Epilogue
One Year Later
Hope
“Hope! Wait up!” Perry called to me as he came rushing after me with a box. “Seriously, pretty girl, where the heck are you getting all this energy from?”
My fiancé was lagging behind a bit, but that was not because I was rushing or anything. He was the one who’d decided staying up most of the night before we had our big ceremony was a good idea.
Our Daddies were somewhere checking on some last-minute details, while we were left in charge of table decorations.
Table decorations for our commitment ceremony!
I still couldn’t believe that today, one year exactly after I’d shown up at the Ranch for the dating extravaganza, I was getting married—essentially—to the men I loved so much. To the men who loved me, accepted me, and, more than anything, encouraged me to be myself.
Life had changed so much in the last year that sometimes it still made my head spin. Everything hadn’t been smooth sailing, but together we’d made things work out.
We’d all taken part in planning and then watching our new house being constructed on Rawhide Ridge as Daddy Lee’s apartment, meant for one, proved to be just a little too snug for four.
Daddy Tyrell and Perry had both ended up finding work on the Ridge not long after the event ended.
Perry worked at Let’s Play, the newly opened gaming shop, where he spent most of his days helping kids pick out board games and teaching the occasional overly competitive adult how to lose gracefully.
Tyrell had taken a position at the local community center helping run programs for the kids in the area, and it suited him so perfectly that sometimes I wondered how he’d ever done anything else.
As for me…
Well.
I’d somehow gone from a nervous dating-event participant to Daddy Lee’s teaching assistant.
The days he taught in the Littles’ Wing were so much fun and I got to interact with a whole bunch of my new Little friends.
The first time I stood with him in front of one of his classes over at Rawhide University, I’d thought I might faint.
But Daddy Lee had simply squeezed my hand under the desk, given me that steady look of his, and suddenly I’d found my voice.
Turns out, I was pretty good at helping people learn more about themselves when Daddy Lee was teaching one of his seminars.
And I was also pretty decent at helping Daddy Lee keep his more enthusiastic students from setting the Ranch on fire.
Perry finally caught up to me, slightly out of breath, and thumped the box down onto one of the empty tables in the room.
“You are suspiciously happy about decorating,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me.
I grinned. “Open it.”
He looked at me.
Then at the box.
Then back at me again.
“Hope…”
“Just open it.”
He lifted the lid.
And then he started laughing.
“Oh my gosh,” he wheezed. “You did not.”
“Oh, I absolutely did.” And I was so proud of myself.
Inside the box were dozens of tiny jars. Each one was filled with glitter in all colors of the rainbow.
All of it sparkly and terrible and completely perfect.
Perry wiped at his eyes as he pulled one of the jars out. “You’re trying to get us killed before we even say our vows.”
“It’s tradition, don’t you think?” I insisted.
“Hope, the last time glitter was involved, you got spanked, flogged and fucked, and I was stuck in the corner with my bottom plugged.”
“And look how well that turned out.” I sent a huge grin his way, the joy inside me bubbling out.
He considered that for a second. “You make a compelling argument.”
This, too, was something that had happened on more than one occasion. Together, the two of us got into loads of shenanigans, because it didn’t take too much for one of us to convince the other to cause mischief.
We were just getting into the swing of things, sprinkling the shimmering sparkles across the center of the tables when a very familiar voice spoke from behind us.
“Hope.”
Uh oh.
Perry and I froze mid-shake, glitter jars still in our hands.
Slowly—very slowly—we both turned around.
Daddy Lee stood in the doorway with his arms folded and Daddy Tyrell stood beside him.
Both of them were staring at the tables.
At the glitter. At us. For a moment, nobody said anything.
Then Daddy Tyrell sighed. It wasn’t an angry sigh so much.
More the long-suffering sigh of a man who had accepted his fate.
“Button,” he said, rubbing a hand over his face.
“At least tell me that’s biodegradable.”
I immediately brightened. “It is!”
Daddy Lee pinched the bridge of his nose. “I should have known,” he muttered then shook his head. “Since you two have been punishment free for the last few weeks, I should have known to expect something today.”
“But—” I rushed to explain, waving my hands a little too enthusiastically and accidentally sprinkling more glitter everywhere. “It’s symbolic!”
Both Daddies looked at me.
“How exactly,” Daddy Lee asked slowly, “is glitter symbolic?”
Perry beamed beside me. “It’s how Hope got her first punishment from her Daddies!”
Daddy Tyrell groaned, and Daddy Lee closed his eyes for a second, letting out a frustrated breath. When he opened them again, the stern look was still there… but the corner of his mouth had betrayed him.
Just a smidge. “You two,” he said quietly, shaking his head. But when he stepped forward and brushed a stray fleck of glitter off my cheek, his expression softened completely.
“One year,” Daddy Tyrell said beside him, sliding an arm around Perry’s shoulders and placing a hand on Daddy Lee’s shoulder.
“One year,” Daddy Lee agreed, his gaze moving between all of us.
It hadn’t been perfect.
There had been an adjustment period. Learning how to balance four hearts instead of two.
Figuring out how to juggle all the different relationships between everyone.
Learning how to communicate and ensure everyone always felt heard, seen, and loved.
Discovering that the love growing between all of us was the perfect forever kind of love.
And somehow, somewhere along the way, the four of us had stopped feeling like a complicated arrangement. We’d become a family.
And today we were promising to stay that way.
Forever.
Perry squeezed my hand, glitter and all.
“I love you, pretty girl,” he mouthed to me before leaning over and giving me a gentle kiss. As I withdrew, I was rewarded with the very beautiful sight of my Daddies sharing their own vows of love and kisses.
Today was going to be the best day of my life.
And I had a feeling each day after would only get better and better.
The End