Epilogue
Avery
Weddings were never really my thing, least of all for people I hardly knew.
However, seeing Brandon dressed up in a suit?
Wow.
I’d been sporting a half hard on since leaving Ellington Heights with him earlier this evening. The sight of him wrapped in a fitted black tux that hugged every part of his solid frame was downright punishing for my poor libido.
With this being his sister’s wedding and with plenty of kids around, I was forced to keep my hands to myself and behave.
For now, at least.
The ceremony had been beautifully done with barely a dry eye in the church. Seeing Brandon’s new family for the first time had been a little jarring, especially after having not been a part of the Anders (now Carmichael) family for so long.
I’d been welcomed by his sister, though, when she’d come over after the ceremony to do her rounds with her new husband. Witnessing her and Brandon go toe-to-toe was a sight to behold and one I readily looked forward to come holiday season.
“Avery!” A glass of champagne was set down in front of me, sloshing dangerously inside of the drinkware. “Long time no see! When Brandon told me he was bringing you, I thought he was pulling my leg.”
The man who settled into the chair next to me had a familiar head of curly red hair, styled off to the side in an artistic way that framed his handsome face well.
Jonah.
“Look who the cat dragged in. How’ve you been?”
He grinned at my words. As soon as he thrust his hand out to shake mine, I took it.
He threw back half of his glass of champagne.
“Could ask you the same damn thing,” he bellowed, his voice drowning out the music playing from the dance floor.
“Bran told us he was bringing someone special but he was tight-lipped about who. If I knew you were coming, I would’ve brought my hacky-sack. ”
Wow, that certainly brought back some memories. Out of all of Brandon’s brothers, Jonah had always been my favorite. His laidback and happy-go-lucky attitude melded perfectly with everyone around him, no matter the circumstances.
“He told me you were some bigwig in the city now,” Jonah went on.
“Not anymore. Recently divorced from the city life, actually.”
“No shit?” He shook his head at me, downing the rest of his glass. “Can’t imagine why you’d do something like that. Oh, wait...”
The smug narrowing of his eyes had me nearly bridging the distance between us to give his shin a swift kick. Lovingly, of course. No matter how much time passed, Jonah still knew how to push my buttons at an expert level and apparently still loved doing so.
I liked to imagine he was giving me the older brother treatment I never received as a kid—a rite of passage, as it were. However, now that we were adults, I was allowed to give it right back to him and feel fine doing so.
“Speak of the devil.” He grinned, his eyes shifting to something over my shoulder.
Craning my neck around, I spotted Brandon laughing as he headed our way, another one of his brothers, Reece, in tow. The two of them were peas in a pod—similar builds, the same wavy, dark hair, and twin smiles that could melt even the coldest of hearts.
Together, they were a deadly combo save for one simple fact: their complete opposite personalities.
As soon as they were within shouting distance, Reece broke away from his brother’s side in order to beeline straight toward me.
I only had around three and a half seconds to try and brace myself before a pair of beefy arms were being wrangled around my neck and a set of knuckles were thrust down against the top of my skull in a rather haphazard noogie.
“Avery McAllister!” I could hear the devious grin in his voice. Bastard. “As I live and breathe!”
“Reece!” Brandon scolded.
Flashbacks of being fourteen again and Reece wrestling me to the ground to pin me like we were in some official WWE match while Jonah and Jace egged him on in the background were suddenly thrust into the forefront of my mind.
A charming time back then but not at all one I wanted a repeat of two decades later.
Twisting my arm around, I jabbed my fingers up into Reece’s armpit and dug them in deep, hard enough to be felt through the thick fabric of his suit jacket. He yelped, quickly disentangling himself from me while cupping his hands under his armpits.
“Low blow, McAllister,” he chided.
Jonah barked out a laugh. “You left yourself wide open, man. What did you expect?”
“You both are ridiculous.” Brandon stuck his hand out toward me, wiggling his fingers until I took it. He hauled me up from my seat, still shaking his head. “I’d blame it on the drinks but I know for a fact you two have already blown through your free tickets.”
Reece moved past me to steal my seat. “Yeah. Now we’re onto stealing all of the auntie’s tickets when they’re not looking.”
I had to hand it to him, I could appreciate the mischievousness. At least Brandon’s brothers were making their own kind of fun and keeping out of their sister’s hair while she was celebrated for the rest of the evening.
“The least you two could do is be nice to Avery. Remember how we were all begging for him to come home? Don’t make him regret his life choices.”
I held in a laugh and threw my arm around his shoulders.
No amount of hazing from the Carmichael brothers could ever get me to reconsider staying in Ellington Heights.
That decision had been single handedly the easiest one I’d ever had to make.
Choosing Brandon, and choosing my life with him, was always a no-brainer.
Anyone who thought otherwise was playing ignorant.
“Oh, come on, Bran. You know how it goes. You bring a boyfriend around, we get to pick on him. It’s all a part of the ritual.” Jonah nudged me with his foot, shooting me a wink at that last part.
Funny, considering I’d already been through this process long before Brandon and I were even past puberty, let alone at the point where we were dating officially. Though, I supposed with my absence, I had a bit of catching up to do.
“Animals,” Brandon muttered, gripping my hand tight in his while he turned and tugged me away from their table.
He weaved us through the crowd expertly, the music from the party soon growing soft while we wandered away from it.
The venue was on a beautiful property up in the stix. With little to no light pollution and the sun having set hours ago, the stars were out in full force, shimmering like diamonds against the dark night sky.
I watched them while I let Brandon guide me, trusting him to not let me fall as he navigated down to a small, private dock that overlooked the lake. The air was peaceful and quiet, a stark charge from the energetic celebration raging on a few hundred yards away.
Brandon breathed out a sigh, his body finally relaxing once we were alone. “I’m sorry about them. They’re—”
I wrapped him up into a hug, squeezing him. “Just being annoying older brothers,” I said, finishing for him.
He sagged into me, nodding with his chest pressed to my chest. “They’ll calm down. Eventually.”
I doubted that, but I’d keep that opinion to myself. With Brandon and I out and actually dating, I had a feeling it’d be a while until the dust settled over the newness of our relationship.
Coming from our background and now ending up where we did, it was a wonder we weren’t getting pulled away by Brandon’s mother while she tearfully lamented about how she always knew we were meant to be together.
Though, maybe that would be in due time. After all, tonight wasn’t about us.
“You okay?” I asked, smoothing a hand along the back of his head.
“Now I am.”
My chest ached with fondness for him.
A few weeks had passed since we’d made it official and since then, we’d been practically inseparable. I didn’t want to jinx anything by predicting too early on where this was headed, however, deep down in my heart, I knew that come next spring, the wedding bells would be tolling once more.
That was something to look forward to. A future I never knew would’ve been possible six months ago, but now was clear as day as the only path I ever wanted to travel.
Letting him go had been the biggest mistake of my life.
I had the rest of forever to make it up to him, and I one hundred and ten percent planned on doing so.
Leaning back slightly, I cupped a hand around his jaw, moving his face away from my chest so I could trail a line of kisses from his forehead, down to his mouth. Treating him tenderly, loving him in the way that he deserved to be, was all I needed.
This right here was what true and divine happiness really felt like.
“I love you, Brandon Carmichael.”
His eyes fluttered open, blinking a few times as tears formed at the corners of his lashes. “I do, too. I love you, Avery. I have for so long. I... I never thought...”
“Me too. I think I’ve loved you forever.”
My heart was his.
My soul was his.
His breath mingled with mine, a soft trailing of his finger working its way across my cheek to circle around my lips and trace the outer edges of them. His dark eyes were glossy from his unshed tears, casting a slight sparkle to them that drew me in. “Thank you for staying, Avery.”
I kissed him once more. “I’ll never leave you again.”
***
Marlow
“You’re actually going through with it?” My best friend’s straightforward tone, while normally charming to a fault, was beginning to grate on my ears.
Save for the fact of this being the third time he was bringing up the same subject, I was beginning to wonder how many times it would take for me to repeat myself before Silas finally gave up and accepted the fact that I was doing this.
Coming from his perspective, I supposed I could understand the bewilderment to a certain extent. After all, sitting behind a desk while staring at numbers on a screen all day, every day, wasn’t exactly screaming extreme sports enthusiast.