Epilogue
Bonnie - 1 Day
“You’re not serious,” I said when we finally made our way out of the front doors of Hailstorm.
It wasn’t as easy as just getting up and following him home when he showed up at my bedside.
Mostly because I was still gloriously drunk, which we found out when I’d tried to stand up and all but knocked us both over.
So instead of leaving, a very exhausted-looking Sully kicked off his shoes and climbed into the bed with me, both of us dropping off in seconds and sleeping until the sounds of Hailstorm waking up forced us to get up as well.
“Where’s everyone?” I asked, sipping the water that was left on my nightstand. Well, not sipping. I was straight-up chugging it. I felt as dry as a corn husk from the inside out.
“Best guess? Brunch. Somewhere other than here. Gracie left a note,” he said, plucking a note off the pillow on the bed that had been hers.
“She’s a doll,” I concluded.
“The fucking heart of the girls’ club,” Sully agreed. “Yep… brunch. Oh, with Vi. Guess she’s back.”
“With a sunburn,” I confirmed.
“You had fun with the girls, huh?” he asked, shooting me a knowing smile.
“Maybe a little too much fun,” I said, done with my water, so I reached up to rub my temples to try to ease the ache banging there.
“Yeah, gotta learn to pace yourself with Layna’s heavy pours. She’s lethal. Let’s get you some more hydration, food, and some ibuprofen.”
“In a minute.”
“Okay,” he said, watching me. “You okay?”
“Are you okay?”
His gaze slid away for a second. “Guess you haven’t seen the news yet, huh?”
“Did something happen? Is everyone okay?” I asked, my voice getting higher.
“Everyone is alright,” he said, holding his hands up, palms out. “But there was an explosion.”
“To… cover evidence?” I asked, even if I didn’t love the idea of him being so reckless, risking the innocent lives of the neighbors.
“No, baby, no,” he said, giving me a head shake. “We went there, ready to… do what needed to be done. There was a fight, but then Will… went down into his basement. That was full of nitroglycerin. That shit is unstable as fuck. I got our crew out just in time… and boom.”
“But… you’re sure he was there?”
“Yeah, baby, he was there. He’s gone. By his own hand.”
“So, it’s over.”
“It’s over. And you know what that means?”
“Banging on every surface in my apartment?” I asked, making that boyish smile of his spread across his face.
“Well, I was going to say drag night at the local club. But I like your idea better,” he said, grabbing me, pulling me against him, and sealing his lips to mine.
Then he kissed me silly right there in the sleeping ward of Hailstorm.
“You know, if we get going now, we might be able to fuck on every surface of your place, take Zima on a nice walk in the park, and be able to meet up with the girls for the drag show.”
“Life with you is never going to have a dull moment, is it?”
“Don’t be silly,” he said, slipping his fingers through mine. “There will always be craft nights.”
Sully - 3 months
“I dunno, man,” I said, rocking back on my heels as I stood next to Valen in the backyard of the twentieth house we’d viewed.
“What’s wrong with this one?” Valen asked with a sigh.
“Do you think it’s big enough?”
“It’s half an acre. You literally can’t get anything bigger in this area.”
“Yeah, but there’s gonna need to be a playground, a pool, maybe a paintball course…”
“For who?”
“The kids, man. The kids.”
“Dunno how I feel about you procreating,” Valen said, smile warm. “Though, I guess Bonnie evens out some of your crazy.”
“Dunno about that, man. You shoulda seen her at the park last week.”
“What park?”
“The paintball park, man,” I told him, starting to walk the yard. It was fully fenced with wrought iron that would give the squirrels an easy out when Zima was feeling like chasing them. “She was bloodthirsty. Went rogue and killed everyone. Friendly fire and everything.”
I’d never been prouder.
“I overheard the girls saying she had really good aim at the range when they took her.”
“Steady hands for all that crafting. You know, this might work,” I decided as we walked. “Could build some epic treehouses with bridges and shit up here when the kids get bigger. Bonnie said she’d feel better about an above-ground pool,” I went on.
“So the kids don’t accidentally fall in.”
“Well, she said me,” I admitted, getting a bark of laughter out of Valen. “But the kids will apply eventually.”
“Really thinking ahead, huh?” Valen asked.
What can I say? I loved the club kids. And the first time I saw Bonnie holding one of the club babies, it did something strange to my heart and gut. Ever since, all I could think about was putting one in her, watching her hold it, raising it up, teaching it to be wild and fearless and happy.
“I think you’re gonna need to hire that poor woman a full-time cleaning lady to put up with a horde of your kids.”
“You’re probably right on that,” I agreed, circling back to the back porch.
I could picture Bonnie sitting there, belly round, knitting a blanket for another baby while I chased the others around the yard.
It was a good fantasy.
One I hoped to make a reality one day.
“You think it has enough bedrooms?” Valen asked as we walked through a dated kitchen that needed some serious TLC. But I was excited to have something that we could put our mark on.
“Depends.”
“On how many kids you want?”
“On if the basement is as nice as it looked in the listing photos.” At his blank look, I shrugged. “Bonnie has to have a craft room. But I don’t want her sitting in a creepy, dark, spider-ridden basement to do that.”
Opening the basement door, we made our way down. It wasn’t promising right at first. But as soon as we rounded the corner, the space opened up.
The sun sparkled in through French doors and generously sized windows, chasing away any dark corners.
“The floor is hideous,” Valen decided, running his shoe over the dark blue and gold floral carpeting. “But this is nice.”
“Lots of wall space for built-ins,” I said. And floor space for workstations.
“Well, that’s everything you wanted, right?” Valen asked.
“It is.”
“You gonna buy it?”
“Fuck yeah.”
Bonnie - 6 months
“Zima! Leave the poor squirrel alone,” I called through the kitchen window, watching our dog chase a squirrel up onto the fence.
“Run, Petey,” Perish called to the squirrel that, yes, he’d named. He was crouched down, digging out broadleaf plantain weeds by hand because ‘if we didn’t get ahead of this, they would take over everything.’
I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that this was my house. Our house.
We hadn’t fully moved in yet. Pretty quickly after closing, a bunch of pesky little issues with the place popped up that needed to be handled.
The back porch that looked so gorgeous was just freshly painted rotted wood. There was a leak behind the tile in the primary bathroom, meaning it—and all the drywall and the floor—needed to be torn out and replaced. Oh, and we couldn’t forget the fact that literally every tap in the house was set up wrong, so the hot was where the cold was supposed to be, and vice versa.
So we’d been spending some of our free time at the house, but sleeping at the clubhouse at night. It was kind of nice. We got to introduce Zima to her new home while we worked on little projects. Then we went back to where she was most familiar to sleep.
Though, the clubhouse was feeling a little more cramped these days. What with the new prospects all trickling in within a few weeks of each other. New prospects not only meant less space, but a lot of parties. And I mean… a lot. All day and all night sometimes.
Sully and I did partake—hanging out in the pool, showing everyone how to use the ‘adult playground,’ or playing cards—but we just as often wanted to kind of just hang out by ourselves in his room.
Actually, more so, we wanted to stay in the room. Crafting, watching movies, talking about the house and the future. Which, apparently, involved quite a few kids.
That was something I could totally get behind. Especially after seeing how amazing Sully was with all of the kids. Not just with the fun stuff—though he was good with that—but with the fighting, the boo-boos, the overtired fits, all of it.
And, yeah, the longer I was with him, the more I felt that little tug in my belly at the idea of us having our own kids.
“How’s it coming?” Sully asked, walking up behind me, wrapping an arm around my belly and resting his head on my shoulder.
“What do you think?” I asked, gesturing toward the little floral border I’d painted along the top of the window.
When we’d first stepped foot inside the house as homeowners, we’d both decided that we didn’t want some bland, boring, builder-model-looking home. We wanted to fill it with personality and fun.
So we picked bold colors. We hung unique artwork. And, yes, I hand-painted little details along windows or on the stair risers.
“Are those…” he started to ask.
“All the flowers you got me for Valentine’s Day? Yep.”
“Love it,” he told me, turning his face to press a kiss to my neck. “Not as much as I love you, though,” he told me, making my belly swoop. “If Perish wasn’t out there, I’d show you just how much.”
“He’s very worried about the lawn,” I told him, smiling as Zima came running up to him, dropping down on her front legs, her butt in the air, and barking at Perish, likely thinking he was playing some sort of game.
“Did you remind him that the lawn is probably going to be covered in paintball paint, water balloons, and bubble soap all the time?”
“He said ‘not yet,’” I told him.
“Still not yet?” Sully asked, fingers dancing across my belly.
We weren’t exactly trying.
But we weren’t not trying either.
Which mainly just meant that we were having all the same volume of sex as usual. With none of the precautions.
It was okay with both of us if we did things a little nontraditionally. I mean, we met because of a bomb. We were never going to follow some normal timeline.
If I had a baby—or three—before we got around to the whole wedding thing, that was alright by me. In fact, if we could just bypass the spectacle of a showy wedding where all eyes would be on me, all the better.
“Not yet,” I confirmed. “Though you certainly increased the odds last night,” I said, leaning back into him, thinking of how many times he’d rallied the night before, surging into me until he came inside of me. Once, twice, four times before he finally chugged a bottle of electrolytes and passed out.
Maybe we had created a little life.
But, so far, no signs.
“You should paint a mural in the second bedroom,” Sully suggested.
“Exotic animals wearing Hawaiian shirts?” I asked, making him chuckle.
“I like the way your mind works,” he decided. “Did our new book get here yet?”
“I didn’t see the delivery truck.”
“What’s taking so long?” Sully grumbled, making a smile spread across my face.
He was weirdly obsessed with this series I happened upon featuring cowboys and aliens. That, yes, banged. A lot. In very inventive ways. The kind of inventive ways that made Sully insist we try to recreate it ‘for science.’
“Well, we can’t read it while Perish is here anyway,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, his poor, virgin ears,” Sully said, giving my hair a little tug, then stepping away. “Well, if it’s not here by dinner time, we’re going to the store to get a copy.”
“We don’t need two copies of the same book.”
“Sure we do. It’s important to support the arts.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You love it.”
I did.
More than I even knew I was capable of.
He was everything I never knew I wanted. Someone who not only celebrated me for exactly who I was, but also helped me explore things that I never would have on my own.
Karaoke and paintball, midnight margaritas and poker, aerial playgrounds and paddle boards.
Sully had opened the whole world up to me.
But he still loved nothing more than to sit beside me and paint trinkets or do puzzles.
“Hey, there it is!” Sully called as I heard the beeping of the delivery truck backing into the driveway. “Get over here and give me my smut!” he called as he rushed out the door.
And, of course, he loved to share his smut with me.
Sully - 4 years
“We should go to the hospital,” I said as Bonnie did her hee-hee-hoo breaths, half bent forward with a hand on her lower back.
“We have rescheduled this no fewer than four times,” she reminded me, her brow starting to pebble with sweat.
“Maybe we can just… get the preacher to come and do this bedside at the hospital.”
“I didn’t let the girls fuss over my hair and makeup for three hours to give up this close to the finish line,” she said, nodding toward where the couple before us were sealing their vows with a kiss.
We were likely just hours away from having our second kid, but we still hadn’t gotten around to the whole ‘making it official’ thing.
It simply hadn’t been a priority for us.
At first, there had been so many things in the world I wanted to show her. Then, we’d been focusing on the house. After that, we had our first kid to completely consume our time.
When we found out our second was on the way, Bonnie had been adamant that we finally get married before they came.
Unfortunately, there’d been some club shenanigans that made the first attempt fail. Then, of course, we’d had a bug go through the house. And, finally, a damn hurricane had thwarted the third attempt.
Now, she was in labor.
It was like the damn universe didn’t want us to get married, despite having been together literally since that first day she walked into the clubhouse.
“Dude, are you in labor ?” Vi asked in a hushed voice when she turned back to hand Bonnie her bouquet of wildflowers.
“It’s fine. I can do this,” she said, grabbing my arm, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “Come on,” she demanded through gritted teeth, leaning heavily on me as we walked toward the justice of the peace.
“Everything okay here?” he asked, watching Bonnie lean forward and hee-hee-hoo again.
“Yeah. Just might want to just cut to the CliffsNotes for us,” I said, transferring our toddler to Layna so my hand was free to reach for the rings.
“Yes, yes, yes. For God’s sake, yes,” Bonnie hissed to the justice of the peace as her face contorted in pain.
“By the power vested in me by the state of New Jersey, I now pronounce you man and wife,” the man said, eyes a little panicked, likely worried the baby might make its appearance right there in front of him.
I pulled Bonnie in for a quick kiss.
“You ready to have this baby now?” I asked.
“You’re not allowed to touch me ever again,” she grumbled, making the girls share a little laugh.
Childbirth, I’d found out, was the ultimate way to pull Bonnie out of her shell.
She raged at me, told me I was to blame for everything she was going through, told me she was never going to let me touch her again, that she was banning smut books and the ideas they gave me.
“Oh, you’d never punish yourself like that,” I said, getting a small snorting laugh out of her as I half-carried her out of the courthouse and into the car.
On the way to the hospital, and for a few hours after, there was nothing but heavy breathing, ice chips, and accusations about what I’d done to her.
Until, with an ear-splitting scream—from the mother—and a powerful cry—from the baby—we were parents again for the second time.
“I got something for our first pictures,” I told Bonnie as I wiped her sweaty hair off of her forehead.
“Oh, yeah? What is it?”
In answer, I handed her the box I had stored in my overnight hospital bag.
Bonnie, who looked like she needed a solid twelve hours of sleep, pulled off the top, then parted the tissue paper.
To reveal five identical Hawaiian shirts.
“This is so cute,” she said, pulling each out. “Wait, why are there five?”
“One for Zima too. We can’t forget her.”
“You think of everything,” she said, pushing the box to the side, then patting the space next to her.
I climbed up in the bed, pressing a kiss to her heated cheek. “You were a fucking badass today.”
“When? Pushing that giant baby out of me, or marrying you while in labor?”
“Well, I was talking about the impressively inventive expletives you came up with to curse me with, but all that other shit too,” I said, getting a tired little laugh out of her.
We both looked over at the incubator where our new baby was fast asleep, though we both knew it wouldn’t be for long.
“What are we going to say when they ask us how we met?” Bonnie asked, pressing the side of her head against mine.
“I vote for in a bookstore.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, smile soft. “In a bookstore.”
Bonnie - 14 years
“Hey, bubba,” I said, reaching out to pet our new lab-mix puppy as he ran toward me when I pulled the grocery bags out of the trunk.
Pick-up groceries.
Because some things never changed.
Though, these days, it was more about saving time than trying to avoid people.
I would always be who I was. Introverted, quiet, sometimes quite anxious.
But loving Sully and raising kids had allowed me to grow, to experience things that would have sent me into full-blown panic at another time in my life.
“Yes, there is whippy in there,” I told our puppy as he sniffed one of the bags. “But you can only have it after dinner.” And that was only because I hid his allergy pills in the whipped cream, so I could get one in him without too much fuss.
“How’d you get out in the front yard, huh?” I asked, looking to see if the gate was open.
It wasn’t.
But the front door was.
“Uh oh. Do I want to know what they’re up to in there?” I asked, hearing the squeals of laughter carrying over to me.
And despite knowing that any number of very messy things could be the cause of that laughter.
Once, I came home to find Sully had set up a ’Spaghetti Slime Fight.’ Which involved, roughly, twenty pounds of different sorts of pastas that had been stained bright primary colors, and the children and their father tossing the slimy, colorful noodles at each other.
Luckily, Sully had been smart enough to take that fight outside.
And, yes, it had been reasonably hilarious to see our overtired toddler, tear-stained and snotty, plop down in the grass, grab a handful of said colorful pasta, and just shove a whole fistful of it into his mouth.
I’d heard rumors about Sully and a Slip-N-Slide covered in chocolate syrup and whipped cream. And, admittedly, had been anticipating and dreading the baths that would follow that for years.
“I hope we have enough soap,” I added as I made it to the front door.
I braced myself for chaos.
“Surprise!” the kids chorused, voices loud enough to make me wince.
To be fair, there was a bit of chaos.
Balloons and streamers were everywhere.
But it was festive sort of chaos.
For my birthday.
It didn’t matter that I had fourteen years of unforgettable birthdays, thanks to Sully. It still always made my heart swell, knowing how lonely I had once been, how many birthdays had been spent without anyone to sing me “ Happy Birthday” or bring me a gift, or even just say they were happy I’d been born.
Tears pricked my eyes as Sully moved over toward me with a ridiculous little coned birthday hat, an identical one to those sat upon all their heads.
“Happy birthday, baby,” he said, pressing a kiss to my lips. “I’m really fucking happy you were born.”
“Daddy said a bad word,” our youngest said.
“I thought there might be another whipped cream beard contest to contend with,” I admitted.
“The night is young,” Sully said with a little wink. “Speaking of the night, their aunts are coming to bundle this crew up and take them up to Hailstorm for the night.”
“After cake,” one of the kids piped in.
“After cake,” Sully confirmed. “Then you and me, we have a date with some rom-coms, tacos, and a certain new installment of a cowboy and alien franchise.”
“Number thirty-seven,” I said, smiling. “Sounds like the perfect night.”
But to be fair, every night with him was.
We’d found untold amounts of love with each other through the years. And through our love, we overflowed into our children, creating a family for them that neither of us had ever had.
Yes, it was messy, loud, chaotic, overwhelming.
It was everything I never realized I wanted.
And Sully had shown it all to me.
“Oh, and I got some new tattoo markers to play with later,” Sully said, smile wicked.
XX