The cab ride from JFK was all headlights and possibility. Your fingers were still cold from the airplane, knees pressed against a suitcase that wouldn’t zip all the way. You hadn’t slept. You hadn’t stopped smiling. Timothée had been holding your hand the whole time — thumb brushing over your knuckles like he knew how much your heart was racing.

You kept glancing out the window like the skyline might disappear if you looked away.

When the car finally pulled up to the house, he looked over at you, curls tucked under a hoodie, and grinned.

“You ready?”

It wasn’t just a question about the bags.

The hallway smelled like fresh paint and city heat, the kind that clung to the walls and wrapped around you like a promise. Timmy’s house — his place — creaked softly as you stepped through the front door, the familiar groan of old hinges greeting you like an old friend.

You dropped your bags inside — dusty floorboards, high ceilings, sunlight flooding in through the many uncovered windows. The living room felt alive, like it was waiting to fill with your shared moments. You stood there, just inside the doorway, feeling the weight of it all — his home, now yours too — and your heart thudded like a secret you were finally ready to tell.

Timmy pulled you in, spun you once, hands on your waist, laughing.

“We did it,” he whispered, forehead pressed to yours. “You’re here.”

You left your shoes by the door. Ate takeout on the floor. He put on music — something echoey and strange — and started dancing with no rhythm at all. You joined in anyway.

Later, you leaned out the fire escape in his oversized hoodie, drinking ginger ale from a chipped mug. Timmy came up behind you, arms wrapped around your waist, chin on your shoulder.

The city sparkled like it knew your name.

“Everyone here was someone else before,” he murmured, quoting the song you’d both been humming all day. “But I think I like who we’re gonna be.”

You looked at him — eyes soft, smile lazy — and felt the whole world tilt in your chest.

This was it. The dream. Messy and noisy and fluorescent and so alive.

Welcome to New York. It had been waiting for you.

And so had he.