One Night Hand Stand

BONUS Epilogue

One year later

“Happy birthday, my darling,” I tell her as she wakes up beside me, deliciously naked, my present – no, not the morning wood poking her backside – in bed with us.

A decidedly unladylike groan comes out of her, light-brown hair a tangled mess at the back of her head, her new, layered cut framing her jawline now a jagged edge of frizz ball. Until we moved in together, I had no idea her hair wasn’t naturally straight.

Mornings like this make it obvious.

Then again, I’m sure she’s learned some shockers about me.

“Gah, the light! Are you trying to stab me with sunshine beams? Please don’t weaponize like that!”

Welcome to mornings with Sarah the Grump. She stretches, her elbow thumping the red foil wrapped present that rests between our pillows.

“Wassat?”

“That,” I say, reading the room as I pull off the covers from my side of the bed and walk the seven steps from bed to kitchen in her – now our – apartment, “is your birthday present.”

“Coffee,” she croaks.

“No, it’s not, but I’m making us some right now.”

“I need water, too. I’m dehydrated and chafed and sore. You rode me like a mechanical bull.”

“That was our new sex toy. Not me,” I call out from the kitchen before turning on the bean grinder. As of today, Sarah is twenty-seven. We’ve spent the last year and a half together, and as I reflect on the time, we’ve learned:

Our nine-year age difference only matters for music taste and a handful of unimportant cultural references.

I will never, ever again consume a single vegetable from a can that is served to me by her mother when we visit Becket.

Jackie cuts my hair far better than anyone in Boston.

My English father finds Sarah a delight. My American mother won’t stop with the digs asking for another grandchild.

We agree on All Things Financial, which means early retirement and working as little as possible is our shared goal.

Sarah farts in her sleep (yet denies it).

My feet smell like sour lime corn chips after a ten-mile run (I firmly reject this on the premise that no one can know what sour lime corn chips smell like).

Sarah doesn’t know how to initiate conflict without feeling unsafe.

I don’t know how to fix a problem without feeling regret for all the previous times I got it wrong.

Our sex life is extraordinary.

Today is her birthday, so I want to focus on her, and only her, and how she simply improves with age. The coffee burbles to an end, and I take our mugs back into the tiny bedroom, which is essentially a king bed, two nightstands, and a cat bed. There are foot-shaped spaces on the floor left for me to navigate.

“Best. Present. Ever.”

“You opened it?”

She wiggles her fingers in a grabby gesture. “I meant the caffeine.”

“Why don’t you wiggle your fingers like that around me?”

“You don’t taste as good as the coffee.”

“The thrill is gone, isn’t it?”

That gets her attention, a sweet, half-dazed look coming my way. “Not one bit. Just, you know…”

“Half asleep.”

“Right.”

She pats my side of the bed. “Sit with me! It’s my birthday.. What do you have planned for me?”

“Other than your present,” I point to it, “and dinner at seven at MoMoTaste, nothing.”

“And by nothing, you mean nothing but sex, right?”

“Oooo, is it my birthday, too? Because that is cause for celebration!”

“Your birthday is four months away.”

“We could just have sex every day until then and you wouldn’t need to give me any other presents.”

“We already have sex nearly every day, so how would that be any sort of gift?”

“Just being with you is like winning the lottery.”

Now she is wide awake, beaming at me. I crawl back into bed with her, coffee in one hand, the other going about her shoulders. She snuggles in, Dumpling at the foot of the bed. The cat lifts its head up an inch, gives me a lazy, slit-eyed look, then goes back to its nap.

Most mornings are busier affairs, mostly because I am at my office or one of the studios for the six a.m. class crowd. Running my seven studios and getting three new locations ready for expansion has kept me busy. Once in a while, I pinch-hit as an instructor, but staffing is quite steady these days.

The rebranding helped, but Sarah’s sexual harassment and IRS whistleblower articles catapulted RestorativU into a quality brand people trust.

Fortunately, her twenty-seventh birthday falls on a Saturday, and we’re fully staffed. I have the whole weekend to devote to her. No major story deadlines, no source interviews, no hangouts with Luna and Adriana, no need to visit Jackie.

It’s us, and only us, this weekend.

“Mew,” Dumpling says softly.

Oh. Right. And the cat.

Sarah is the only woman I can be still with. There’s no need to move on when silence becomes uncomfortable. No impulse to leave and be productive. Whatever fuels me to continue onto the The Next Thing is neutralized when I’m around her. It’s less about losing steam and more about gaining heat. Her heat.

Her glow.

Why accept shade when you can have sunshine? Why settle for rain when you can have endless blue skies? Life before I met her was fine, but when did fine become an aspiration?

Never.

Fine was never enough.

We’ve both spent our time together finding a new groove, our pieces fitting together just so, less like a puzzle and more like furniture. Assembling a new piece means finding all the tools, the pieces that latch and secure, the stabilizing sections and the bits that nestle in to make the whole.

Sometimes you turn a piece the wrong way. Or a bolt gets stripped. A tool’s a millimeter too big.

The balance is off.

But if you assemble it just so, you have a functional, beautiful something that completes your home.

We are each other’s home now.

Bolt by bolt.

Board by board.

Shingle by shingle.

And I’ve enjoyed all the drilling and hammering.

“So,” Sarah says, her tone of voice awakening, “you said there was a birthday present?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you.”

“You’re already taking me to MoMoTaste tonight! That’s enough of a gift.”

“You don’t get to control whether I give you something freely, Sarah. That’s not how gifting works.”

“I’m not being controlling,” she insists. “Just pointing out it’s unnecessary.”

“Lavishing you with everything you deserve is very necessary.”

She smiles at me, the skin around her eyes crinkling with happiness, steam rising from her coffee as she inhales, a stream of vapor drawn to her nose. Her hair is a rumbled mess, her t-shirt overstretched and nearly showing one nipple, and her pink flannel bottoms with giant daisies on them are a fashion crime.

“I’m old.”

“Twenty-seven is hardly old.”

“At least you’ll always be older.”

“Unless I become a Timelord, yes.”

“What did you get me?”

This line of questioning is going in only one direction, so I retrieve the red foil covered box and hand it to her. Dumpling competes for lap space with the present. He’s gotten big and Sarah overfeeds him, so the little beast doesn’t move at all when she holds the gift aloft.

She shakes it.

“Fragile?”

“No.”

“It’s very light.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not down on one knee,” she jokes. We’ve talked about our engagement, and eventual marriage, so the joke isn’t coming out of the blue. Living together has been a test, and we’ve both passed with flying colors. Engagement really is just a ring, a symbol of commitment, and we don’t need symbols in this relationship.

We live true to each other every day.

But something about proposing to her lights my heart on fire, so inside this red box are two tickets to Paris.

Sarah has no idea that not only do I plan to propose to her there (cliché, I know), but that Jackie will open a similar box in Becket today. She’ll be sworn to secrecy, which I’m not worried about.

My future mother-in-law is pretty close to perfect, except for her cooking.

The plan: in late June, to propose to Sarah by the fountains near the base of the Eiffel Tower, with Jackie, my parents Hugh and Melody, Jared and Molly and Corey around us, and if we can figure out schedules, Luna and Adriana as well.

A week alone with Sarah in Paris, then on our “final” day, the proposal.

Followed by a surprise trip to London, to stay with my parents, Jared, and the kids for a few days.

Sarah’s never been to Europe, so this will be fun, seeing the sights through her new eyes, giving her something she’s wanted for so long. Not the ring.

The trip. The shared experience. The memory.

And yes – the ring, too.

“Case?” Sarah’s voice shakes me out of my thoughts, her eyes questioning.

“Just open it.”

She takes a big gulp of her coffee, finishing off the mug, hurrying so fast the liquid backwashes slightly, a ripple making some roll down her chin from the corner of her mouth. With the heel of her hand, she wipes it away before it drips on her shirt.

“What could it be?” Mystified, she looks at me, then the box, opening it slowly, tearing off the foil, and slipping the top off.

The envelope makes her laugh.

“You didn’t have to wrap it!”

I shrug and finish my coffee, watching her carefully. As she opens the white envelope and finds the printouts of the tickets, she gasps.

“PARIS?”

“Yes.”

“Case!” Breathing hard suddenly, she scans the printouts. “Business class?”

“On La Compagnie, yes. All the seats are.”

“How can you – we can’t afford – this is – ”

“My birthday present to you,” I say firmly.

Her eyes jump from me to the paper. “I’ll clear my schedule for those dates,” she says, voice shaking. She turns, unfurling, moving like a pool of mercury from her position into my lap. The kiss she gives me is full and rich, the taste of gratitude and happiness so rewarding.

Sara moves her leg and gets up on her knees, soon straddling me, pressing her hands into my chest, hair hanging down as it frames her sweet face.

“You spoil me.”

“You excite me.”

“You love me.”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

“You love me so much.”

“Indeed.” She presses into me, hips slow and sultry, and as she kisses me again I caress her ass, sliding up her ribcage with a hand eager to explore every inch of her.

“I feel loved with you, Case. Not just the Paris part. You could take me camping at Nickerson State Park on the Cape for all I care. Just being with you, a part of your orbit, is a privilege.”

“You always know how to make me feel special.”

“And you make me feel seen.”

We kiss again and after that, there are no more words. Not for a while.

Because we have forever to say the rest.

Thank you so much for reading One Night (Hand) Stand, Julia Kent's first in her Get What You Need series.