Epilogue
Maureen
W ill squished himself next to me. Even though we were in the bedroom I’d grown up in, my old twin bed was long gone, replaced by a queen-sized model years ago. As much as I enjoyed waking up in my boyfriend’s arms, he was shoving my face into the pillow.
“Will,” I whisper-hissed. “There’s plenty of room in this bed. We can cuddle without you suffocating me.”
“Mmph,” he mumbled.
I reached over to push him back, realizing he was penning me in because Oscar and Bambi pressed against his other side. The dogs had developed a deep attachment to Will when he’d done his recovery week in the house. They’d been at his side nonstop since we’d returned to town two days ago, on the twenty-third.
Heaving myself out of bed, I shooed the dogs into the hallway, closing the door behind them. I crawled back over to give Will a peck on the cheek. “Wake up, sleepyhead. It’s Christmas.”
“Uh-uh. Come back to bed.” He flipped over with lightning speed to grab me and pull me on top of him.
I kissed him, grimacing at our shared morning breath, before tapping him on the forehead. “C’mon, bud.” I knew exactly why he was moving at the speed of a tortoise on wet sand. “Time to do our good deed. This means a lot to Marley and James. Remember, I’m in this with you.”
He made a half-hearted growly sound, which was about as intimidating as a kitten, forcing me to stifle a giggle.
“Fine,” he relented, smiling.
Ten minutes later, teeth brushed, we strode into the living room in matching green holly leaf footie pajamas.
Marley squealed when she saw us. “Oh my god, you guys look even better than I imagined when I bought those. So cute!”
“Absolutely adorable,” Miranda deadpanned from her seat on the couch, sipping coffee in her tan gingerbread men onesie. She lifted her mug at us in a mock salute.
I gave her the middle finger and Marley made a horrified gasp. “Maureen! Not on Christmas.”
“Sorry,” I murmured. Not sorry .
James came out of the kitchen laughing. “I bet I can guess what Maureen just did.”
“All I did was give my sister a Merry Christmas gesture,” I said, going over to kiss him on the cheek. “And a very Merry Christmas to you too, future brother-in-law.”
“Thanks.” James stood next to Marley in their matching candy cane pajamas. “Breakfast is ready.”
By the time we’d sat down at the table, Leo had arrived along with his and James’s parents, Deanna and Chris. The older couple had on blue snowflake footie pajamas, while Leo matched Miranda’s gingerbread men.
As they walked in, I leaned over and said to Marley, “You’re lucky everyone loves you so much.”
“Shush. Don’t be a Negative Nelly. Everyone looks awesome. The pictures will be amazing.”
I had to admit, it was pretty cute to have eight grown-ass adults dressed like toddlers in celebration of the day.
“Hey!” Miranda said to Leo. “Cool. Ours are the same.”
“I think Marley wanted even pairs,” Leo said.
“That’s right,” Marley chimed in. “There were only four different patterns, and you guys are good friends, right? Good friends can be a pair.”
“Of course!” Miranda answered brightly, but Leo had an odd look on his face.
Twenty minutes later, I found myself alone with Miranda while James and Marley showed everyone else some updates they’d made to the backyard.
“Did you and Leo have a fight?” I asked.
“Not a fight, exactly,” she hedged. “There’s just been something recently…that we’ve disagreed on.”
The slider opened. Leo and James came back into the room, ending our conversation.
After presents—I’d given Will one of my father’s watches, rendering him speechless—we all sat in the living room enjoying hot chocolate while Bambi and Oscar shredded the wrapping paper.
I told everyone about my career plans.
Will had helped me draft a business plan and found a local lawyer and freelance bookkeeper I could work with as needed.
The building that had burned next to The Landslide would be a perfect location to house my retail establishment. The owners were amenable to me renting the space, and the repairs they needed to make on the building allowed me to craft a timeline for getting everything in order for sourcing merchandise. I hoped to be open by summer.
James proudly told his parents the story of going out on his first volunteer fire call. “I like to think the guys and I saved the building just so Maureen could open her business there.”
While I established the store, I planned to keep doing Francesca videos and some virtual styling sessions with folks who had reached out through my channel. I probably wouldn’t start until around Valentine’s Day, since Will needed to help me do a market analysis and figure out what to charge and how viable and competitive a low to mid-level styling service could be. Even though that piece could end up being a flop, just trying felt exhilarating.
My whole life, I’d been reluctant to have any kind of partner because I’d been worried about feeling beholden to someone or getting lost in their life and dreams. Who knew that—with the right person—the opposite was true? Having Will in my corner while I worked made me feel freer to take risks than I ever had.
“I need to tell my current gig employer that I’m out, though.” I laughed. “Hopefully, they won’t feel bad when I inform them that processing insurance claims isn’t my dream.”
Deanna patted my hand. “Once, we needed to replace the water heater, the furnace, and the garage door opener all in the same two-month span. I took a second job selling cemetery plots…on commission.”
She shivered, and everyone took turns telling hilarious stories about their worst jobs. Even Will got in on the action, talking about busing tables at the restaurant he’d worked at before his accident.
“I once had a customer offer me three hundred dollars to dig through the trash and find her son’s retainer that he’d left on his plate.”
“Did you do it?” James asked.
“Sure did. Jumped right in there. When I got home, my parents said I smelled like I’d been dumpster diving. Little did they know how accurate they were.”
“I’ve watched a few of your Francesca videos, dear,” Deanna said to me, changing the subject. “They’re quite lovely.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s still wild how your video about Coleman Creek blew up,” Marley said. Turning to her future father-in-law, she said, “Almost two million views.”
“It’s dying down now,” I said. “Hopefully, I can keep people interested.”
Since then, I had only posted one other Francesca video—of Mrs. Allen, my former teacher. I did some styling and discussed her many decades of teaching and her impressions of how the profession has changed over time. It hadn’t reached the level of popularity of the Coleman Creek video, but it had gotten more views than my earlier clips.
“It’s not so crazy the Christmas video blew up.” Will brought the subject back. “Stone Caseman has a ton of followers, so once he got on board, there was nowhere to go but up.”
“It’s such a massive stroke of luck someone like Stone even noticed it, considering Maureen’s channel has nothing to do with the usual type of content he provides,” James agreed.
“It surely is a mystery how that happened,” Leo muttered under his breath. No one else seemed to hear, but I glanced sideways at him. From the corner of my eye, I saw him peer at Miranda. “I guess we’ll never know.”
After a delicious Christmas dinner of ham and Deanna’s famous tater tot casserole, James’s family returned to their hotel, and the rest of us went to bed.
Will and I lay down on the blankets together after kicking out the dogs. He flicked on the twinkle lights wrapped around the bedposts and the little tree on the dresser.
“This is so good,” he said, leaning back against the gold pillow he’d brought. “Being here with you.”
I agreed but didn’t say the words out loud. I would never be the type to say everything I was thinking, and Will knew that. Reaching across his chest, I twined our fingers over his heart, rubbing my thumb along his scars the way he liked.
“When are you driving back?” I asked. “Still tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Second Christmas with my parents.”
“I kind of like that they insisted. That they’re clearly trying.”
“True. You still don’t want to come with me?”
“I need to stay here and get started on my plans. And you should have this time with them.”
“You’re giving me a chance to prove I’ll come back to you.”
I smiled in the dark. “I know you’ll be back in three weeks, or maybe four, or five, or six. And I know we’ll talk in the meantime. I think we need to get past this first separation to show ourselves it will work.”
“It’s going to work, Maureen. I understand you need to be here right now. Just like I have some things that need attending to in Seattle. I’m going to get the other units rented and hire a property management company. Spend some time with my parents. Then I’ll be back.”
What he left unsaid was the obvious—he would eventually need to move to Coleman Creek if we were going to make a real go of things. I imagined he’d keep the Seattle apartment—it was his building, after all—and we’d visit there often. The scenario seemed workable, if unusual. But nothing between us had ever been easy.
Except for this moment, cuddled together on the bed. This was easy.
And the next day, when I kissed him goodbye, it was easier than I’d imagined it would be.
And the texts and video chats that came every day, sometimes several times a day, for the next five weeks, were actually fun.
And then just before Valentine’s Day, when he showed up on the doorstep of the house I’d started renting the week before, with his gold pillow in one hand and flowers in the other, the easiest thing I’d ever done was open the door.
And let him in.