Epilogue
EPILOGUE
Jude
B ecause I’d always known Jess didn’t return my feelings, I’d forbidden myself to fantasize about being with her in any way. Nothing physical, and no weddings or houses or kids together, though occasionally, they snuck into my subconscious. Even then, it just hurt too much to feel how desperately I wanted those things in the midst of our dark time.
Waking up with her next to me in bed wearing just shy of nothing except a wedding ring on her finger?
I didn’t need to dream up a fantasy because I was living it.
She stretched and rolled over, the gorgeous expanse of her back bare and calling to me. I shouldn’t wake her. We’d traveled for a full day to get here and now, in our little bungalow on the sea, we had a full ten days to just be together .
Married and together.
“Are you already awake?” she mumbled.
It didn’t surprise me she wasn’t a morning person, but her level of disdain for waking early when she didn’t have to cracked me up. For as proactive and energetic as she was, the woman loved to sleep in.
“Just admiring my naked wife.” I caved to the impulse and trailed my fingers from the curve of her hip and up her spine, savoring the warm, smooth skin.
Sleepy eyes blinked open and my gut clenched. I would never ever tire of her looking at me like that—like her hunger for me matched what I felt for her.
“And do you have plans for me, now that you’ve taken me to this remote location and have me all to yourself?” she asked, slowly pushing up on an elbow and rolling with the sheet so she wore it like a backless gown.
Shame. Why did they have sheets here anyway? Who even wanted them?
It had been a matter of hours and yet, here it was, this need gripping both of us, demanding. But now, the longing and the borderline angst of the wanting could be sated.
I drew close and nipped at her earlobe. “I have so many plans, wife.”
Her smile stretched wide and she bit her lip, sitting up and letting the sheet fall away. “Then show me, husband.”
Jes s
The island breeze cooled us and rustled through my hair as we sat in the warmth of the morning sun and ate fresh fruits and pastries for breakfast.
Jude’s face held a softness, a relaxed stasis I wouldn’t have imagined existed before the last few months. But day by day, the closer we’d gotten to our elopement and this trip, the more ease he seemed to embody. Maybe it was the passage of time and the settling of some of the sharpest moments of grief, too.
“Have I mentioned I love you?” he asked, linking his pinky around mine as he sipped his coffee and gazed out at the ocean.
The thrill of his beautiful lips forming those words for me would never get old. We’d spent too long without honesty between us, and too long missing out on a version of our relationship that could be so good.
It was why we’d spent two months dating and were already married. Rushed to some, sure, but what else did we need to wait for? We were adults who knew our own minds. The challenges of combining households and adjusting to factoring in another person were just that—challenges we’d handle together. And because we both had friends and a community—some of which overlapped and some that were independent of each other—we weren’t putting pressure on each other to be everything to one another.
We were partners. Lovers. Friends. And all of those words felt feeble compared to what it felt like to be with Jude after so long.
We’d created patterns of how we treated each other when we were fighting and foolish. Breaking those defaults of mistrust and suspicion hadn’t been automatic, but since we’d both committed to it, even in the space of a few months, we’d formed new ways of handling frustration, doubt, and upset.
There was still so much work to be done, but we’d do it together. And the reality that Jude knew me better than anyone ever had—that he’d seen me for how petty and vengeful and mean and ruled by anger and stubborn I could be and he loved me still? It freed me to be better. To own my faults and keep going, moving toward him even when everything wasn’t perfect. And he could do the same.
I’d stayed quiet too long, so I moved to seat myself in his lap. I cupped his handsome, beard-roughened cheeks in mine and tipped my forehead to touch his, so full of gratitude and love and hope, I could burst.
“And I love you.”
He grinned, the action rivaling the sun beaming behind me, and then he sealed the moment, the next in a line of a lifetime, with a kiss.
I hope Jude and Jess’s story brought you as much joy while reading as it did me while I wrote it. Don’t miss the bonus epilogue starring… well, read on to find out, and get your copy of his book, Known By You!