Epilogue
RILEY
SIX WEEKS LATER
“Remind me again why I’m here?” I ask my brother as we unroll our yoga mats side by side on the green.
“Because you love me,” Andrew replies.
Feigning confusion, I tell him, “Um, no, that can’t be it. I’m gonna need a better reason.”
He rolls his eyes at me. “Because Toby’s sick, and I wanted company.”
“Now, see, that might be a good enough reason if it weren’t eight a.m. on the only Saturday morning Addison has off this month. I could still be in bed with her right now.”
Now Andrew glares at me, and although I know it’s not a serious glare, he looks intimidating enough that I feel bad for anyone he decides to pull that face on for real.
“First of all, I’ll remind you again that I’m your brother and you love me.
Second, I’ll reiterate one more time that I’m your brother, and therefore, I don’t want to hear about what you and your girlfriend do in bed. Keep your domestic bliss to yourself.”
“Like I was going to give you details. Ew.”
“You don’t need to give me details,” he says, squatting down to flatten out the edge of his mat. “The face you make sometimes when you even think about Addison tells me more than I need to know.”
I lift my foot and nudge him in the ribs with the toe of my sneaker. Not hard, but enough to catch him by surprise and make him topple over onto his ass.
He just chuckles as he stands back up. “You know you could have invited her.”
“I did,” I tell him. “She laughed and offered to meet us at the diner afterward.”
“Then I guess she doesn’t love you as much as you love me.”
“Shut up,” I say, though I know he’s joking.
He yanks me into a side hug, squeezing me tight against him. “Hey, you know I’m only giving you shit, right? I’m so happy for you, Riles.”
“Thanks.” I wrap my arm around his midsection and bury my face into the thick material of his hoodie.
When we let each other go, he pulls the hoodie over his head and tosses it to the ground beside his yoga mat.
I’ll probably need to take my zip-up off for the class, but I’m going to wait until the last minute.
The October chill is definitely in the air this morning.
But I’m sure once I get my body moving, it won’t be that bad.
“So what about you?” I ask, prompting my brother to give me a quizzical look. “You haven’t dated anyone in a while. Maybe you should try to find your person too.”
“Ugh, you’re as bad as Brenden.”
“I’m absolutely not. I only want you to find the kind of happiness I have. And yes, I’m fully aware that not everyone needs to be in a romantic relationship to be happy, but I know you. I know you want that.”
Sighing, Andrew says, “Sure, it’s something I’m hoping to find eventually. But I’m plenty happy being on my own right now.”
“Well, maybe you’d have a better chance at finding someone if you actually went on dates.”
At this, his cheeks turn pink, which isn’t something I see on him often. “I do go on dates. They’re just not the kind of dates I feel like I should tell my sister about.”
It takes me a second to figure out what he means, and then I groan.
“I may not have dated anyone seriously in a while, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been lonely,” he adds.
“Yup, okay.” I hold up a hand to stop any further conversation. “Don’t need details. I got it.”
I take off my sneakers and plop down on my mat. Laughing, Andrew kicks off his sneakers too. He’s about to sit when a child comes barreling toward him shouting, “Hey, Mr. Andy!”
The kid manages to stop himself mere inches from knocking into my brother, and then he throws his short arms around Andrew’s waist.
Giving the kid a couple pats on the back, Andrew says, “Hi, Mason.”
Mason releases him and takes a step back, giving him some space, but not much. “It’s so cool that you’re here! I made my dad take me, because of how you said you liked yoga, and I wanted to try it.”
Although I’m watching this exchange from the ground, I don’t miss the way Andrew’s face morphs into a quick look of panic before he smiles tepidly at the kid. “Um, that’s nice,” he says, his head swiveling back and forth like he’s looking for something. Or someone.
Mason notices me now and waves. “Hi! I’m Mason. Mr. Andy’s my teacher this year, and he’s super cool.”
I smile. “You’re right. He is super cool. I’m Riley, his sister.”
“I know who you are! My dad says I’m not allowed to ask you for autographs or anything, but I know you’re famous. My mom used to listen to your music all the time, but then she left us, so now she doesn’t.”
“Oh. Uh... I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Mason tells me, arranging his face into what I think is supposed to be a stoic expression, but he doesn’t quite get there. “I cried a lot about it, but I’m better now.”
I don’t know the appropriate response to that, but as my brain is putting some things together, I spot Connor Shaw rushing over this way.
Right. I recognize Mason now as Connor’s son who ran into us at the summer festival when he was chasing a squirrel.
I should have realized it right away, since the kid is currently wearing a T-shirt with a large graphic print of squirrel on it.
“Mason, bud, please,” Connor says, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder when he reaches us. “You’ve got to stop running off as soon as I turn around. People are going to think I’m a terrible father.”
He looks exhausted, despite the fact that, as a farmer, I assume he’s more than used to getting up at this time and even earlier.
But I imagine he’s still adjusting to the single parent thing, even though it’s been a quite a while now since his ex-wife left.
It can’t be easy running a whole farm and raising a clearly energetic kid, no matter how much time you have to get used to it.
“I wanted to say hi to Mr. Andy!” Mason defends himself. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Connor tells him. “But please wait for me to go with you next time.” Glancing at my brother now, he gives Andrew a curt nod. “Hello.”
“Yeah, uh, hi,” Andrew stutters out.
Connor clears his throat and starts swiveling his head around like he’s looking for an escape. “Right, yeah. So we should go find a spot to set up. Good to see you.”
“Right. You too,” Andrew says. And then he sort of trips over his own feet as he goes to sit down on his mat.
Ignoring Andrew’s clumsiness, Connor nudges Mason to get him to start walking. Mason gives us a friendly goodbye as his dad directs him away.
I turn to look at Andrew, who’s now sitting down next to me. “Okay, what was that? Are you mad at him or something?”
He shakes his head, looking alarmed. “No! I mean, we’re not—we’re not like friends or anything. But no.”
“So why were you weird?”
“I wasn’t weird.” He shakes his head again. “That wasn’t weird.”
“You’re still being weird.”
“No, I’m not!” he hisses at me.
I want to keep pushing him, because he definitely is being weird. I didn’t think he and Connor were particularly close, but Andrew’s normally really nice to everyone. And he wasn’t exactly being rude to Connor. But he was being something.
Before I can say anything else, though, the yoga instructor greets everyone from her place in front of the gazebo and lets us know we’re about to begin.
I stop thinking about what was up with my brother, because I have to focus on holding the poses as the instructor leads us through the class.
This class is supposed to be family friendly, but the stupid warrior pose still makes my thighs ache.
The thing with Andrew and Connor has almost entirely slipped my mind, until I glance over at Andrew to check if I’m doing a pose correctly and catch him staring off to the side, rather than at the instructor in the front. I follow his line of sight, and—Oh. Is he staring at Connor’s ass?
I mean, I can’t blame him if he is. It’s a great ass. In high school, I spent plenty of time staring at Connor, and he’s gotten even broader and more muscular since then.
But when Andrew fumbles in transitioning from one pose to the next, it’s obvious that Connor has truly distracted him. Which is surprising for Andrew. Maybe he’s really into him?
As far as I know, Connor is straight, so I hope my brother isn’t harboring a painful, impossible crush on the guy.
Been there, done that. Wrote the songs about it.
When the class ends, I’m eager to get over to Reed’s.
Partly because I’m hungry, but mostly to see Addison.
As Andrew and I are turning to head across the street, Mason comes running toward us again, so we stop and wait for him.
This time Connor remains a short distance away while Mason says goodbye to Andrew.
I notice he’s avoiding looking over at us, though.
He’s staring down and scuffing his shoes into the grass, which seems odd.
I want to ask Andrew again about Connor, but it’ll have to wait until we have more time to talk alone.
Addison’s already at the diner when we walk in.
She’s sitting next to Brenden at the counter, chatting with him and Travis.
As soon as she sees us, she gets up and comes over to greet me with a kiss.
It’s brief and totally innocent, but my whole body lights up in response.
Being able to kiss her in public is still new to me.
After I posted a video to social media of myself singing “Light as a Feather,” one of the songs I wrote for Addison, I stopped worrying about getting caught with her.
I thought about posting “Sweet Like Peaches,” but I chose the song that used female pronouns repeatedly, because I wanted to be sure the message was clear.
Plus, I’m saving “Sweet Like Peaches” for when I record my new album. I think it’ll make a great lead single.
I took Addison’s advice and reached out to Skyler, which turned out to be wonderful.
Even though he and I haven’t spoken in years, he was still so kind to me.
And he put me in touch with his husband Trevor, who happens to be starting his own record label.
Trevor loved the song demos I sent him, and he offered to sign me once he gets everything off the ground.
It feels good knowing I have other industry people in my corner.
People who want to support me and help me take my music career in a new direction.
I can trust that Trevor won’t ever expect me to hide who I am or try to be someone I’m not, because he and Skyler had to deal with that shit for years from their own label and management.
I was nervous about how my fans would respond to the song I shared, since it was essentially my coming out. But now that I’ve done it, I feel free. There were definitely plenty of negative responses, but I can deal with that. I’ve had haters since the start of my career. That comes with the fame.
The public response as a whole, though, has been overwhelmingly positive. It seems like the song reached a lot of people who weren’t fans of my music before, and that’s really exciting.
But the most exciting thing for me is getting to be with the woman sitting down beside me at the table right now.
The woman who helped me discover the parts of myself I didn’t know were missing, and who helped me forge a new path for myself.
One where I can continue sharing my music with the world but not make music my entire life.
Now I get to start my mornings wrapped up in bed with the person I love, and I get to end my nights with sex that makes my toes curl. And I get to have all the beautiful moments in between.
While Addison asks me and Andrew about yoga, she casually slides her hand onto my thigh like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like this is something we’ve been doing our whole lives. Like it’s something we’ll keep doing forever.
It may have taken me a long road and many breakup songs to find her. But now that I have, I don’t intend on letting her go. Finders keepers, right?