into bed, she closes her eyes with a smile.
The next day Ellie will knock way too early and too loud until Joel groans next to her and she’ll elbow him into ambling downstairs to start breakfast. Ellie will stay for lunch and maybe even dinner, off from patrols, purposefully scheduled by Maria.
Tess thinks about the tree in the square, the last time they celebrated Christmas, and falls asleep to Joel’s rumbling snores behind her.
Bingo, she thinks victoriously when Ellie makes enough excuses to stay even the whole day. Guitar lessons and an incoming snowstorm, she cites, despite living not even twenty feet away and wrinkles her nose at Tess’ knowing smirk.
“I was actually thinking of inviting Dina,” she admits suddenly and quietly while picking at her finger, “if that’s okay? With you guys?”
Joel looks up from the cutting board. “Why wouldn’t it be, kiddo? Your friends have crashed dinner before.”
Cheeks coloring, Ellie ducks her head.
“Um, it’s only Dina, this time. And not tonight but…tomorrow?”
It’s more a question than a statement and although Ellie harrumphs stop that when they look at each other, she’s watching them nervously. They’d both seen her and Dina at previous dances even from their corner of the floor so neither one is surprised but antagonizing Ellie is a favorite pastime of them both .
“Only Dina,” Tess repeats slowly as Joel’s face twists as if trying not to smile. He’s doing that more now to the point his eyes crease at the edges whenever he does.
She wants to trace them with her fingertips, commit them to memory
“Well if it’s only Dina,” he drawls and Ellie’s sputtering is covered by Tess’ laughter as she sets the table.
Patting Ellie’s shoulder when she passes, she sits down and leans back in her chair, wine glass raised as if to toast.
“You’d have to ask Maria that one, not us. It’s her night after all. But I think it’d be nice.”
“Why not tonight?” Joel asks before gasping dramatically, knife abandoned, hand to his chest. “Wait, are you ashamed of us?”
“Yes,” Tess and Ellie answer at the same time. He pouts.
She glares at him. “Now finish up, big guy, or Ellie might start gnawing on your arm. We’re hungry. She’s scoping you out already.”
“No biting,” he says sternly before amending, “well, not you.”
Ellie’s face scrunches in disgust when Tess eyes him appreciatively and she snatches two slices of bread as soon as he joins them. “You two are gross,” she declares through a full mouth.
Neither one corrects her and the rest of dinner is relatively peaceful until Ellie steals the last bit of Joel’s wine before zipping away, hollering that she’s going to ask Maria about dinner before he can even stand. He looks so morose staring at his empty glass that Tess passes hers over and they finish it together on the couch. Ellie doesn’t return and when Tess glances out the window, her lights are on.
“Guess who skirted dish duty again,” she informs Joel and he just shakes his head.
“Leave her alone, she’s got teenage brain,” he says fondly, scrubbing away at the casserole dish. At his side, she dries the silverware.
Tess snorts. “You do realize Dina’s already met you, right, and you can’t play the disapproving dad?”
He all but preens as he shuts off the water.
“Yeah but I’m looking forward to it anyway. It’ll embarrass the hell outta Ellie.”
“Menace,” she accuses, “you’re awful. She’s going to kill you one of these days on patrol and we’ll never find the body. She’ll make sure of it.”
“Nah, you wouldn’t let her.” Joel shrugs and leans against the counter. “You’d miss me too much.”
She raises an eyebrow as she puts away the last of the dishes and mirrors him. “Someone’s confident.”
Right again, Dina isn’t at all put off by Joel’s ridiculous act while Ellie looks ready to melt into the floorboards and Maria laughs so hard she ends up coughing until Tommy pounds on her back, also chuckling.
If they still existed, Tess would buy a lottery ticket.
Sent off with leftovers, Ellie vows to walk Dina home, fingers tangling together. They all know she won’t be back tonight.
Somehow they end up on the front porch and Tess warms her hands around Joel’s mug of tea he hands off between sips. He’s whittling at something as he always is these days and listening to Maria’s walk-through of next month’s schedule. Tommy excuses himself ten minutes in to check on their daughter and kisses Maria sweetly on the way in, which has Tess smiling at how her sister-in-law does.
Willow is a rambunctious, sweet toddler and she can hear Tommy humming to her through the cracked upstairs window, put to bed in the crib Joel had spent countless nights working on. He’d commandeered the entire living room for the project yet somehow managed to keep it a secret until Maria gave birth. It was impressive.
A jacket is draped around her shoulders in exchange for his mug and Joel kisses her cheek before turning back around. Tess watches the night sky and Jackson isn’t Boston.
“Dance with me,” Joel requests as he sets his guitar down. They’re on the porch, and it’s so late that there’s moths fluttering around the lights and Ellie’s made herself scarce. Snow’s begun to fall gently and silently.
Tess blinks up at him. “But there’s no music.”
“Don’t need any.” He pulls her to her feet, one mittened hand in another bare. “Can’t you hear that? It’s enough.”
There’s the whistle of wind coming down the mountains behind them and the twinkling of the wind chimes a younger Ellie had cobbled together with colored glass pieces, bent silverware, and twine. Somewhere across town, a dog howls. The porch is squeaky but solid beneath their boots; Tess thinks when she presses her ear to the center of Joel’s chest that their heartbeats must count, too.
“Imagine us back in Boston seeing this now.”
Joel snorts. They’re barely moving at all, somewhere between a sway and a hug. “Unbelievable.”
She’s in the stables when the gates open and all Tess hears before she takes off running is Joel’s voice, edged in panic. He’s not late, she’s early from patrol, and her heart pounds in her chest as she rounds the corner to see him slide off his horse, hand the reins to his partner, and talk quickly to one of the guards.
Tess slows.
He’s not hurt — she knows him like the back of her hand. They both do. But Joel has a hand pressed to his chest and his jacket is unzipped enough she can see snowflakes dotting his flannel. He keeps glancing down at his hands and it’s only once Tess steps closer and he catches sight of her that his thumb rubs over whatever he’s cradling.
Or whoever , she thinks, amused.
It’s no secret the fondness Joel holds for dogs, for the hunting ones as much as the strays that trot around the square that don’t quite have an owner but are cared for by the whole of Jackson anyway. Even at the QZ he’d stop in the street to scratch the abandoned ones under the chin or slip them scraps of rations, so the small black kitten pressed to his chest blinking up at her isn’t a stretch of imagination.
“I see you brought home some spoils,” she nods and Joel laughs gruffly.
“Blame her, not me, Tessa. Little thing wouldn’t stop following us around atop the snow until I picked her up. ‘Gonna take her to the clinic and see if I can’t get her warmed up. She’s shaking like a leaf.”
She holds out a finger, lets the cat sniff it before slowly lowering her head warily to accept a rub between her ears. Tess notes the cut in one and when she pulls back, Joel is tucking the ends of his scarf around the kitten’s small, shivering body as he starts down the path.
“You really are outnumbered now,” she snorts and taps her knuckles against his, “I’ll set up a bed at home.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Am I really that see-through? I haven't even asked yet.”
“Trouble always finds you,” Tess shrugs, “and I know that look in your eye. You act like I haven’t put up with you for twenty-something years. Ellie’s going to freak.”
“Twenty-four, but who’s counting?”
She leans up to kiss his cheek, flushed from the cold and bristly. When he gets home she’ll need to give him a trim. “Clearly someone. Now go, you’re both freezing. If you come home and get snow on the floor I’ll kill you.”
“Yes ma’am,” he says dutifully, “love you.”
Predictably, Ellie does freak and it turns out Dina has two cats of her own, so Ellie is the one who ends up coaching Joel on what cats eat, what they don’t, and everything in between. Tess watches from the living room doorway as Ellie shows him how to hold the kitten correctly despite the fact she’s so tiny she fits in his palm.
He doesn’t even startle when the kitten nips at his finger, hissing, before snatching the offered tuna.
“What’s that you said?” Joel asks later, kitten asleep at his hip as he looks up, reading glasses falling down his nose. “About trouble always finding me? She does need a name.”
“Trouble sounds about right,” Tess agrees.
Joel nods. “She’ll fit right in. My three little ladies.”
She wrinkles her nose and pokes at his shoulder.
“What happened to me not being a lady? I would’ve shot you for that, back in the day.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“Not that I could ever one-up coffee,” Tess says as Joel closes his eyes obediently, reaching around to open the screen door as Ellie drags him onto the back porch with a wide grin, “but hopefully this isn’t the worst present you’ve ever gotten. Merry Christmas, Joel.”
He opens his eyes, jaw dropping.
The grill is far from perfect; one door dented inwards and squeaky while the hood is scratched up. Thankfully it’s a wood burning grill rather than gas — which they know is a rare commodity that goes towards the generators at the dam and little else. Sometimes the two tractors when it’s time to turn over the soil before planting season. But Ellie and her had spotted it on patrol, basically buried under ivy behind a recently-cleared house and Tess had gasped.
Ellie had wrinkled her nose but helped her pull it out anyway as Tess explained what it was.
“So it’s just a smaller version of the ones in town? That’s dumb. Why would Joel want that?”
Tess had run her hand over the top almost wistfully. “He loved the one he had back before , told me about how every year he grilled corncobs on Christmas. Sarah loved them dripping in butter. They didn’t have ham or turkey for dinner but ribs instead. The neighbors would bring over dessert.”
“People owned these themselves?” Ellie questioned and when Tess had nodded, smiled. “That sounds like Joel, alright. Think we can drag this back without making a scene?”
They’d put it back where they found it and decided to ride out the next week when Joel was out all afternoon on a hunting trip so they’d be able to collect and clean it in secret. Ellie had taken a strip off an old flannel that couldn’t be patched up and tied it into a bow around the handle and Tess watches Joel stare.
“Haven’t seen one of these in years,” he says gruffly. Tess and Ellie look at each other knowingly — he’s trying not to cry. They know that tone. “Where the hell d’ya manage to scrounge this up?”
She purses her lips, miming zippering them. “Ah, ah. A lady never reveals her secrets.”
Joel just stares at her, hopelessly fond, before sweeping both Tess and Ellie into his arms, the latter complaining the whole time. When he smacks a kiss against the crown of her head, Ellie gags and squirms away while Tess laughs until he kisses her, then, too.
His thumb swipes across the top of her hand, coming to rest on the wood wrapped around her own. It’d been his own present to her earlier that morning slipped on when she turned to kiss him good morning and he’d bashfully admitted he’d carved two.
They weren’t perfect but Tess could see the rings of the wood he’d used and although neither fit on their ring fingers, they fit them well regardless. Hers on her thumb, his on his pointer finger, light enough to not throw off their aim but thick enough not to snap when working.
Joel had given her a leather cord to put her ring on if she needed to as well. She doesn’t think she’ll ever use it but had slipped it in her drawer next to her bandana before returning to bed.
Ellie’s disappeared back into the house, yelling about her own presents and to stay there! No peeking! so he sways them a bit, arms wrapped around Tess’ waist. There’s a prick on his leg he only laughs at before bending down to scoop up the kitten climbing his jeans.
“I think someone feels left out.”
Tess rolls her eyes but accepts the nudge against her cheek with a smile. “I didn’t mean literally. I can’t believe you actually named her that.”
“Tell her that,” Joel says and the kitten, aptly named Trouble, purrs as if in agreement. She digs her claws into his jacket and wiggles under the collar, wedged next to his neck, eyes closing in contentment at the warmth. Trouble really does follow Joel everywhere if she isn’t already perched on his shoulder.
The porch door screeches open and Ellie’s thrusting her presents at them; a braided collar for Trouble made out of old shoelaces and finished with a bell she vows to catch the kitten to put on, painted mug for Joel, a sketched portrait of the four of them for Tess. She kisses Ellie’s forehead in thanks and catches the way her fingertips are already stained black from the charcoal pencils she’d found.
Above their bed now hangs two evergreen wreaths connected with copper wire, the same copper wire wrapped around both her and Joel’s rings. My idea, Ellie told her when she pulled her aside, I found it and Joel had some left over. I know you didn’t get these at your wedding.
Not married, Tess reminded her automatically and Ellie’s look had been knowing.
Now Ellie is chasing Trouble back into the house as the kitten yowls playfully and Joel ushers her in, too. “Maria gave us a bottle of wine. Want to crack it open?”
“You better not pour it into that mug,” she warns and Joel pretends to act shocked.
“Why would you think that?”
They’re both thinking of his flask left behind in Boston and how she’d said casually one morning as they passed it back and forth that they’d technically already kissed by sharing it before. Joel had paused with it halfway to his lips, eyebrow raised, and Tess had risen to the challenge by throwing her leg over his to kiss him right .
Ellie’s feet slide against the kitchen floor, followed by the sound of claws skittering, and Tess shakes her head.
“I know you,” she says casually. His palm is flat against the small of her back as if she doesn’t know the layout of their own home but she doesn’t just allow it; she revels in it. So many odd things in Jackson she used to take for granted but now luxuriate in and Joel’s easy affection is the most precious.
Joel leaves her at the kitchen island and pulls down a few glasses. By Ellie’s goading remarks and the way Trouble’s meows pitch higher, Tess knows the teenager’s cornered the poor kitten in the upstairs bathroom. It’s what they always do when Trouble has to visit the vet so usually she avoids it like the plague unless there’s hands chasing her.
Speak of the devil, the little black kitten streaks by with a brand new collar around her neck, seemingly have forgiven Ellie as Ellie follows closely behind and keeps wrestling whatever toy Trouble’s playing with to chuck it in the opposite direction.
She joins them. Tess chuckles at the look on Joel’s face when Ellie reaches for her own glass. “Don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”
“Face it, old man,” Ellie shrugs and takes a large swig just to rub it in even though she’s not the biggest fan of wine, “you’re getting ancient. I’m not a baby anymore. I might even have kids soon.”
Joel goes a little green in the face at the thought.
They spend Christmas lounging around the house, bullying Joel into making French Toast and bacon and cheesy scrambled eggs until Ellie moans she’s about to pop before stealing another crispy slice off Joel’s plate. With one well placed nudge of his foot, he knocks her off the couch.
Ellie does not in fact, pop, and only eats more when Christmas dinner consists of enough food to make the table buckle and so many chairs that they’re all rubbing elbows with their neighbors. Trouble begs for scraps that she readily gets until Joel scolds them all and when presents are exchanged after a whiskey-drowned cake, Ellie almost squeals as Maria’s brown paper packaging falls open to reveal a leather jacket.
Tess and Joel exchange none and when curious eyes turn to them, they hold up their hands.
Trouble chuffs in displeasure as all attention is turned from her batting around newly scrunched-up newspaper balls to bands of wood around calloused fingers.
It’s not marriage. They’re partners, they’ve been partners for decades now. They breathe shared air, sleep in the same bed, watch each other’s backs, pick up each other’s slack where they can and spill blood when they can’t. It’s not marriage.
But it’s enough for them.
Ellie listens to Tommy explain the best way to take care of leather and Jesse, legs thrown over the side of the armchair he’s claimed, pipes up about how fucking sick the back would be if she painted it. Maria’s glass of water sweats on the coffee table and Tess finds herself worrying about rings. Rings. Out of all the things to worry about, she’s worried about stains on her coffee table.
Dina wiggles her fingers at Trouble, who pounces. She gnaws on the end of an offered finger and Dina doesn’t even blink as she shakes her around on her back paws.
She rests her head on Joel’s shoulder. His arm comes around her shoulders automatically, tucking her body into his. “Y’alright?”
“Yeah,” she sighs.
In the kitchen, the coffee maker beeps. A roaring fire underlies overlapping conversations. She sees Dina knock knees with Ellie and Maria eye Tommy with a fond look as he bounces Willow on his knee before she wiggles down and immediately reaches for Trouble. She shoots off. Jesse laughs and shakes his head at something Dina’s said. Joel whiffs.
It’s not marriage. It’s something more because they’ve always been something more. It's everything.