Winter had descended on the city like a thick quilt: gray skies, early nights, a chill that seeped through window frames and made the yellow door feel like the only warm haven left.
But inside the apartment, it was a different kind of warm. The fairy lights were left on a little later every day. The radiator hummed along. Cinnamon rolls seemed to appear on the breakfast bar almost every morning because Luffy had begun to bake them the night before, leaving the dough to rise while they slept. Catherine woke to the smell most mornings, rather than the sound of the alarm, nose twitching, eyes opening to find Luffy already in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, flour dusting his dark hair like early morning snow.
This particular Saturday morning was no different.
Catherine stretched out under the covers, instinctively reaching out for him and only finding cold sheets. "Hubby's on a mission again."
She got up and padded out in her socks and one of his enormous shirts. Shadow sat on the windowsill, staring out at the street with an unnerving stillness. Mochi was chasing a dust speck on the rug, and Matcha was asleep in a sunbeam that had somehow managed to break through the clouds.
Luffy was standing at the stove, his back to her, singing off-key to whatever tune was playing softly from his phone. He was making scrambled eggs, her favorite, with extra butter and a little black pepper, just the way she liked them, although he always gave her a hard time about "ruining perfectly good eggs with way too much seasonings."
She slid up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and laying her cheek on his back.
"Morning, chef."
"Morning, sleepyhead." He turned his head enough to kiss her temple. "Eggs will be ready in two minutes. Coffee's already poured."
She breathed in deeply against his back, coffee, cinnamon, him. "You're spoiling me."
"Planning to spoil you for the next fifty years.
Gotta practice."
She laughed softly, kissed the spot between his shoulder blades, and then stepped back to let him plate their food.
They sat on the breakfast bar, their knees touching, and talked quietly about nothing in particular: the new barista at the café who was consistently burning oat milk, the client who wanted their new logo "more emotional but less emotional," and how Shadow had begun sleeping on Luffy's pillow when Catherine was out on their rare overnight trip last week.
When breakfast was over, Luffy cleared their plates while Catherine lingered, sketching idly on a napkin: quick strokes that drew Shadow's profile, and then Luffy's hands, and then their intertwined hands on the counter.
He came back to her, leaning over to see what she was working on.
"That's us."
"That's us."
He kissed the top of her head, lingered there. "Hey… you okay? You've been quiet the last couple days."
Catherine placed the pencil on top of the notebook. "Just… thinking."
"About?"
She paused, then reached for his hand, tracing the white thread bracelet she'd made for him so long ago. The thread was starting to fray at the edges.
"About how perfect everything feels," she said softly. "And how scared that makes me. Like I'm waiting for the moment it cracks."
Luffy rotated Catherine's stool so they were facing each other fully. He took her face in his hands, gentle and steady.
"Nothing's cracking, wifey," he said softly. "We built this. Brick by brick. Latte by latte. Cat by cat. If something shakes, we'll hold it together. You and me."
She studied his face. "Promise?"
"Promise on every paper ring we ever made," he said softly. "And every real one we'll make later."
Catherine let out a breath, leaned her forehead against his.
"Okay."
He kissed her then, slow, deep, tasting like coffee and butter and unshakable certainty.
The rest of the morning was spent in soft domesticity. Luffy replaced the strings on the seashell wind chimes because one had snapped in the wind. Catherine organized her art supplies in the second bedroom, which they'd come to refer to as "the maybe-someday studio." Shadow followed them from room to room, a silent shadow of his own, always within reach.
It was near noon when Luffy's phone buzzed with a message from Rohan at the café.
"Hey boss, weird thing. Some guy came in asking about you. Not a regular. Asked if you still owned the place, if you were around much. Looked… intense. I said you were off today. He left without ordering."
Luffy looked at the message, frowning. He showed it to Catherine.
She scanned it twice.
"Probably just someone who liked your cinnamon rolls and wanted to know if you still made them," she said, trying to keep her tone light.
Luffy nodded slowly. "Yeah. Probably."
But he stuck the phone in his pocket with a small wrinkle between his brows.
The afternoon was peaceful. Catherine and Luffy went for a walk, bundling up warmly and going to the park for the first time with all three cats on harnesses. Mochi and Matcha strutted along as if they'd been born wearing leashes, while Shadow walked by Catherine's side as if he'd been trained to do so, never lagging more than a foot behind.
People stopped and gazed at them, oohed and ahhed, took pictures. Catherine laughed each time someone asked, "Are those all your cats?"
"Every last judgmental one of them," she said proudly.
Luffy walked by Catherine's side with his arm around her shoulders, his free hand holding Shadow's leash. Every now and then, he glanced back over his shoulder at the trail of people behind them.
Catherine noticed.
"Everything all right?" she asked.
He squeezed his arms around her a little closer. "Just... making sure no one's following us with a horde of adoring fans for the world's most handsome cat family," he said.
She playfully elbowed him in the side. "Liar," she said.
He kissed her on the cheek. "I'm fine. I swear."
They came home pink from the cold air and their laughing. "The apartment smelled like cinnamon again because Luffy had set another batch to rise before we left." While their bread rose, they snuggled up on the couch with hot chocolate and a movie, which neither of them was paying any attention to.
Shadow jumped up onto Luffy's lap and made a circle before settling down with his head on Luffy's thigh and his paw on top of Catherine's hand on Luffy's knee.
Catherine reached out and stroked the white heart.
"You're the glue, aren't you?" she whispered to the cat.
Shadow answered with a deep purring, almost like a second heartbeat.
That night, after lights out, after the cats had claimed their spots at the foot of the bed, Luffy pulled Catherine close in the dark.
"Wifey?"
"Hmm?"
"If anything ever feels… off. Even a little. Tell me. Okay?"
Her lips found their way to the hollow of his throat.
"Only if you do the same, Hubby."
"Deal."
They fell asleep like that, their limbs tangled, their breathing synchronized, and the sound of Shadow's purring providing a background beat to the pauses in their breathing.
Outside, the yellow door continued to hold firm against the wind.
Inside, everything continued to be just right.
But in the city, in one quiet café, one question was being asked.
Does he still own the place?
And the answer to it was already starting to propagate.