Epilogue #2
“Debauchery,” Teddy said.
“Sounds inspiring.” Rose chuckled, turning with a wink to Blaise, whose pale complexion darkened behind the counter. “Happy anniversary.”
They almost made it home without another incident but stopped for a bottle of wine at the grocery store and ran into Carlos and Erina shopping for their own date night.
Erina was on break between spring and winter ballet seasons—and hadn’t stayed with Teddy a single night.
“Meet at the bakery for breakfast?” she suggested.
“Coffee. Maybe,” Teddy said. “I’m about to be Small Miracled out.”
Home should have been the one place they could be safe.
“Hey, Teddy!” Rick called from the beach as Teddy opened the sliding glass doors to let in the evening air.
Rick and Dan were walking the beach, having rented Mrs. Thompkins’s house next door for autumn. Dan had a few jobs in town, though he still traveled back to the city often, and Rick had set up shop earlier to finish the play.
Interpretive Hearts started casting next week.
Teddy thought the title a little cheesy, but he bowed to Rick’s experience.
“Hey, Teddy!” Dan called in kind, twice as jubilant.
“Hi, guys!” Finn came up behind Teddy to wave back.
“If they come over here,” Teddy muttered, “we are not letting them in.”
“Aww, it’s nice having them as neighbors. Imagine if they were staying in your guest room.”
“Touché.” Teddy blanched.
Rick and Dan did not come over but continued down the beach, leaving Teddy and Finn to make dinner and finally start enjoying their anniversary alone.
Even when the others returned to the city, Teddy knew their presence here would become a regular occurrence. Deep down, he was glad, not that he planned to tell them that.
Even his mother was considering a change, despite never having lived anywhere but the city. If she moved out to the beach, too, it would all be over.
He almost looked forward to it.
A glass of wine, dinner, a cupcake, Mark Wahlberg’s ’98 flick The Big Hit about a socially anxious hit man—it was ridiculous and perfect, though the most perfect moment may have been when Finn, clearing away the dishes later, hummed to himself as he mimed dance moves from Teddy’s class.
Although that was vying for most perfect moment with Finn’s hand slipping into Teddy’s pants during the movie credits, mouth latching onto his neck, with neither of them getting up from the sofa or managing to remove all their clothing before they’d finished panting and writhing on the cushions.
Hard call, but the best moment was definitely either the dancing or debauchery.
Afterward, they lay on Teddy’s beach chair under the stairs, a little squished to both fit, but Teddy’s hip didn’t protest.
“I think my dancing’s improving,” Finn said, head on Teddy’s shoulder, their hands entwined.
“Mm, you could almost be presentable one day, if I dedicated an entire class to you.”
“Jerk!” Finn bit lightly at his shoulder.
“Even Marvin dances circles around you.”
“Marvin can literally do circles in his wheelchair. That’s cheating!”
Teddy laughed and cuddled Finn closer to him, realizing as he did how much they’d come full circle, having started right there in his beach chair the day they met, and later that same night when Finn carried Teddy inside.
Even Nora diving into the sand was the same, though Smudge was a welcome addition, sitting on a towel Finn had set on the sand to coax him from the porch. So far, it wasn’t working, no matter how much Nora darted back and forth in front of Smudge, trying to get him to come play.
Fighting out of Teddy’s hold, Finn chuckled with a mixture of tiredness and contentment. His smile turned mischievous as he looked at their parody selves in Nora and Smudge and suddenly clasped Teddy’s wrist like he planned to yank him into the sand too.
“You will seriously injure me if you do what you’re thinking.”
“I know. That’s why you’re going to come willingly.” Finn gave a gentle tug but waited for Teddy to get up on his own.
Warily, Teddy did, following where Finn led him, off the porch and onto the beach. Nora followed a pace or two, but seeing that Smudge was still on his towel, she eventually trotted back to her friend.
Finn’s hold on Teddy moved down to clasp his hand, and they continued to the water’s edge, which had an ethereal silver sheen to it at night that Teddy had always found calming, even if he rarely went this close to the water, let alone into it.
“I don’t usually go in the water,” he said when Finn, barefoot like he was, tried leading him into the lapping waves.
“You realize you live in a beach house, right?”
“I’m aware, but—”
“But you’re a cat, I know.” Finn grinned.
“Don’t say it,” Teddy warned.
Finn snickered but left the implied “here, kitty, kitty” unspoken. “We won’t get our clothes wet. Come on. Just a little farther. Have I steered you astray so far?”
“Amazingly, no.”
“Though swimming would do wonders for your—”
“Don’t push it.”
Lifting their hands, Finn kissed the back of Teddy’s, then tugged him along, and this time Teddy allowed himself to get dragged into the surf.
The water was cool with the sunset but still pleasant at the end of summer. It swirled around their ankles and a little up their calves until Finn stopped their trek and pulled Teddy closer to wrap his arms around his waist.
Stars above, water rocking gently against them, the quiet of no one else on the beach, and the light from the house illuminating Nora and Smudge back by the porch made Teddy wonder if this moment was even more perfect than dancing and debauchery.
It was hard to get used to the idea that perfect could be improved upon.
They danced together somewhat, in the dark, in the water, swaying with the waves and holding each other close. Finn’s eyes, although shadowed with so little light around them, still managed to look ocean blue.
A bark stole Teddy’s attention back to where Smudge had finally pounced off his towel to tackle Nora, something the cat seemed to immediately regret, as he froze once his paws dug into the sand and leapt back onto the towel with a shake of his fur.
Teddy and Finn laughed, especially since Nora lay down in the sand, sulking that her success had been so short-lived.
Pulling Teddy closer against him, Finn drew his attention back with a slow kiss, light at first and then deeper when he tilted his head and glided their tongues together.
“You know, I could almost go for round two, right here on the beach,” Finn whispered. “Throw you down and roll around in the sand like From Here to Eternity.”
“Careful, Doc,” Teddy said, because as enticing as that sounded, the reality of water and sand all over him was never appealing. “I’m old and fragile.”
“You are neither of those things,” Finn said and kissed Teddy again, slower, deeper, holding tight to his lower back as he crushed their bodies together, and Teddy felt them both stir to arousal.
“I suppose I could be up for washing all this sand off in the shower,” Teddy said, growing harder just from the thought.
Finn’s smile was even more beautiful when Teddy had the rest of his body wrapped around him. “That sounds like the perfect end to a perfect night. Aren’t you glad Nora covered you in sand that day so I could get you to dig your toes into it now?”
“You know,” Teddy said simply, “I am.”
A few more kisses and the beginning of straying hands later, and they headed out of the surf to return to their pets.
Maybe Teddy didn’t hate the beach as much as he used to.
But he still couldn’t wait to get the sand off his feet.