Epilogue
Jules
“Mommy!”
I jolt, the sound of Gus’s voice startling me away from the mirror, where I’ve been holding my own gaze for the past five minutes.
“Woah, hold still, girl—” Sienna says, her hand still in my hair, but Gus is insistent, and I pull away from her, dodging the curling iron. Burning myself would not be fun.
“Mommy, mommy!” Gus calls, and I rush across the room, turning into the bathroom to find him standing in front of the sink, his face pale and focused on his own reflection.
“What is it?” I ask breathlessly, pushing the side of my hair that’s still limp and uncurled away from my face.
Gus turns, and if I weren’t so worried about his cries for me, I might take a moment to think about how charming he looks in his little suit.
But I’m not thinking about that, because his expression is all panic.
“It’s ruined,” he says, and I can tell he’s on the brink of tears.
“What’s ruined, baby?” I ask, pushing carefully forward into the bathroom, hoping the dress doesn’t snag on anything. “Are you feeling okay? Is it your chest?”
“No,” he says, like the problem being his heart is a ridiculous idea. Like, after two years, he can hardly even remember that he had major heart surgery. Well, not major according to Orie and Russ, but any heart surgery feels major to me.
But Gus isn’t a sick kid anymore—he’s just played one on two medical dramas now. Right after we get back from our honeymoon, he’s booked another appearance on a popular teen romance about kids at a lake.
Gus draws me out of my thoughts when he says, guiltily, “The pictures will be ruined.”
“Why?”
He answers me by giving me an awkward, wobbling smile, and revealing a little gap in his smile. I stare at it for a moment, the spot where his tooth used to be, then I let out a relieved laugh, reaching forward and hugging him to me.
“Oh, you little goof ball,” I mutter, forcing myself to use the breathing exercises Ettie taught me when the wedding stuff really started to ramp up. “You look perfect.”
Gus pushes away from me, looking dubious. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Plus, if you really don’t like it, we could always wait until next year…”
“You are not waiting any longer!”
Gus grins over my shoulder and I turn to see Ettie and Sienna standing there. Sienna frowns, but Ettie is smiling at me, going on, “Poor Russell wanted to marry you the day after he proposed. Plus, sorry girl, but I am not going through wedding planning again.”
“Can I please finish your hair?” Sienna asks, raising an eyebrow at me and gesturing at Ettie. “I still need to do hers, too.”
“I thought you were going to be nice now,” Ettie says, giving Sienna a look that Sienna rolls her eyes at.
“And I thought we were going to follow a schedule!”
“If I’m hearing the word schedule, I’ll assume Sienna is in here…” a deep voice says.
Orie’s face appears behind Ettie’s, and I let out a breath, starting to feel a little claustrophobic, piled into the bathroom with them blocking me in.
“Okay, okay,” I say, shooing them off and picking up my skirt to walk carefully back through into the bridal suite. “Let’s stick to the schedule.”
“Do not let him,” Sienna says, darting a glare at Orie, “turn you against me.”
“Nothing could turn me against you,” I say, touching her arm, “except if you burn me with that curling iron.”
“What’s wrong with a little spontaneity? Don’t you think following schedules is a bit boring?” Orie asks, leaning against the mirror and giving Sienna a pointed look.
“Your resistance to schedules is why the new clinic is taking so long to open up.”
The second clinic is opening up on the other side of the city, to serve a whole new population. Outside of the wedding, work on that has been taking up most of Russell’s time.
Between that and my PR firm, there have been plenty of reasons it’s taken so long for us to finally go through with the wedding thing.
Russell acted like it was physically painful for him, each month that passed in which I wasn’t actually his wife, but when it came down to it, raising a kid, starting a business, and managing a health care empire were just not that compatible with also planning a wedding.
For a little while there, we were also managing communications with Grande’s law office, trying to stave off a lawsuit.
Eventually, Grande and Russell managed to find a happy medium—a way for the inheritance to roll into the clinics, a loophole that Grande agreed to when Russell assured him this thing between him and I was actually real this time.
“No—that has to do with red tape,” Orie mutters, “which is totally in your ballpark. You probably love clauses and rules. Don’t you want to color outside the lines sometimes, Lloyd? Don’t you want to spice up life?”
“My life is very spicy, thank you very much,” Sienna snaps back, her cheeks going pink when she seems to realize what she’s just suggested. Orie grins, ready to pounce on that, but I cross my arms and shoot him a look of my own.
“What are you doing in here?” I ask, then, before he can answer. “Unless you’re planning to get in a bridesmaids dress, you’d better have a good reason.”
“As great as my legs would look under a skirt,” Orie deadpans, “I come with a message from Russell.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a small envelope and hands it to me, before doing a small mock bow, stopping to flirt with Ettie, and striding out of the room.
“God, he’s so annoying,” Sienna mutters, pushing her hair back from her face and letting another perfect curl fall from her wand.
“Ri-ight,” I answer, but most of my attention is on the little envelope in my hand. Carefully using a manicured nail to slide along the seal, I open it and pull it out.
Finally getting my woman, after seven years of waiting. Worth it. R.
“Uh-uh,” Sienna says in alarm, pulling a little too hard on my hair and pulling me out of the moment. “No crying—the setting powder is good, but not that good.”
“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head and tucking the card into my bra, then patting it.
We all finish getting ready together, and I have a good luck charm for the rest of the day, something I can carry right over my heart.
The ballroom is decorated with green and red ornaments, all hanging at different lengths from the ceiling.
Christmas lights are everywhere, and a line of real spruce trees march up and down the sides of the room, making the air fragrant.
Before the ceremony, guests were offered warm apple cider and wassail, and many of them partook, which has turned the air cozy with cinnamon and clove.
I walk up the aisle toward Russell, who stands at the front of the room looking at me like he did that first day, at the Christmas ball seven years ago now.
Like he did in that emergency room, talking to the boy he didn’t know was his son.
Like he looked at me when I agreed to marry him for his inheritance, and like he looked when I agreed to do it for real.
In fact, it’s the way he looked at me yesterday morning, the last time I saw him before now.
Ettie and Sienna insisted we do the whole night before the wedding thing, so last night was the first time in a long time I slept in a bed by myself, not pressed up against his body.
Even though I hated it, she was right—abstaining from him for twelve hours has only made me want him, and our wedding night, more.
Orie is Russell’s best man, but Cal is right next to Orie in the line. For his side of the attendees, it’s mostly people he’s known his entire life, from the hospital and from his charity work. On my side, somehow, my mother is here.
Things haven’t been perfect, but she has been sober since that day she called me from the rehab center. Gus even sits next to her now, after fulfilling his ring bearer obligation. Ray and Rory were our flower children, and they sit with Alena, who looks radiant and happy two years post-divorce.
Even Yolanda and Antony—along with some of my other clients—are here. Those first clients stuck with me through the ups and downs, and now we’re friends and each other’s closest advisers as we ride the wave of our children being in the limelight.
“You look fucking spectacular,” Russell mutters, when I get to the altar, and I can’t stop myself from laughing, rolling my eyes at him.
The officiant clears his throat and chuckles, and the rest of the room laughs—not having heard what my to-be husband said, but probably having an idea.
“You too,” I say back, quickly, because it’s true.
He cuts an imposing figure in his suit, his hair a little more salt than pepper now, but just as appealing as it was the day I met him.
Ettie takes my bouquet from me, and I’m glad when Russell takes my hands in his—anything to keep them from going rogue and reaching for him right now.
We move through the ceremony, and though my hands are shaking, I manage to make it through my vows with a grace Gus, our aspiring actor, should be proud of.
Then it’s time for Russell’s.
“I’m not going to share the story of the day we met, because that’s our own private memory,” Russell says, staring down at me with a look that combines pride, love, adoration, and a touch of lust. “But I will say this—the first time I met you, you read me instantly. You said I was arrogant, that I assumed people would like me, and that I had a god-complex.”
I’m not sure I said that last bit, but our friends and family are laughing, and Russell is looking at me like he might have a god-complex, but I’m his goddess, so I let it slide.
“And you were right. I’ve had a lot of successes in life, Jules, and arguably, a lot of reasons to be confident. But being with you is the single greatest achievement of my life, and I can’t wait to keep earning you, every single day.”
Though my happily ever after has been playing out for a few years now, this feels like the crowning achievement. I’m glad we’ve given this two years—two years of Russell and Gus becoming best friends. Two years of career success and pizza nights and happy, happy moments.
Although I’ll always hold many other days and moments—when Gus was born, when I met Russell, when my PR firm went into the black—close to my heart, I know this is the best. This moment in which I’ve finally gone from fiancée to wife. The moment in which our family is official, legal, and forever.
“You may kiss the bride,” the officiant says to Russell.
And so, he does.
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With gratitude,
Sierra