Epilogue
Sixteen years later.
My favorite part of a big party came after the last guests had left, though I would never admit that to anyone else. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be with them, and I didn’t rush them out. It was more a matter of enjoying the silence that fell over our home in the aftermath of so much life and celebration.
If anything deserved a celebration, it was Colton’s eighteenth birthday. How had eighteen years melted away in the blink of an eye? It was a question that had weighed on my mind for weeks leading up to the big event. My baby was now a man, just as handsome and cocky as his father but with just as big a heart too. I was proud of the person he had become and was still becoming, and it was clear from the sheer number of friends who had attended the party that he was adored. It was easy to love him, just as it was easy to love Barrett.
Barrett was now entertaining the rest of the hunk holes in his study. Years ago, he had taken down the wall between it and the next room, expanding the space until it was more like a man cave. There was a pool table, a few old-fashioned arcade games, and a huge television with a sound system that could rattle the entire penthouse when he cranked up the volume on a particularly loud movie.
I heard them in there as I passed the closed door and smiled to myself at their laughter. All these years, and they were still as close as ever.
On the other hand, the girls had decided to turn in after we’d spent an hour or two chatting in the kitchen over a few leftover desserts and a couple of half-empty bottles of wine. There was something profound about friendships like ours that had spanned decades. We had been together through all of life’s ups and downs—our weddings, the births of our children, and even a few losses that had come along.
Ari’s beloved grandmother came to mind. His daughter, Rose, had inherited Farrah’s no-nonsense attitude and her keen work ethic, and she was only fifteen. I had never known a fifteen-year-old with so much drive, including my daughter. Farrah would’ve been proud of her.
The kids shared separate rooms from their parents, with Valentina, Aria, and Rose bunking with my Sienna. She and Rose were only a couple of months apart in age, thanks to Rose’s conception falling sometime around her parents’ wedding when I’d announced my pregnancy. The girls were like sisters, almost as close as Valentina and Aria.
The boys had retreated to Colton’s room, where I lingered close to the door but heard nothing coming from inside. No doubt Noah and Colton were playing a video game while wearing headphones, something I wouldn’t complain about. My only request tonight was for the kids to stay in rather than the older ones going out to raise hell. They were still underage, though that didn’t seem to make much of a difference to many of their classmates. The stories I heard were almost enough to make me consider investing in strong locks on their bedroom doors. I could only hope they managed to avoid the pitfalls of growing up in a fast-paced world.
I was about to finish my walk-through, turning out lights as I went before noise from the balcony beyond the living room caught my attention. At first, I assumed the boys were out there sneaking drinks, thinking they could get away with it the way kids their age always did. Every generation thought they invented being sneaky.
Instead of rushing out to startle them, I slipped off my slingback pumps and carried them with me, creeping on silent feet until I reached the slightly open door. I wasn’t going to raise a fuss. I only wanted to startle them.
“I can think of one thing I didn’t get tonight.”I recognized Colton’s voice, barely raised above a whisper. He was likely trying to talk Noah into doing something they both knew would be frowned upon.
A second voice answered him. “Colton, we shouldn’t…”
The sound chilled my blood because the voice did not belong to a young man. It was a girl’s voice, one I recognized after having heard it for fifteen years. I didn’t want to believe it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what was waiting on the terrace, but I could keep myself from taking one step after another.
By the time I stepped out into a balmy night high above the city, I found my son with his arms around none other than Rose Goldsmith. The lights I hadn’t turned off in the living room cast just enough of a glow to let me see them kissing passionately. Rose’s fingers ran through Colton’s hair while he ran his hands over her back. It was obvious after a few moments of shocked silence that I needed to intrude.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded. At the sound of my outrage, they flew apart, both flushed and breathless.
“Mom.” Colton looked at Rose, then at me. The poor girl was trembling, on the verge of tears, thanks to being discovered. “I can explain.”
“Please, do,” I urged, folding my arms. The quiet peace I’d enjoyed only moments earlier was gone, replaced by a sense of foreboding at my son’s poor decision-making. “Please explain why I found you kissing a girl who’s too young for you and may as well be your sister.”