Epilogue #2
Brighton and Cliff both had the same shocked expressions. Other people laughing ruined Ms. Walker’s joke.
“That was the cruelest April Fools prank yet, Mom,” Cliff muttered. “May I sit next to Brighton again? He and I would like to make an announcement.”
I squeezed Ezra’s hand, excited to hear the two men had gotten engaged.
Once Ms. Walker took a seat next to Clem, Cliff cleared his throat. “Um, the announcement is that… Aaron and Mikey have an announcement.”
That surprised all of us, and our heads turned in their direction.
Aaron grinned. “When we got in from New York City last night, Cliff put us up in the bedroom where Mikey and I stayed during the filming of His Choice. After we re-enacted a little shower situation…”
There were some awkward chuckles.
“Aaron!” Mikey scolded. “They don’t need to hear that.”
“Now we do,” Keller countered. “Give us the deets.”
Mitch reached over and covered Keller’s mouth. “Please ignore this one. He has a one-track mind.”
Keller pushed Mitch’s hand away and grinned. “Like that’s ever bothered you.”
Mitch wrapped his arm around his husband’s shoulders and tugged him closer. “It hasn’t, but we should let Aaron finish.”
Aaron glanced around the room. “Well, I told Mikey last night that being back here… It reminded me that this was where I was when I realized I wanted to spend my life with him. I mean, I knew I had been falling in love with him before that. But I guess it was when it really hit me that he could end up with Cliff and I could end up regretting that I hadn’t said anything.
Thank God Ms. Walker talked some sense into me the day of the show’s finale and I mustered the courage to let Mikey know how I feel. ”
Mikey smiled shyly. “That might have been the best day of my life. Until last night.”
“As I held Mikey in that bed again, I proposed,” Aaron explained before beaming. “He said yes.”
Everyone shouted congratulations and joyous sentiments as we crowded around the couple to give them hugs and kisses.
When everyone had returned to their seats, Mikey thanked everyone again. “When I called my parents this morning, they said they were happy that I’d no longer be living in sin.”
That elicited some laughs and head shakes.
“My parents just asked me what took us so long,” Aaron added. “I think my sister is annoyed that the pressure will shift to her now.”
“Darling,” Ms. Walker called out to Cliff.
“You really must offer the mansion as a wedding venue. They’re young.
They don’t have the money to do it properly.
” She turned to Mikey. “Cliff’s father and I got married in the basement hall of a dilapidated bar, with reception food catered by a deli.
To think that was the best day of the marriage! ”
“Yes, of course they’re welcome to hold the ceremony and party here,” Cliff said with a smile. “If they’d like.”
Aaron was taken by surprise. “Wow. Cliff, you’ve been so generous to us. We really can’t keep taking…”
“He loves pleasing people,” Ms. Walker cut in. “He gets that from me.”
Cliff laughed. “Yeah, right. But my mother isn’t wrong. I would be thrilled. Only if you don’t have something else in mind.”
“You remember Ezra and I had our reception here,” I reminded Aaron and Mikey. “It was so lovely. The staff made sure everything was perfect.”
“Yes, we’ll be forever grateful,” Ezra added.
“We are, too,” Mitch said. “When Keller and I got married on the grounds, it was amazing. We worried about taking advantage of Cliff’s friendship, but he really meant it when he said he wanted that for us. Keller and I could never have afforded a venue as nice as this.”
“True,” Keller agreed. “I was a little worried about my pa falling off the wagon when he saw everyone around him drinking, and guys walking around with trays of wine glasses, but he didn’t. It turned out to be the perfect day.”
“He’s gone without for years now, huh?” I thought back to when Mitch had met Keller, and it seemed so long ago, yet like yesterday.
Keller nodded, looking as proud as any kid ever was of their parent. “He has. Things are so different. Mitch and I actually like spending time with him now. And he’s changed a lot in his thinking, too. He’s become such a big ally to gay people, and he’s critical of racists and bigots in all forms.”
“It’s true,” Mitch agreed. “Once he faced his real demons, he stopped projecting on everyone else. He’s at our house for dinner every Sunday and we go to sporting events together.”
Mitch, as a chief of police, was comfortable, but hardly wealthy. Nevertheless, he helped Keller’s father with payments for a nicer apartment than the trailer that he and Keller had lived in for years. I never once heard Mitch complain about it.
“You boys think about whether you want to marry here,” Brighton said, bringing the conversation back to the topic of Mikey and Aaron marrying. “If yes, just pick a date other than October seventeenth of this year.”
“Why? What’s that?” Myles wondered.
“The day Brighton and I chose to marry here,” Cliff declared with a grin.
“What?” I exclaimed. The Aaron-Mikey announcement had led me to believe Cliff wasn’t engaged.
“It happened last week,” Cliff responded. “Only Clara knows. We wanted to get you all together to tell you.”
I rushed to hug him and Brighton. Soon, I was crowded in as everyone else surrounded us, clapping Cliff’s and Brighton’s shoulders and pulling the men into hugs.
“If you say April Fools, I shall never speak to you again,” Ms. Walker teased Cliff.
“Have you ever known me to be a prankster?” Cliff asked before pulling his mother into an embrace. “Thank you, Mom. If it weren’t for your common sense talk that day…”
“You intervened for him, too?” Adam asked. “I didn’t know that.”
James and Thad, two of Cliff’s staff, entered the room with trays holding glasses of champagne for everyone to take.
When Cliff saw that everyone had one, he raised his glass. “To my mother…for everything.”
“Hear, hear!” One of the men shouted before we all took a sip.
“And to Cliff and Brighton, and Aaron and Mikey!” Mitch shouted.
The guests all yelled cheers to the happy couples, then drank more wine.
Nobody had noticed that Flynt and Josh had entered the house until they went to stand by their fathers, Adam and Myles, looking confused by what was happening.
“Did someone just get another mangy cat?” Flynt asked, remembering a similar scene when Mitch had surprised Keller with Henry, Keller’s favorite cat from the local shelter.
Myles leaned in to his boys. I couldn’t hear what he said, but it was obvious he had explained who had just become engaged. Flynt and Josh smiled, then shook hands with Cliff, Brighton, Aaron, and Mikey.
“Is it okay if Aiden and Charon come over, too?” Flynt asked Cliff.
Charon, my niece, was dating Josh. They were a delightful couple.
Josh was as fair and handsome as his biological dad, Myles.
Charon resembled me when I was younger—a thin, Black girl with huge brown eyes and a smile that could be featured on dental ads.
She was as sweet as she was pretty. Josh adored her.
It was too early to predict whether either of the boys’ relationships would last, but Charon’s, Flynt’s and Josh’s choices gave all of us confidence that they gravitated toward kind, smart, responsible individuals.
“Sure, they can,” Cliff responded. “Give them a call. There’s plenty of food, and I understand the chef made a tiered vanilla cake.”
“Awesome!” Flynt replied. “Um, because I just got news, too.”
Everyone abruptly ended their chatter, heads turning Flynt’s way.
“Flynt, no April Fools jokes!” Adam warned.
“It’s not, Dad.” Flynt appeared nervous but excited at the same time. “You know how I asked Aaron if he would share my movie script with the producer of that commercial?” Adam nodded skeptically. “His company just called me. They want to option it for cable.”
Adam and Myles exchanged looks, not sure if they should believe their son.
“Flynt, you’re not fibbing?” Myles asked.
Flynt shook his head. “I swear. They really did. They suggested you guys hire a lawyer since I’m not eighteen yet. I need someone who can negotiate and sign on my behalf.”
Everyone seemed dumbfounded.
Cliff finally snapped out of his stupor. “Wait. Is this the script you showed me a couple of years ago? The one with the gelatin vagina?”
“The what?” I exclaimed.
Flynt nodded. “Yeah. Well, I haven’t talked to them yet about adding that part back in.”
Cliff gulped the rest of his champagne. “Just when I thought the world was making sense.”
There were a couple of moments of shocked silence before Aaron held up his champagne glass. “Awesome, dude. Congratulations!”
Josh hugged his brother, then his parents embraced Flynt, too. Although they still seemed surprised, they were overjoyed for their son. The rest of us gathered around to do the same. It was a day of celebration, for sure.
“There hasn’t been this much cheering since old man Hatfield moved out of town,” Keller said, referencing the racist former chief of police who had scurried from White Pines once the tide had turned against his hateful rhetoric.
Ezra took my face into his hands. “Are you all right, baby?”
I realized I was crying. I wiped the tears and nodded. “It’s just such a wonderful day. All my boys are getting the happily ever after they deserve.”
Ezra smiled and placed his hand on my stomach. “So are you, Simone. And nobody is worthier than you.”
Just then, Mitch and Keller’s cat, Henry, raced into the room and rubbed up against Keller’s leg. Flynt backed away, still unimpressed with the poor one-eyed animal.
“What’s the matter, Henry? Everyone’s having fun but you?” Keller asked, as he knelt to pet him.
Mitch took a piece of cheddar cheese from the platter people had been snacking from and held it out for Henry. The cat gulped it from Mitch’s fingers with pleasure.
“There,” Keller said with a smile as Mitch massaged his husband’s shoulders. “Now everyone has what they wanted!”