Epilogue
epilogue
“ I can’t believe how dark your hair is. I’m not used to seeing it without a splash of color,” I said, glancing at Sam through the reflection in my vanity mirror. Her raven hair gleamed down her back, shiny and lacking any of her usual dye.
She stood in front of my full-length mirror, patting gloss over her bold red lips. We were getting ready in my bedroom. “My hair needed a breather,” she said, fussing with a few strands out of place.
I smudged a dark line of the charcoal pencil under my eye, mimicking the other side as best as I could. “You look good in any color. It’s annoying.”
Her smoldering lips curved. “Have you looked at yourself today? I give Tristan three minutes before he pulls you into a vacant room or a closet. The man can’t keep his hands off you. Now that is annoying considering it’s been a year.”
My smile deepened, and my hand slipped, drawing a thin black line beyond the corner of my eye. “Shit,” I mumbled, staring at the mess I made of my makeup.
Sam laughed, moving away from the mirror toward me. “Here. Give me that thing before you do any more damage to your face.”
I sat back in my chair and gave her the eyeliner pencil.
“Are you nervous?” she asked, taking one of my makeup wipes out of the package to clean up the disastrous line work I’d made on my eyes.
“About walking down the aisle in front of two hundred people? Not at all,” I replied sarcastically.
Satisfied she’d cleaned up my mistake, Sam brought the pencil close to my eye. “Tristan will be by your side.”
I forced my eyes to stay open as she dragged the liner to the corner of my eye. “Why did I say yes again?”
Sam leaned back and studied her work, glancing between my right and left eye. “Because you’re a sucker and you knew it would make Tristan happy. And Preston for that matter. Pleasing the Malone brothers is your MO.”
“Shut up,” I said with a grin. She wasn’t wrong though. It wasn’t so much I cared about their happiness over mine. Our lives had been intertwined for so long, but they were family. Some people didn’t believe in being friends with your ex. In my case, being friends with Preston was how I healed, and now I was standing up alongside Tristan at his wedding.
“I can’t believe he’s marrying her,” Sam said, making a face in the mirror at me.
I pushed a loose tendril of curls behind my ear. “Crazy, huh? A lot can happen in a year.” Melody might be a saint. She had more patience than Sam and I put together and had stuck by Preston’s side through all his shit. What was wilder? Once I got to know her, I actually liked her. It had taken months for me to get the strength to talk to her, but I was glad I had.
“No shit,” Sam agreed, setting the eyeliner back onto my vanity.
“He has changed.” For the better, and he had a thirteen-pound little four-month-old girl to thank.
Smoothing invisible wrinkles on her winter-gray dress, nearly the same color as her eyes, Sam stood. “Who would have thought?”
“Do you think they’ll be happy?” My thoughts turned to Harper. The chubby-cheeked baby couldn’t have been cuter. Her toothless smiles melted my heart. She had Preston’s eyes and his charm, but the dimples she got from her Uncle Tristan.
Seeing him with Harper did unbalanced things to my heart. I hadn’t thought much about having kids, but over the past few months, my ovaries were getting ideas. I wasn’t ready to rush it, not while I was still in school, but someday, I’d very much like to have a family with him.
Sam leaned against the edge of my vanity and shrugged. “Who knows. Do any of us really know if we’ll be happy? Life is full of ups and downs. But what I do know is they have a lot of people in their lives who love them. Like you.”
Preston had been good on his word. The gambling stopped, and his focus shifted to school and his family. I hadn’t seen Angelo or his crew since that night, and as more time passed, my fear they would pop up around the corner at any given second faded.
I sensed Tristan’s presence, and without glancing up, I knew he hovered in my bedroom doorway.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Tristan wasn’t someone who wore a tux often. I could count on one hand the number of times in my life I’d seen him dressed up. My heart fluttered at the way the tailored suit fit him perfectly. “Hey,” I greeted with a smile. Swiveling in my chair, I stood and strolled across the room to him. His eyes took in every inch of me, taking his sweet time admiring me. My arms went around his neck.
“You look…incredible. Too incredible,” he murmured in my ear before pulling back to look into my eyes. “Isn’t it some kind of unspoken law to not look hotter than the bride?”
I pressed my lips to his in a quick kiss. “Some things can’t be helped.”
Sam made a gagging sound from across the room. “I’m going to be sick.” She gathered her clutch off the bed. “I’ll see you down there. Don’t trip.”
“Thanks for the boost of confidence,” I muttered as she headed for the hallway to go downstairs where Veda waited. They were still together and going strong, a record for my noncommittal best friend.
“Trust me, he’ll stroke your ego all night,” she said before disappearing.
“Why does everything out of her mouth sound so dirty?” Tristan asked when we were alone.
Happiness glowed within me as I smiled. “Because it is. She does it on purpose.”
“I’ll never understand how the two of you are friends.”
“What matters is that you both love me.”
“Hmm,” Tristan muttered, his lips pressing together as his hands circled my waist, bringing my body flush against his. “I missed you.” He leaned down for a kiss, and I sighed, melting into him.
“I saw you two hours ago.”
His lips curved. “And it was two hours too long, Shortcake.”
A flush stole over me. Two hours ago, I’d been in his arms, and if this dress wasn’t such a pain in the ass to get on, I’d lock my door for an encore performance of this morning.
One of his brows lifted. “You got that look in your eyes.”
I loved this man so much. I loved the way he made me feel. It filled every molecule of my being. “What look?” I teased, the wicked smirk at the corner of my lips twitching.
“ The look .” His voice dropped in that husky way, making me tingle inside. “And if you don’t want us to hold up the wedding, you need to get those thoughts out of your head.”
I angled my head to the side, my eyes dropping to his lip ring. “And if I’m feeling a little naughty?”
“Everly Scott,” he chided mockingly. “Are you drunk?”
“Not yet. But when I do get tipsy tonight at the reception, I’m definitely taking advantage of you.”
Those blue eyes of his darkened. “Something to look forward to. I told you I’d be a bad influence on you.”
When he looked at me like that, I couldn’t think. God, he is hot. “And if you are, I’m not complaining. I told you before…I want you to corrupt me, Tristan. I’m not the good girl everyone thinks I am.”
He brushed his lips over my neck and murmured, “Corrupting you was the best decision I ever made.”
THE END