Epilogue
EPILOGUE
AARON
Ten years later
She let me marry her, my Gem.
That next year she became Gem Stone. Cheesy as shit, but utterly perfect. Meant for me. We’re meant for each other, is more like it. Always have been.
I’ve kept my promise to her.
I’m still working on myself. Never stopped, really.
I’ve come a long way. She’s helped with that, massively.
Don’t think I’d have made it to who I’ve become if she hadn’t let her big heart have some compassion for me, stuck it out with me.
But it’s just the truth—we aren’t meant to be apart. I’ve always done better with her than away from her, and I haven’t given her the chance to get away from me in ten years now to do any further testing on that theory. Our life is close to perfect. Neither of us would change it if we could. And that’s proof enough for me.
I say I’m still a work in progress. She says it a little nicer than that. “You’re fucking perfect, Stone,” is usually how she says it, actually. But that’s a lie, because she’s perfect, and I’m nowhere near as good as her. Still working on it, though. Never let a day go by where she doesn’t know I know it. Make sure she feels how lucky I know I am. Whether it’s with my arms around her, a whisper in her ear, me deep inside her, or standing next to her on a red carpet.
I didn’t get away with filming primarily in Atlanta forever. A lot more of my projects since Midnight Empire wrapped have been shot in LA, Canada, and on location around the world, but the house overlooking the mountains in north Georgia is still our home. She’s still my home. Where I return after my latest project, wherever it’s taken me, it’s her I come back to.
She is everything good in my world, and I’m just trying to say thank you each and every day. Thank you for more than twenty years of smiles, of laughter, of warmth. For smacking some sense into me at my lowest, and not turning her back on me as I made my way back to the light—her light. Thank you for making my dreams come true, helping me build this life, get where I’ve gotten; that shelf in our home, full of awards dedicated to her, only tells part of the tale. (If you’re wondering—I still don’t write my speeches ahead of award shows, it’s tradition now, good luck for us, so I still speak off the cuff, from the heart when I go up there, but she’s always at the core of each speech I give.) Thank you for being my partner in all of it, and thank you for making me happier than I ever knew I had the capacity to be with our son Phoenix.
He’s almost seven now, can you believe it?
I still can’t.
He’s got his uncle Nathan, about a year and a half older than him, they do most shit together. But he’s also got a best friend his age, a girl he met in school, she’s called Maggie. I’m trying not to put any pressure on them—they’re seven, ffs, but it feels a little like history is repeating itself. The bond they have, even at this age, it feels a lot like the wholesome shit mine and Gem’s relationship started out as.
I can only hope he gets as much joy in his life as I’ve had in mine, thanks to her.
Speaking of her , I miss her. Haven’t seen her in the last hour or two. Think she’s in the other room, but when I go looking for her, she isn’t. I go through the whole house, room by room, not finding her anywhere. Think maybe she’s in the backyard with Phoenix & Maggie, but when I poke my head out, she’s not there either.
Phoenix sees me and waves from the yard.
“Hey buddy!” I call to him, making my way over to the two of them.
“Hey Mr. Aaron!” Maggie says.
“Hi there, Miss Marigold.” I shoot her a grin. She’s the sweet calm to Phoenix’s kind and wild. A little like another two best friends I used to know, but enough about that.
“We’re making a rope swing for the treehouse!” he tells me happily, lifting the knotted rope to show me.
“Dang, that’s pretty cool! You gonna bring that to me to test it out and hang it up for you when you’re done?”
“Yep!” He nods once, and his attention is back on the rope, as Maggie points out where the next knot should go.
I shake my head at them. I guess you can find freaking anything on YouTube these days, huh? My seven-year-old is putting me to shame already. It’s work to keep up with his creativity, but I’m up for the job most days.
But what he said gave me an idea, so I head over the treehouse, and sure enough, as I climb up the ramp (the large peony shrubs along the base still thriving, even after all this time), my girl is sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs up there, hidden beneath the overhang in the shade, watching the kids play in the yard over the top of her Kindle, an iced tea dripping condensation on the little wooden table next to her.
“Hey, beautiful,” I call out to her as I approach.
She eyes me up and down with a look that’s gonna get her in trouble. “Hey, handsome,” she says. I wish I could show her what that tone of voice does to me on this balcony the way I used to be able to, but our days of fooling around outdoors with abandon are behind us. Unless Phoenix is having a sleepover at his uncle & grandparents’ house. Maybe I should text my parents, see if they can take him for the night…
She can read me, as she’s always been able to, and shakes her head at me. “You’re trying to get me pregnant again, aren’t you?”
“You givin’ me ideas, Jellybean?”
She squints her nose up at me, biting her lower lip and looking freaking edible.
I crook my finger at her. “Come here.”
She puts her Kindle down on the table, stands and walks up to me, places her hands on my chest, right over my first tattoo for her.
“Have I told you I love you?” I ask her.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t let me finish!” I protest.
She rolls her eyes playfully. “Go on, tell me you love me, then.”
I kiss her cute little nose before finishing my thought. “Have I told you that I love you for not kicking me out of your life? For letting me find my way back to me, to us?”
“You didn’t really give me a choice in it, ki—Stone.” Good catch there. Hate to have to remind her I’m not that kid anymore. I do love a good chance to remind her I’m her man, though.
“Stop.” I tell her, shaking my head slowly at her. “You were so generous with me. Granted me so much grace.”
“Eh,” she says dismissively, shrugging, arms dropping to her sides. “Mostly you just kept showing up and I couldn’t get rid of ya. I would’ve let you suffer for longer.” Her head bobs side to side, like there wasn't much she could’ve done about it.
I can’t resist her, so I dive in, placing kisses all over her cheeks, her forehead, her temple, wherever I can reach. She giggles and swats me away half-heartedly.
“You’re a liar, Mrs. Stone.”
“Yeah?” she asks. “How’s that?”
“This giant heart of yours has never kept me out.” She gives me a look, one that’s far too humble for what she should really be credited with when it comes to me, so I keep going. “I’m serious, Gem. A lot of people would’ve kicked me out to find my own way, to become a better person before they trusted me again— if they trusted me again—but you let me back in, let me find myself with you by my side, and I would never have made it to where I needed to end up without you.”
My hands are on her cheeks, keeping the hair out of her eyes in the light summer breeze, keeping her eyes on me. She places one hand on my side, the other over my heart, patting it gently.
“I’ve always known who you really are,” she whispers over my lips, kissing me softly.
I deepen the kiss, opening her lips with my own, sweeping my tongue in to explore her mouth, do that one move that makes her whimper. Still love getting those little sounds out of her.
My dick starts to swell at what she’s doing in response, and my hands fall down her body, holding her close to me, gripping her ass, letting her feel what she’s doing to me—what she does to me every day, after all these years. I’m about ready to move us into the bedroom in the treehouse and show her exactly what I’d like to do to her when a piercing squeal breaks us apart, and both of our heads whip over to the kids in the yard.
Phoenix is chasing Maggie through the grass, and she’s giggling and screaming as she escapes him by darting around and between the large planters, keeping him at bay with the potted peonies, blooming brightly in an array of colors around the deck.
“Miss Gemma!” Maggie squeals. “Help!”
Gem chuckles, leaning with her forearms against the railing of the deck. “Get him, Maggie!” she shouts back. “He’s ticklish on his left knee!”
“Mom!” Phoenix’s shocked cry makes Gem laugh. “That’s not fair!”
“You being a traitor to our son?” I ask her, wrapping an arm around her side.
“Nah,” she tells me. “Just giving her ammo to keep him in line.” She grins up at me from under my arm.
I grab her glass of tea and her Kindle, putting them both back in the treehouse, then take her hand and lead her down the ramp, back to where the kids are now full-on wrestling. And good for Maggie, she’s holding her own, using that left knee trick to her advantage until they’re both laughing till they look like they could burst. We watch and laugh at their antics for a couple minutes before my better half remembers we’re the adults here.
“Come here, you,” Gem reaches a hand out to Maggie and starts walking her toward the sliding glass doors to get back inside. “Let’s get you cleaned up a little before your mama never lets you come back to our house again, huh?” Maggie giggles as she looks over her dirt-stained knees and hands after that little scuffle, and then it’s just me and Phoenix in the backyard, both of us watching the girls as they go. Gem shoots me a wink over her shoulder and my heart swells with how much I love this woman, every facet of her personality, this life we’ve built together.
“Hey,” I tell Phoenix, getting his attention back on me. When he’s looking at me with those soft brown eyes, so much like his mother’s, and I can tell he’s listening, I share some wisdom with him. “You be nice to her, okay?”
He nods his head, like of course, Dad . But I know he doesn’t realize what kind of future he could have if they grow up together how I’m starting to hope they might. I know it’s early, but the seeds that are planted now can be watered, nurtured and reaped as something more special than any other bond on Earth later on. Nothing would make me happier than for him to experience that for himself.
“I mean it, buddy. She could be real important to you one day,” I tell him again.
He nods again, like he’s taking my words to heart. “I know, Dad.”
If he’s lucky, the second luckiest fucker out there, she’ll end up being his whole world.