34. Epilogue
Gemma
My butt was going numb, and my cheeks felt pink, but I resisted going inside from the blustery November day. Pumpkin, much bigger than she had any right to be, nudged my arm for loves, and I obliged, scrubbing her neck with my nails to dig down into her fluffy wool coat. The woven wire fence around her paddock had stayed secure so far, and despite a few wily attempts from Pumpkin to escape, it was doing a fine job of containing the sheep, her best friend Mini when she came to visit, and… Alice.
A high-pitched moo came from the angled roof enclosure, and I turned to eye the Highland calf warily. "Do not attack me, Alice." Alice was awfully spicy for a rescue who had been on the cusp of death when I'd found her. It wasn't that she didn't like me— of course she liked me—but she also didn't not dislike me…
That was why I was sitting on the hard-packed, frozen ground on Thanksgiving morning like a lunatic. Alice had joined the family only five days before, and her mistrust of my existence had to be resolved. So, every morning, I came out here and sat in a clean spot of the paddock we had built behind our apartment building, and I tried to look as non-threatening as possible while Alice became acquainted with my presence.
Highland cow babies were scrumptiously adorable, and after I'd gotten in touch with a local farm animal rescue to help me with getting Pumpkin settled, they had stayed in touch. They had sensed a bleeding heart. And here I was with my second farm animal rescue in two months. Once they'd sent me a picture of Alice with her long, fluffy coat, enormous, long-lashed eyes, and malnourished body, I simply had to help her. What kind of monster would do anything less?
Alice wasn't in the mood today, though. I'd kept Mini out of the paddock while Alice adjusted, but the calf remained skittish and a touch aggressive. She exited the wood and aluminum enclosure, mooing her irritation. I held up my hands. "I'm not even moving, baby."
"Merrrrrr," she yelled.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel just behind me, and I felt Knox's presence before he spoke. "I don't like this." He had leaned against the fence where I had my back resting, and he tugged on the hood of my winter coat. "She's going to trample you."
"Nonsense," I demurred. "Alice likes me. Don't you, baby?"
Alice snorted and lowered her head threateningly.
"Alright." Knox shifted his hold to my shoulders and yanked on the coat, lifting me bodily from the ground. "Listen, you invited all these people over. They're showing up. Help me."
I stumbled, finding my footing and rounding on him indignantly. "You're just trying to con me into leaving."
"Yes," he said with a heart-melting half-smile. "Is it working?" Knox was wearing his winter coat, but I could see the maroon polo he had underneath, and it made his eyes look like a winter frost. I wanted to eat him.
Resisting my attraction to his obnoxiously handsome person, I folded my arms. "No." Knox gave me his equivalent of puppy dog eyes, raising his eyebrows and tilting his gaze my way. My defenses crumbled like the walls of Jericho. "Oh, fine."
Grinning, Knox unlatched the gate and gestured me through it. "Ara just got here. We need to get in there and buffer between her and Spencer or there might be blood."
"Those two," I shook my head. "You'd think they were warring factions in another life."
"Or this one," Knox muttered out of the side of his mouth. We walked hand-in-hand away from the half-acre fenced area and back to the brick building we called home. Knox had bought it literal days after my ordeal with Dain, and I hadn't heard the entirety of his conversation with his parents, but what I had caught after coming home from work that day had nearly given me an asthma attack. And I didn't have asthma.
He had been so furious. Not even almost-beat-a-guy-to-death Knox had been that livid. After he had verbally eviscerated them, they sent over a realtor with a generous offer the next day.
So, now it was ours. We'd let David stay in his apartment downstairs—he'd been gutted at the prospect of losing the gym—and he hadn't protested turning part of the property into a ranchette.
When we returned to the apartment, I found Arabella giving Mini vigorous belly rubs, and Spencer had raided our cabinets and opened a can of black olives. He popped one in his mouth with a banal smile as I raised an eyebrow at him.
"Hey, Gemma. Thanks for having me." His top knot looked a little neater than usual, and as always, he kept the bottom well-trimmed and faded expertly down to his neck. He had put on a ridiculous Thanksgiving-patterned button-down shirt that made me think he was the male version of Miss Frizzle from the Magic School Bus.
"Yeah, why is he here again?" Knox asked, gesturing to his best friend with a salty glower.
"He's lonely," I whispered loudly, frowning. "Be nice."
"Yeah, I'm lonely," Spencer said, winking at Arabella.
She sighed in disgust. "Repulsive."
Spencer chuckled darkly and pushed another olive between his lips. I pointed to him. "Do not harass my guests."
"I'm a guest," he replied with an offended hand to his chest. "And anyway, she doesn’t mind. The Arabella I know would tell us otherwise." Arabella gave him the middle finger before getting up and dusting off her knees.
She was dressed in the way I'd come to realize was her actual norm. She wore sturdy jeans, a faded T-shirt, and work boots that looked two years past their prime. "I'm going to go play with your animals," she stated. “And I’m sorry I can’t stay long, but I have to get over to Mom’s house.”
I felt genuine sympathy for Arabella. Knox had tried to address whatever was going on with his parents and Arabella, but they had shut him down immediately. Whatever Sylvia and Arabella had going on, it had Ara in a noose, and I didn't like it.
She left, and I scooted past Spencer to check on the casseroles we had in the oven. They were almost done, thankfully. Not that I'd made them—we ordered everything because I wasn't exactly a domestic goddess. But it had been my idea to invite people over to our place for Thanksgiving. It felt like the right thing to do after buying the house, like a housewarming party to solidify that this really was our home.
And I had no doubt that it was a forever home with Knox. We hadn't said it, yet, but the promise hovered over us every night. It danced between our lips before a kiss and wrapped around our bodies when we made love. Knox was mine and I was his. I loved him… I just hadn't told him.
The next person to arrive was Emma, and she immediately gave me a hug that reminded me why we were friends. She really did know me, even though we hadn't talked for more than two months, and her crazy ex had pretended to be her. As she pulled away, she held up a bag of premade dinner rolls. "I do not bake."
"Neither do I," I grinned.
Behind us, Spencer shouted, "Wait, you can take off before the green light?"
Knox laughed mercilessly. "Rookie."
I rolled my eyes. "I got Knox hooked on a go-kart game."
We walked over to the couch where Knox and Spencer were racing each other, and Emma grimaced. "I mean, I think I was hooked on that when I was eleven."
"He's a baby gamer." I patted him on the head from behind the couch. "He'll get there."
Emma sighed. "I guess I need to beat his ass at this thing, now. Sounds like he's getting cocky."
As I laughed, a knock sounded on our stairwell entrance, and I went to answer it. Azura, our lawyer, and her husband, Tristan, stood on the other side. Azura looked absolutely snatched with her petite body in a structured, black dress and her thick, black hair curled down her shoulders. At her side, Tristan wore a brown wool sweater with an odd rubber band around the neck that made me wonder if that was some kind of millionaire-only fashion statement. He smiled handsomely and held out his hand. "Gemma! I've heard all about you from Az. I'm Tristan."
I stared and shook his hand. This was the Tristan Valehart. I recognized his heterochromatic eyes, one green, and other hazel, and I'd seen his suave features all over the news and on the covers of tech magazines. "Hi," I breathed out.
Azura tsked. "Don't look at him like that. His ego is bad enough."
Tristan turned and winked at his wife. "You like my ego."
Azura's features softened as she looked back at him, clearly completely smitten, and then she turned back to me, shaking her head and holding out her hand. "Sorry. I try not to take him in public if I can help it. Thank you for having us."
Tristan held up a bottle of wine. "Our best contribution, I'm afraid. We just got back from business."
"On Thanksgiving?" I clarified, showing them in.
"Eh, well," Tristan hedged.
It was at that moment that another couple came up the stairs, and we all stood aside to let them in. It was Kael, the slightly unsettling "errand runner" who had taken care of things after Dain, and a blond bombshell I had to assume was the wife he'd mentioned. Kael looked very much like he had when I'd first met him—mildly irritated and possibly thinking about killing someone. His wife, on the other hand, immediately held out her hand with a friendly smile. "Hi, you must be Gemma. I'm Mattie."
Mattie had short, blond hair and trendy bangs, and she had on a wispy, dark green blouse that did nothing to hide her clearly pregnant belly. I shook her hand. "Hi, Mattie. Thank you for coming. I know it wasn't exactly an orthodox invitation." I glanced at the intimidating man at her side, and he stared back, deadpan. "But I wanted to thank Kael for helping."
"Oh, he'd die of boredom otherwise," Mattie said, waving away my concerns as she entered the foyer area. "We were grateful to come. Right, Kael?"
I could have sworn he sighed, but it was almost indetectable. With his eyes on his wife, he said, "Yes, we are."
Mattie grinned like she hadn't just strong-armed a man who looked like he could unalive a whole platoon of highly trained combatants, and I showed them into the house. As Kael walked over to where Tristan and Azura were standing at the kitchen island, Mattie leaned over and whispered, "No, really. Thank you. His mother passed away in May, and he would never say it, but I think this would have been a hard holiday for him."
My eyebrows tilted up with concern. "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. Were they close?"
Mattie had enormous, doe-brown eyes that I could tell were already on the verge of tears. "She lived with us for a little while. Alzheimer's. It was good to have her while we could."
I nodded. "Well, you're both welcome to celebrate with us anytime." I glanced at her belly and then back up. "I… hope your trip from Montana wasn't difficult for you, though."
"Are you kidding?" Mattie asked, her tone already entering best-friend territory as we joined everyone in the kitchen. "I needed to get out of that house. I just finished my residency last year, and then Captain Super Sperm over there got me pregnant. I'm on maternity leave, and it's so boring, I'm going to die."
I laughed. "So, it was a surprise then."
"Well," Mattie shrugged one shoulder, her eyes mischievous. "Is it ever, really?"
"I guess not," I grinned.
Kael and Tristan were standing next to each other, and then Kael's face split into a troublemaking grin. "Hey, Bruce Wayne. You got a little—" Kael smoothed his hand around his neck.
Tristan frowned, putting a hand to his neck, and then his eyes widened. "Oh." He ripped off the band of rubber that had been above his sweater neckline. "My bad."
Kael popped open a can of beer with a sly glint in his pale eyes. "Working on Thanksgiving, Batman?"
"Batman?" I echoed.
Azura gave Tristan a hard glare and bit out through tight lips, "I told you not to."
Tristan cleared his throat, pocketing the band, and then held up the bottle of wine. "Any objections to opening this?"
"None," I assured him. I would have to poke around and find out what the Batman inside joke was about. Something told me that it had everything to do with Kael being called "Ghost" and Azura acting like the leader of the Justice League. Maybe another story for another time.
Spencer, Knox, and Emma joined us after their game ended, and while everyone got to know each other, Knox and I pulled the casseroles out of the oven. We had already set plates out for nine, and we brought the food, and then finally the turkey we'd kept warm in the lower oven, to the center of the glass table. While we worked, Knox sent me occasional warm glances, and we purposefully brushed arms, or he would glide his hand along my lower back. Finally, we had everything set, and while our guests took their seats, I looked around.
"Arabella," I sighed. "She's still out back. I'll go get her."
Knox looked away from the conversation he'd been having with Tristan— Tristan Valehart for God's sake—and set down his whiskey sour. "I'll come with you." He took my coat down from the rack by the elevator, and holding it out, he helped guide my arms through it.
I gave him a worried glance over my shoulder. "How are you? I invited a lot of people over. It just seemed like the right thing to do."
"Gem, stop worrying. It's nice to have this big place full of people." He pressed the button, and when it lit up, he added, "And actually, I recognize Mattie. I subbed in at her residency hospital once."
"Seriously?" We got in, and he pulled me to his side automatically.
"Decent group of people," he nodded. "And I know you would have invited Ruth, too."
I sighed. "Yeah, I guess Cal's parents are actually nice. Like, they want to spend time with them."
"Weird."
"I know, right?"
As the elevator doors opened, I just barely glimpsed Arabella walking through the downstairs gym that would lead to our stairway entrance. I went to go after her, but Knox yanked me back against his solid body and slammed the door closed button. "What are you—?"
"Looks like we're too late," he murmured in my ear, holding me tightly against his body. He slapped the emergency stop button on the elevator, and it froze in place, doors locked shut and gears silent. "Now what should we do?"
I fought an incredulous smile. "Knox, we have guests upstairs."
"Do you know," he went on smoothly, ignoring my protest, "the first time I wanted to press you against a wall and pinch your nipple between my teeth?"
My body melted and my limbs went liquid. With some difficulty, I eked out, "When?"
"An elevator," he whispered. The sound carried down my arms and left goosebumps in its wake.
"No way," I managed to choke out.
Knox turned me in his arms, and walking me back two steps, had my back pressed against the frosted glass interior of the elevator. He surrounded me with his scent, with the safety of his size, and then he bent down to whisper against my temple. "See, there was this one time you took your bra apart…"
I gasped silently, pulling away to hold his gaze. "You're lying."
Knox shook his head, his crystalline eyes unwavering. "I wanted you so badly, I didn't stop thinking about you all day."
I opened my mouth to call him a liar again, but Knox swooped down and kissed me. And then I had no breath for words because his lips on mine, his tongue sliding smooth and velvet between our needy kisses, his strong hands pressing me against his body—all of it took over the higher functions of my brain. I moaned into his mouth, tilting my hips up to grind against his erection. Knox lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around him, clinging to him like he was my last breath.
Knox pressed me against the elevator wall, and we fumbled with our clothing, our breaths jagged and our need for each other suddenly so intense, it was like we had ceased to be separate people at all. But as Knox yanked at my underwear beneath my dress, I halted him, pulling back and taking his face in my hands. "Wait, wait." Embarrassment flooded my cheeks, and panting hard, I admitted, "I can't. I just… I'm on my period."
Also steadying his breathing, Knox searched my face, but instead of repulsion, he smiled. "The muscle relaxers are helping, then?"
This man. Was there anyone more thoughtful and gentle on this planet? Swallowing, I nodded. "It's way better."
Knox kissed me again, slower and more relaxed. He hadn't loosened his hold on me, and he kept me in his arms and wedged up against the elevator wall. "Baby, I'm so glad. We'll change it up whenever you need to." Knox had also been regularly massaging pressure points on my body before bed at night after reading research journals on the topic. He brushed his lips against mine playfully. "But do you not want my cock because you don't want it, or because you think I care about a little blood?"
I opened my mouth, but I realized I didn't have an answer for that. "I… have no idea."
"Hm, think about it. There's always the shower later," he offered, smiling and kissing me slowly.
My heart just about exploded. Kissing him back, I held onto him tightly, knowing that just as surely as he was there to hold me up with his body, Knox would always be there to comfort me and lift me up, no matter what life threw our way.
It had been a hard month. There were nights when I wasn't sure I could allow myself to sleep because every time I succumbed to that darkness behind my eyelids, I remembered sinking into a pit of fear and uncertainty in that bathroom in Portland. There had been days where being "normal" didn't feel possible.
But Knox had been there for every moment. Every nightmare. Every angry outburst and outpouring of emotion, he'd been there, and he'd been as patient and as steady as only Knox could be. And suddenly, I couldn't go another second without letting him know how he made me feel.
"I love you," I whispered suddenly.
Knox drew back slowly, his gaze gentle and his mouth curved up softly. "You love me?"
I nodded, wetting my lips and hoping I hadn't just made a huge mistake. "I really love you," I doubled down. "You're the most selfless, smart, disgustingly handsome man I know, and I'm utterly obsessed with you."
His smile widened. "What about when I leave my socks next to the hamper?"
"Incredibly, I still love you," I returned, biting my lip.
"Well," Knox said thoughtfully, shifting my weight but not letting me down. "It's a good thing I'm patient, too."
I could feel a Knox-ism coming. Fighting a smile, I asked, "Why is that?"
He leaned in close, and with his voice low, he murmured, "Because I loved you first. I was waiting for you to say it."
"Bull," I challenged, rubbing the side of my nose against his.
"I can prove it." Knox finally let me slide down his body, and once my flats were on the floor, he adjusted my skirt, fixed the tendrils of hair that had escaped my space buns, and then hit the unlock button on the elevator.
"This sounds sneaky," I mused. Knox only gave me a crafty side-eye, and then our elevator reached our floor. The doors opened to a cacophony of sound, and our guests greeted us with a mixture of happy exclamations and suggestive jokes.
Knox held my hand and led me to the living room. "Sorry to delay dinner, but I have to prove Gemma wrong."
Tristan raised his glass of wine. "Say no more." Azura smacked his arm.
Knox led me to the couch where the go-kart game was still pulled up, and when he grabbed the controller, I gave him a dubious eyebrow tilt. "What… does this have to do with… that?"
Our friends had gone silent as they watched Knox click buttons and maneuver to a screen that showed the leaderboard for race times. The list popped up, big and bright with happy characters and fanfare music. The first four names on the leaderboard read:
1.) I
2.) Love
3.) You
4.) More
I rotated an open-mouthed stare to Knox. He grinned back and tossed the controller on the couch. "Still calling bull?"
I tackled him, forcing him to fall back on the couch, and he wrapped his arms around me with a laugh as our friends clapped and jeered and whistled in the background. I didn't even care if we made a spectacle of ourselves. I kissed him hard, wrapping my arms around his neck and letting him pull me against his body on the couch. With our friends laughing and clapping behind us, I pulled away and said, "I really love you. A lot."
Knox pulled me closer, and then with his lips to my ear, he whispered, "Yes, but I love you more."
It's the end but not the finish!