Epilogue
Asher
If you’d told me ten years ago that one day I’d be waking up in a house by a Loch in Scotland, while my fiancé, the professor, writer, and sometimes baker, milked our goat, I’d have laughed my ass off.
Then asked you where Scotland was. Scotland is apparently not in Ireland as it turns out, or England, or on an island next to Finland (all of these I’d said at one point when Christian had asked what I knew of the place).
It’s a country in the northern part of the UK with its own government, language, and has a unicorn as its official national animal.
All in all, a pretty cool place. It’s also now where I call home.
And yeah, you heard right, we have a goat.
And a couple of chickens. No dog or cat yet, but we’ve discussed it.
I like the idea of a cat because it would sit in the studio with me all day and sleep, keeping me company without distracting me too much.
Christian likes the idea of a dog because he says it would force us out to go on long walks around the Loch every night after dinner.
Initially, I thought this sounded cute as hell, but then I remembered how cold it was when I got here—I’d arrived in November last year, fresh off the plane from LAX and still wearing a fucking T-shirt.
I’d had a very rude awakening in regards to just how close to the Antarctic the weather in Scotland actually got.
We’d had to buy me a whole new wardrobe a few days after we got here.
I was getting used to it now, but walking a dog around the Loch in the middle of December might finish this little twink from Ohio all the way off.
So, I suggested we should wait until after the wedding to decide on what we got, and he’d agreed.
After relieving my bladder, I make my way downstairs to the kitchen, a huge open-plan space which looks onto Loch Earn, and the core of Christian’s architectural wonder-house.
He’d spent almost two years building it, overseeing everything from the type of concrete poured in its foundation to the type of Scottish heather seedlings planted on its roof.
It’s an energy-efficient marvel that draws electricity from the sun and water from the Loch, and which, in the event of a global apocalypse, could likely sustain us both until we both died of old age—as long as we still had Fred and Ginger (our two Plymouth Rock chickens) and Zachary, our white Saanen goat.
Christian is so in love with this house, and so proud of it, and because it makes him so happy and so content, I love it, too.
And honestly, yeah, the cold can be brutal here, but the house is so well built and so well insulated that I can still walk around half dressed—and trust me, I do—without feeling the arctic chill at all.
And then there’s my studio.
My studio.
The large corner room he had built for me on the ground floor near the back of the house before he’d even come to Paris to propose.
Like… seriously? He’d worked a studio space into the blueprint of his dream house despite the fact that he told me to go live my life without him, despite the fact that I might have already done it?
When I think about that, really think about it, it makes me want to fucking sob.
It’s a level of thoughtfulness, of care, of love that I’d never experienced from anyone.
He designs his house and his life around me, and it’s only partly why I’m so fucking in love with him. I really like his dick, too.
Like now, he’s filled the coffee machine for me and left my favourite mug beside it.
And next to it, he’s stuck a Post-it and written the words ‘Good morning, darling’ and drawn a little heart and a steaming cup of coffee.
As I wait for the machine to warm, I slip into a trance and think about everything we need to do over the next few days.
Leah isn’t going to make it; she is in Brazil on tour with her new band and will literally be on stage when I speak my vows.
I told her I understand, but Leah sort of thrives on guilt, and I know it doesn’t matter what I say or how many times I say it, she’ll still feel it until she’s done with it. Another Jeremiah hangover.
Amata and Gael arrive tomorrow, and Christian will pick them up from the airport around dinner time.
Aksel arrives on Friday, which is leaving it a little late, given he’s bringing over my literal wedding suit, but he couldn’t get away from work any sooner, and since it’s fucking Balmain, and since he’s custom designing and creating it for me for free, I don’t feel I can be cunty about when he gets it here.
Felix and Nico also arrive tomorrow; they’ve been staying in Edinburgh a few days and would be driving up first thing.
They’re staying at a hotel in the village because there’s not quite enough room for everyone here.
Leo is coming on Friday evening. There’d been a lot of doubt about whether he’d be able to get away from filming initially, but he seems to have swung it.
Christian says he’d asked if he could bring his new girlfriend, too, some American pop star/actress he’s starring with in the film he’s making.
I’d had no issue with it, but Christian had seemed troubled and said no, that we only wanted close family and friends to be there.
They’d fought about it, and it looked again like Leo might not come at all, but they’d cleared the air, and things seemed to be fine again.
Their relationship is a complicated one, spiky and sometimes combative, and I guess I also make things more complicated, being the same age as Leo, but having an entirely different dynamic with his father must be tough.
Honestly, I think Leo’s got some issues that aren’t about his dad or the death of his mother, or even me, but that’s none of my business.
And since we got back together, Leo has always been civil and polite with me, outwardly at least. We’ve never had a repeat of the night in Christian’s office in Washington, and when he’s been asked about it in the media, he always speaks in full support of his father’s impending remarriage to me, his much younger, ex-pornstar, artist fiancé.
Christian isn’t in politics anymore, but he was still a well-known figure in the UK, and combined with Leo’s fame, people are very interested in them both.
I’m sipping my coffee and scrolling my phone when I hear the back door opening and the sound of Wellingtons being kicked off in the boot room, a huffing Christian coming into the kitchen.
“You’re awake,” he says, chirpily.
I groan. “Yeah, but at what cost.”
He comes up behind me and presses a cold kiss to the side of my neck. I yelp, laughing. He does it again.
“You’re evil!” I scream. “Get off me.” He chuckles and moves off to make himself some tea. “How was Zach?”
“A little grumpy. But I think it’s the whole ring thing, she’s just nervous.”
I snort. Christian is determined to make this damn goat walk up the aisle on Sunday with our rings. It’s fucking ridiculous, but I laugh every time I think about it. A gay wedding and a goat ringbearer. I can’t deal with it.
“Speaking of nervous, what time do your parents get here?”
He gives me a soft smile. “4pm. But you don’t have to be nervous, darling. I promise you. They’re lovely, and even if they don’t like you, they’ll be very polite about it.”
“Well, that helps. Thanks, sweetheart.”
He brings his cup of tea over and sits next to me at the table, reaching out to take my hand. His are still cold, but I don’t mind it. “We’ve spoken to them on video calls, you know what they’re about. What are you scared of?”
I can’t answer that because I don’t know.
Rejection, again. I don’t want to think about my own parents, but it’s impossible not to.
Impossible, too, not to think of the day I went back to Logan, Christian by my side, to tell them I was getting married.
I thought, hoped, that my mother might have missed me, might have worried about me.
I didn’t expect much from my father since he was barely ever that present with us anyway, always more interested in being Jeremiah’s faithful servant than in being a father or a husband.
My mom had been the one at home, making sure we said our devotions before bed, making sure we were clean and our clothes were pressed for church, looking after us when we were ill with soup and prayers.
I thought there might have been some innate part of her that couldn’t help but love and miss me, but the day we’d gone back to Logan and I’d announced myself at the house, asking to see Lynne Lisowski—Christian standing tall and handsome and steady right next to me—it had been Jeremiah who’d come to greet me instead.
“Thomas, my child, how blessed it is to see you. He still spoke in that same righteous tone, and it sent a chill down my spine, freezing me in place. Turning to level a long, considering look at Christian, he said, “And who might this be you’ve brought to us?”
“Christian,” Christian said in a deep, authoritative voice. He’d reached out a hand. “Christian Darling, I’m a… friend of Asher’s. Thomas’s.” We’d discussed in the car that I’d wait until I saw my mother to announce who he was. Now I hated how the word ‘friend’ sounded on his tongue.
“He’s my fiancé,” I’d said. “Where’s my mom, Jeremiah? I asked to see her.”
“You did, Thomas, you did,” he said easily, eyes lingering with sinister interest on Christian.
He dragged them back to me. “Lynne asked that I come in her place, and I’m glad that I did.
Won’t you come and sit?” He gestured toward the main reception room of the old house, which, from what I could tell, looked exactly like it did the day I last stood in it.
“I can have some refreshments brought out, some tea. Was your journey out here long?”