Epilogue
JOSIE
THREE MONTHS LATER
The clubhouse is fucking chaos.
Ginger has taken over the kitchen, directing traffic like a sequined general.
Maggie is arranging flowers on every available surface.
Duck—Mayor Duck now, which is a still fucking hilarious—is attempting to help and mostly getting in the way.
The twins are running circles around everyone while Andi tries unsuccessfully to corral them.
It’s Thanksgiving, and apparently that means the entire extended Stoneheart family has descended on the clubhouse for dinner.
“Is it always like this?” Isabel asks, appearing at my elbow. Lily clings to her leg, watching the chaos with wide eyes.
“Pretty much.” I smile at her. “You get used to it.”
“Really?”
“Eventually.” I crouch down to Lily’s level. “Hey, sweet. Want to help me set the table? I need someone to put the napkins in the right spots.”
She considers this very seriously, then nods.
“I’ll be right here,” Isabel tells her. “Just in the next room.”
The fact that she can let Lily out of her sight for even a moment is huge. Stone finds me in the dining room, Lily carefully folding napkins beside me.
“Looking good in there,” I tell him.
“You’re the ones doing all the work.”
“I meant you.” I rise on my toes to kiss his cheek. “You look happy.”
“I am happy.” He wraps an arm around me. “I have everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“Even the chaos?”
“Especially the chaos.” He watches Lily arranging napkins with intense concentration.
Ginger appears in the doorway. “Turkey’s ready! Everyone to the table!”
What follows is the loudest, messiest, most wonderful meal I’ve ever been part of. Food is passed in every direction. Conversations overlap. One of the twins knocks over a gravy boat. Duck tries to make a toast and gets heckled by literally everyone.
And through it all, Stone’s hand stays in mine under the table.
When the plates are cleared and the pie is served, Lee stands up, tapping his glass.
“I’d like to make a toast,” he announces. “To family. The one we’re born into, and the one we choose.”
“To family!” everyone echoes.
I look around the table—at Ginger and Tank, at Hawk and Andi, at Lee and Emma, at Duck and Maggie, at Isabel and Lily, at all the brothers and their partners who’ve become my people over the past year.
My family.
Stone squeezes my hand.
“Happy?” he asks quietly.
I think about the road that brought me here. The pain, the loss, the years of believing I wasn’t built for this kind of love. I think about what I’ve found on the other side of all that fear.
Home.
“Yeah,” I tell my husband. “I really am.”
He kisses me—soft and sweet, right there at the table, earning a chorus of cheers and groans from the assembled family.
“Get a room!” Tank hollers.
“We have one,” Stone calls back. “Several, actually. It’s my clubhouse. Get the fuck out.”
The laughter that follows washes over me.
I’m home.