Epilogue
Peter
I startle at the soft snickers behind my back. I thought I was alone here, hiding in the hallway to survey the situation and shore up my confidence before having to make good on my silent mantra.
I am a competent, capable man.
“It’s not funny.” I frown at the woman who’s grinning as she watches the young guy pale and sputter at the main security desk of our office.
He reaches into his satchel, shuffling around in a seeming panic. “I—I don’t know which one. How many Dr. Carringtons are in this building?”
Frank, who’s on day shift now, smiles calmly at the man who’s still fumbling for some unknown item. “We have two. Which one are you here to see?”
“There are two of them?” the guy blurts.
Elise wheezes beside me. “It’s a little funny.”
I have more empathy for this flustered man than she does, but I still smile at her amusement.
I never expected Elise to take my name when we got married. Hell, I didn’t entirely expect her to agree to marry me at all.
She’s full of surprises. Even still.
I haven’t quite mastered the art of grand gestures yet, but she also isn’t done testing her theories on exactly what types she requires to forgive me for my continued blunders.
We’re still learning together.
“How could he not know whether he spoke to a man or a woman on the phone?” she asks, genuinely baffled at his confusion.
“Probably because he spoke to Carly on the phone,” I inform her. “She fields the initial interview, then passes along the most promising applicants to me.”
Elise quirks her face in the most adorable way. She’s glowing these days, even when she’s scrunching her nose like a little troll. “He’s the most promising applicant out of the latest batch? He doesn’t even know who he’s here to interview with.”
“He’s nervous. He has every right to be. It’s not every day that a man faces a potentially life changing event.”
She cranes her chin up to stare at me with a skeptical expression. “It’s a job, Peter. If he’s not confident enough in his decision to grab this opportunity with both hands, I’m sure someone else will be willing to take a chance on us.”
With a pat to my shoulder and a quick kiss to my bicep, she waddles back down the hallway. Undoubtedly heading for the computer lab.
I chuckle as I watch her trip over her feet before righting herself against the wall. She shakes her head as the echoes of her muttering to herself carry to my ears. With her center of gravity constantly changing these days, she can never quite seem to find her balance. Sadly, the red-soled stilettos have been collecting dust in our closet at home for months.
If I really feel like pressing my luck later tonight, maybe she’ll agree to put them on. Just so I can feel them scrape against my calves as I take her from behind. That’s a nice mental image to get me through the day.
I continue to stare after her until she rounds the next corner out of sight.
Clinging to the false belief that she’s cursed with a high IQ and a conversely low EQ, Elise negotiated that I would do the interviewing part of our roles as co-directors of Chester Paramus. She’s taken on full management of the labs since she prefers various microscopes and computers to most people. The system has worked well for us for the past five years, but we need to bring in some fresh help before her maternity leave.
We need double the extra hands to cover my paternity leave.
Life is full of changing events. Only a select few are awarded life-changing status.
My wife believes I took a chance on her with her self-proclaimed weird genius tendencies.
The truth of the matter is that she took a chance on me—the bumbling, awkward, inexperienced young man who had no idea what to say when a beautiful woman asked him a simple question. At a party that feels impossibly like yesterday but also a lifetime ago.
I can still see her full lips saying words. To me. Still detect the faint scent of the cheap shampoo she used in grad school. Both fruity and floral. Surprising, because she always seemed so put together and not concerned with such trivial things. The swell of her breasts then was less than it is now, but no less tantalizing. She was a puzzle. One I couldn’t solve right away.
I’m genius enough to have taken a chance on myself. On what I wanted. What I didn’t think I could ever have. Thanks to a little nudge from a universe that’s not always fair even though it follows unflinching laws, I get to spend the rest of my life trying to figure her out. To listening to her ask me questions. She’s always curious. It’s one of the things I love best about her. It’s how we fit.
With one last bracing breath, I step forward and extend my hand. “I’m Dr. Peter Carrington. Dr. Elise Carrington is my wife.”
***
So, that’s it! Or is it?
Well, I mean…yes. For Elise & Peter, you just read their HEA.