Epilogue #2
“I believe she used other words, though the message was the same. Don’t listen to them KK; I find your spirit charming.”
“Yeah, suuuure you do,” Alex said, shaking her head. “Do you also find nails on a chalkboard charming?”
And that, in a nutshell, was what it was like to show up and be part of our crazy little family. Everyone took turns picking at one another. No one was safe because everyone had history that all the others knew about. Even Tig would become a prime target once they knew him well enough.
“Is Enzo coming?” Elsie asked, having had a tight bond with him from almost the beginning.
“Yeah, he’s apparently bringing that Espen chick with him,” Paine told us as we moved inside. “They got into a case over their heads and thought it would be good for both to get out of the city for a day or two.”
“Did I tell you or did I tell you?” I asked, raising a brow at Tig, who had not seemed the least bit convinced when I told him that Enzo and Espen were going to be a thing eventually.
“Doesn’t mean anything,” he said, shaking his head at me as we moved inside.
“You’ll see,” I warned him, shaking my head and leaving him to the guys while I dragged a reluctant Elsie and a foot-dragging Alex into the kitchen with me.
“I told you that was a good man,” my mother said as way of greeting, waving a heart of romaine lettuce at me.
“Yes, you did,” I agreed.
“He’s the calm to your storm,” she added.
And, well, she was right.
But because I knew if I played into her hand that there would be endless amounts of discussion on the topic and food would not get cooked, I quickly changed subjects.
“Tig doesn’t think Enzo and Espen are a thing.”
“What is he, crazy?” my mother asked, shaking her head. “He’s bringing her to my table.”
“That’s exactly what I said!” I insisted.
As the night would prove, I was right on two points: Enzo and Espen were definitely a thing, and my family loved and welcomed Tig with open arms.
“Told you,” I said as we settled into bed after hard and rough followed by slow and sweet, until we were both just dead limbs and rapid heartbeats.
“Yeah, you did,” he agreed, fingers tracing down my spine. “Next week, you’re going to get started getting ready two hours before we go. And we’re not going to be late.”
We were late.
But not because I took too long getting ready, but because he had liked my outfit enough to need to rip it off me, and fuck me in the staircase before we finally made our way there… a record half an hour late.
Tig - 6 Months
It went pretty much exactly how I figured it would.
The trial, that is. It had been a long couple of weeks getting ready for it to finally take place, getting our stories straight so as to not implicate any of us in illegal activity for our parts in it, then getting coached by the prosecution.
It wasn’t my first trial. Or Sawyer’s. Or Brock’s.
But for Kenzi, Janie, Alex, L, and Barrett, it was.
So we took extra time trying to prepare them for any eventuality.
It was even harder in Kenzi’s case because a large part of her never wanted to set eyes on her backstabbing ex-best friend again. But it was inevitable and therefore took a lot of talking and listening to her ranting and raving, and, when all else failed, fucking her until she forgot about it.
That said, it went how I warned her it would.
Cassie’s lawyer played up Cassie’s sweet, wholesome, girl-next-door look with a pretty light-colored sundress, doing something to her eyes to make them look even bigger and more doe-like than usual.
She had brought her best acting gig to court, effortlessly throwing her boyfriend under the bus with tearful testimony about how he abused her and forced her into it, actually using the fake snuff film as evidence of his abuse because of all the bruises she had in it.
They gave her five with parole in three. She would be out before she was too old to continue seeking her dream of stardom, and with a genuine scandal and sob story behind her to really sell it.
But as she was led away, she turned back, eyes falling right on Kenzi. I could feel her entire body stiffen behind me, and reached to settle my hand at her hip, knowing how torn up she still was over the betrayal, no matter how much she wanted to say she was over it.
“Kenzi, I…” she started, alligator tears filling up her eyes.
Luckily, my girl was too smart to fall for that bullshit. “Don’t even try to make an excuse for this, Cass,” Kenz said, surprising me with how strong her voice was. “There’s nothing you can say to make up for that kind of betrayal. I hope your hair gets dry and brittle in jail.”
And that, for girls like Kenz and Cass, was the equivalent of hoping they got shanked in the shower.
Inappropriate as it was, I couldn’t fight it; I threw my head back and laughed right there in a crowded courtroom.
“For what it’s worth,” Cass said, eyes clearing immediately, showing exactly what a con artist she was, “I told you to take a chance on him.”
With that, she was led away.
Kenz was uncharacteristically silent for a long time, her whole body straight, her focus on the door where her old friend disappeared to be transferred to serve her sentence.
“Talk to me.” My hand moved up to stroke her hair behind her ear, fingers trailing down the column of her neck to rest on her shoulder.
“How much of it was an act?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper as she leaned back into me. “I think that’s what I can’t move past. It couldn’t have all been fake, not all these years. How much was real, was someone just being a friend, and how much was someone planning to fuck me over?”
I gave her a squeeze, leaning down to press my lips to the side of her head. “Honey, that is likely a question that you will never have answers to. You’re just going to need to get to a place where you don’t need them.”
Her exhale was slow, seeming to take most of the stress out with it. “Yeah,” she agreed, nodding. “Some day, right?”
“Yeah, honey, some day.”
“Just not today. Today there is going to be a lot of bitching.”
To that, I smiled. “Yeah, I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
Kenzi - 1.5 Years
“You’re being unreasonable,” Reese insisted, her tone a mix of annoyance, resignation, and the slightest bit upset.
In general, Reese was not overly emotional. Or, maybe it was more accurate to say that she didn’t seem all that emotional because I was always the one going from zero to one hundred.
On this, though, she was not giving up.
We were sitting inside Luxe, which was closed for the day—something I never did, but this was a special occasion, and it was completely appropriate for said occasion.
We were having a dress fitting.
For my wedding.
It still felt weird even to think that: my wedding. I was getting married. I was going to walk down an aisle in the fiercest wedding dress ever created, say my vows, accept a ring, spend the rest of my life with a man who I thought was not my type, but was the most amazing man I had ever met.
Truly.
There was no one who even came close.
He let me be me. And he did it without hesitation, resentment, or teasing. He appreciated my spirit, admired my drive, and made sure a day never passed by where I didn’t feel like the luckiest woman alive.
And he wanted to marry me. This was evidenced by the sparkling, light-catching, stunning square-cut diamond on the ring finger of my left hand. He had given it to me five months before, on our one-year anniversary.
After a good, long cry that I made him swear he would never tell anyone about under threat of castration with a very dull kitchen knife, I had asked if he picked that day so he didn’t have to remember two anniversaries.
He totally had.
Which only made me love him all the more.
Anyway, I was getting married. And while I was still working on the design for my dress, I already had several options for my bridesmaids: Elsie, Alex, Janie, Amelia, and, of course, Reese.
They were all being their own versions of pains in my ass.
Though, because I had been in fashion most of my adult life, I had a specific body type that absolutely did not work for every piece of clothing, I totally understood that Elsie and Alex didn’t want to wear heels since they were both already tall, and that Janie didn’t want anything too low-cut because she was rather small in the chest area.
I was cool with Amelia wanting something that hugged the waist and spread at the thighs since that was her so-called ‘problem area.’
I was genuinely happy to accommodate within reason.
Key word there being—reason.
That was why I agreed to all the aforementioned, but I also insisted Janie wear a dress and heels, no matter how much she bitched about it, and Amy was wearing something tight in the bust even though she thought it was ‘too much.’
I really never expected my sister to be my biggest problem.
Reese, while not loving the idea of getting dolled up, had never had a problem with throwing on a dress and heels when the occasion called for it. She always pulled it off, though she would have found men picking their jaws up off the floor if she would listen to a few of my pointers.
I thought she would slip it on and be a begrudging, but happy for me, camper.
“Reese, seriously. I don’t understand what the problem is here.”
The dress was lovely. It was fall, and all the girls were in various shades of autumnal colors, all different styles depending on the bodies beneath.
Reese, because of her tanner skin, was in the lightest of colors, a warm burnt yellow shade that would set off her skin and hair perfectly.
She exhaled hard, looking around at the girls who were pretending not to be listening, then getting closer and whisper-yelling. “It’s body con!”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed, brows drawing together. “And?”
“And that means it’s tight.”
“Hello, designer here,” I said, snorting. “I obviously know that a body con dress is tight.”