Epilogue
EPILOGUE
CHASE
One Year Later
“ Y ’all need to cool it or find another activity for girls’ night,” I said as I spritzed sanitizer over the shiny bar top and worked a towel over Maddie’s shoe prints.
I had been playing bartender all night so that my wife could enjoy girls’ night with the rest of the ladies.
Life hadn’t slowed down since the Monday we said our I dos between the tulips, but every moment had been worth it.
Life was fuckin’ good.
“Doesn’t feel too good to be on the other side of the bar, does it?” Bridget snickered from her seat between Hannah Jane and Maddie. They had been discussing the latest romance novel the book club that met at the bar was reading.
The crazy was still through the roof, but the amount of alcohol imbibed for girls’ night had taken a drastic nosedive. Particularly because it seemed like at least one of the girls was always pregnant.
Kristin’s sister, Kylie—now Kylie Solomon as she followed in Logan’s footsteps of changing their last name to Will’s when they turned eighteen—made a nice chunk of change babysitting the poker club’s next generation.
Steve and Erica’s two, Aly and Eli, were thrilled when Gio—Maddie and Luca’s son—started toddling around.
In a week or so, there would be two more: a Lawson and a McGrath. Bridget was over the moon to be an official aunt.
Hannah Jane and Melissa had both hit the nine-month mark and were due two days apart. Jason and Isaac had been in a dick-measuring contest for months over whose baby would be bigger or whose baby would have a higher Apgar score. As long as we kept them full of virgin drinks and deep-fried anything, the girls were happy.
Co-owning a bar and working full time with the police department kept me busy. Between the two of us—with Bridget’s business prowess and my handyman skills—we managed to turn Jokers into a respectable establishment in Beaufort’s small business community.
Well, mostly respectable seeing as Maddie had just hopped down from shaking her ass on the bar, and Will and Kristin were making out on top of the pool table.
If those two didn’t get their libido in check, I’d need to get a spray bottle to get them to keep their hands to themselves.
Luna was curled up in the dog bed we had wedged under the guys’ booth, blissfully unaware of the mayhem around her.
The door swung open and closed without so much as a peep from the hinges as Luca walked in. It gleamed with fresh paint and shiny hardware. The old door hung on the wall as a shrine to the former era of the bar. Drink tokens and pay-it-forward slips were stuffed in the rips of the screen.
Luca sided up to the bar and kissed Maddie’s temple. “Car’s running. You ready to go pick up Giovanni, Tesoro ?”
She let out a yawn and slid her debit card across the bar. “Yeah.”
I cleared her tab and handed her card back.
“Thanks, Chase.”
“You got it, Mad Dog. See you Monday.”
Steve and Erica were next. He slid me a wad of cash and waited as I counted out their change. He wrapped his arms around Erica and not-so-subtly whispered, “Wanna grab waffles before we get the kids, Angel?”
She laughed. “It’s like you were reading my mind.”
Dear God, I hoped they meant eating actual breakfast food and not some weird parental euphemism for sex.
“Come on, Hell Yes Ma’am,” Isaac said, taking Hannah Jane’s hand to help her off the barstool. “Time to get you home and get your feet up.” The baby belly had shifted her center of gravity, but somehow she still managed to walk around on those ice picks she called shoes.
He had already paid their tab with an obnoxious-looking black Amex, so I just waved them off.
Will thought he was being sneaky when he grabbed Kristin by the waist and whispered, “Hunter and Zoey are at sleepovers. You know what that means, Sunshine?”
Kristin grinned. “We actually have the house to ourselves?”
“Hell yeah, we do!”
They high-fived and scurried out the door.
Jason was in a booth talking to Mel and Bridget. He had a protective hand over Mel’s round belly.
The four of us were thick as thieves. Between the airfield, the hospital, the police department, and the bar, none of us worked normal hours.
More often than not, dinners were had at the bar and whoever showed up, showed up. Jason and Bridget were finally able to make up the time they had lost with each other.
Mel looked wiped out, so Jason slipped his arm around her back and helped her out of the bar. “I think it’s past our bedtime,” he joked.
She nodded in agreement as she fought a yawn. “I think I had too much fun.”
“Come on, little mama. Let’s get home.”
Melissa looked up at him in horror, tears filling her eyes.
Jason looked terrified. “What? What’s wrong? Are you in labor? Is the baby coming?”
Her lip trembled. “You didn’t call me Goose.”
Bridget covered her mouth so that only I could see and whispered, “ Hormonal. ”
I twisted the bar towel in my hand and hid a laugh.
Jason didn’t feel the need to hide a laugh, though. He chuckled as he said, “Baby, you hate it when I call you Goose. You tell me that every time I do. I just wanted to try something different.”
“I love when you call me Goose,” she sniffed. “I just hated it in the beginning.”
He laughed and kissed the top of her head. “Let’s go home, Goose.”
Jase lifted his hand in a wave as they headed out the door.
The last of the patrons took that as their cue to leave, too. When the last old-timer shuffled out, Bridget flipped the lock and turned off the neon open sign. She grabbed a towel and a bucket of sanitizer and started wiping down the tables before flipping the chairs up.
I grabbed the push broom and swiveled it under booths and around tables. Peanut shells and crushed pretzels skittered across the empty wood dance floor.
I propped the broom handle against the wall and stared at my wife as she wiped down the high-top tables. Okay, fine. I was staring at her ass. The jeans she was wearing today gave it that perfect upside-down heart shape.
I snuck up behind her and slid my hands onto her hips. She smiled over her shoulder and wiggled her ass. “Hey, you,” she said as she straightened up to her full height.
I wrapped my arms around her waist. “Hey, yourself.” I brushed her hair aside and trailed wet kisses along the side of her neck. “Did you save a dance for me, Mrs. Brannan?”
A smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. “Of course I did.”
It was our tradition whenever we closed up together. One dance. No onlookers. No whispering locals. Just her and me swaying across the dusty wood floor.
Sometimes we’d swing around to a fast tune and laugh as we danced. Other times, we’d pick something soft and slow and simply hold each other for two minutes.
It seemed like a slow song kind of night. I wanted to feel the sensual rock of her hip in my hand. Wanted to feel the warmth of her head resting on my chest. I wanted to feel her breath caressing my neck.
I finished sweeping the floor while Bridget found a song on the jukebox. The opening chords of “Then” by Brad Paisley crackled through the speakers.
“Remember this?” she asked as she met me under the dim lights.
I slid my hand onto her hip, slipping my fingers underneath the edge of her breezy yellow shirt. “How could I forget?” I kissed her forehead. “Every time this one comes on, I think about the night you told me you loved me. ”
“Our anniversary is next week,” she said quietly. “I can’t believe it’s been a whole year.”
“Wanna do something special?” I murmured into her hair. “If the weather’s nice, we could catch a ferry to Ocracoke.”
Bridget laughed, “I was just thinking more along the lines of us both taking a day off work.”
I smiled against her temple. “I think I can manage that.”
Taking her hand, I spun her under my arm and pulled her back into frame. The song changed, but we kept dancing. A slow Muscadine Bloodline ballad came on.
She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against the line of buttons running down the middle of my shirt.
“You alright?” I murmured.
She let out a dainty sigh. “So good.”
“Whatcha thinking about?”
Bridget didn’t say anything. Her feet stalled and, for a moment, we stood and simply held each other.
I cupped her cheeks and tilted her head up to look at me. “Darlin’—”
She kept my hands in hers and took a step back. Cool air swirled where there had previously been no space. Green eyes met mine, a nervous smile playing on her lips. She opened my palms and slid them onto her belly.
Blood roared in my ears. I could feel my heart pounding in my throat. Everything around us faded. Holy shit. Was she…
“Bridg—”
“I know we’ve talked about it, and we hadn’t really started officially trying yet, but…”
My knees hit the wood floor, sending a plume of dust into the air. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do anything but marvel at the notion of new life growing inside her.
Reverently, I rolled the hem of her shirt up and exposed the flat plane of her stomach. I pressed my lips just below her navel. “ Mine .”
Tears flooded her eyes as she nodded fervently. “Yeah, honey.”
I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against her soft skin. “You serious, Bee?” The words came out warbled, but I didn’t care. “You’re—you’re pregnant?”
“I took a test yesterday. And another one this morning.” She raked her fingers through my hair. “You… You’re happy, right? This… It’s a good thing.”
“Darlin’, this is the best thing,” I choked out.
“Oh good,” she said with a caustic laugh. “I’ve been so freaked out all day, and I called my doctor, and all I wanted to do was talk about it with you. And I knew the girls were gonna be here for girls’ night, and they’d get suspicious if I wasn’t drinking. So, I kept making myself cheap drinks and pouring them out when no one was looking, and I just?—”
I jumped to my feet and pulled her into my arms. I couldn’t help but keep one hand on her belly, caressing the sacred place where our baby was growing.
“You’re smushing me,” Bridget murmured as she wiggled her head above my biceps and gasped as she sucked in a lungful of oxygen.
A crack of laughter escaped my mouth. “Get used to it. I’m gonna be smothering you for the next nine months. I’m gonna be so insufferably overprotective that you’ll want to strangle me.”
“Probably.” She laughed, then pecked my lips. “But I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
I scooped her into my arms and carried her back to the bar.
“What are you doing?” She giggled as she wrapped her arms around my neck. “Where are you taking me?”
“Relax.” I chuckled. “You’ve been on your feet all night. I’ll finish cleaning up. You can sit and count down the register. ”
She closed her eyes and tucked her head in the crook of my neck. “Ahh, my hero.”
“You need anything, darlin’?” I asked as I deposited her on a barstool and handed her the cash drawer. I punched in a command on the credit card machine, and it started spitting out a mile-long receipt.
Bridget looked at me with dreamy eyes. God, I was so fucking in love with that woman. “Just a glass of water.”