Epilogue
Angelo
I didn’t know that I'd ever get used to the endless summer, but it beat being in a gray spell for months at a time in New York. Dirty snow piled on street corners, wind so chilly it could bite your ears off without a hat on.
Turned out I didn't have nearly as many things to bring to my new house as I thought.
Everything I owned, my mother packed snug into several moving boxes as she stood over them with tears in her eyes.
I swore, for a woman dead set on getting me out of her house, there was a lot of tugging and pulling going on as I hurried off to my closing.
She was a true empty nester now, and it was hitting Anna harder than when Mateo left for the Army.
Even with me only a quick fifteen-minute drive away.
I sat in my truck staring up at my place—the light siding, big windows, palm trees framing the front.
There were a million things I still wanted to do.
Needed to do. Years of work ahead of me adding my own touches to the landscaping leading up to the entry door, rocks to form the walking path, flowers and bushes, outdoor lighting.
Inside, I would need the calvary before it was comfortable.
My father and brother, finally doing the things my mother always wanted out of us as a crew, working together on building something meaningful.
It just ended up being an in-house job. I didn’t have couches or tables, no place to sit, not a bedframe or a towel to dry my hands on—yet. I was starting from square one.
None of that was important, though. What was important was that I was home. My truck in the driveway for the very first time with my name on the deed. The rightful owner, the one who had forever to make it all happen. And the woman to do it with.
A knock on the driver's window stole my attention, and an easy smile stretched across my face.
Mia was there in her prettiest, most professional dress.
It was all flowy sleeves and purple flowers, and her long hair was in its naturally voluminous state of curls.
She looked like every dream I'd had since September, wrapped with a bow.
She held up a set of house keys, jingling them excitedly.
I popped out of the truck, and my boots crunched the rocks under my feet.
"Welcome home," she said sweetly, dropping the keys into my open palm.
"It's been a pleasure working with you," I replied. "I'll let you know when I'm ready to buy that second home off the West Coast."
"Great." Her smile remained, but she took a step back. "I'll leave you to it then…"
I pounced on her, scooping my girlfriend into my arms and she laughed like a madwoman, curling her head into the crook of my neck.
She stayed wrapped around me all the way to the door, as I fumbled with the keys one-handed and finally jammed them through the lock, passing through the threshold into my big empty house.
Empty only literally. My entire world was inside this house.
She was in my arms, grinning at me with those gold-flecked eyes shimmering, her dimples burrowing as deep as they could go.
I leaned down and kissed her, sweeping our tongues together innocently, and then not so innocently for a few minutes before Mia put a begrudging stop to it.
When I finally put her down, she went to the wall and made a show of flicking on a light switch that lit up the foyer.
"Let there be light," she announced. "We are fully operational, electricity flowing."
"Yeah, now I just need some flooring." I scraped the toe of my boot over the plywood. "A couple…hundred buckets of paint, who knows?"
"I specifically remember you saying you were the man for the job."
"Oh, I am," I agreed. "I think I might just need a woman counterpart for all those very intricate details."
We walked slowly into the kitchen, the big windows at the back of the house opening up to my favorite view of the orange trees in peak season, heavy and vibrant with fruit. Mia paused at the kitchen table and did a spin, looking around the space.
"This house would be amazing to design," she said. "But how are you so sure that what I would pick is what you would want?"
I shrugged. "I tend to like most things you do."
"What if I wanted a giant chandelier right here?" She pointed at the tall ceiling above the island.
"Then you should have a giant chandelier right there," I said, putting my hands in my pockets, happily observing her little tiptoe dance around the room.
"Maybe some patterned wallpaper behind the fireplace, sconces, mid-century modern artwork, cozy armchairs."
"You just tell me what to buy, sweetheart. You can call the shots, but promise me one thing," I added. "Plants, for the windows. Those were always for you."
Her cheeks went pink, like her dress, and Mia folded her hands together still looking around, ideas swirling, that mind brewing with everything she could imagine this home being for me…for us, hopefully.
Mia and I were better than ever. As far as her job went, as of today, we were free to be completely open with our relationship.
The closing marked an end to the client/realtor morality clause that I was completely on board with Mia adhering to when it came to her boss and coworkers.
That didn't mean that we had kept our secret from everyone else as long, though.
By Halloween, her sisters were all in on it.
We had a bit of an awkward conversation with Bella, who by lawyer standards was the equivalent to Mia in the all-stars of their work field.
She'd metaphorically put me on the stand to figure out my intentions with her twin, and asked if my attraction to her sister meant I was also physically attracted to her, which would thereby disqualify me from being able to date Mia.
I had never been more scared of a woman, to be honest. I felt guilty of things I'd never even done by the end of it.
That said, they were welcoming and understanding.
I believed my brother and Natalia fundamentally changed the way the Russo sisters operated amongst each other, and lucky for me, because with their acceptance, Mia was more open than ever to bringing our parents into the mix.
We spent Thanksgiving with John and Sistine Russo, who took longer than they should have to recognize I was Mateo's brother, not just another man in South Florida with the same last name and likeness of their only son-in-law.
To be fair, they were aloof on their best days, and sobriety had strangely made John turn to long-distance cycling as a vice. Half the time we were away from the dinner table, he was urging me into clippable shoes to ride stationary bikes in one of their private gyms at the mansion.
Mateo had warned me, and I should have believed him.
Christmas rolled around and we spent it with my mom and dad, Mateo and my very pregnant sister-in-law, and Frankie and O, who had flown down to Florida in the midst of planning their own wedding for the approaching summer.
My mom loved Mia more than she loved me, and was thrilled to have another Russo girl under her roof, only regretting that she didn't have two more sons to finish the infinity stone of sibling matchmaking.
But it was almost like Mia and Natalia were the female versions of Mateo and me, anyway.
They were the daughters my parents never had.
I also hadn't been this emotionally close to my brother since we were kids. Now we worked together, lived down the road from one another, spent weekends with the girls, planned for the future while Mia decorated our nephew’s nursery, and swapped stories untold from all those missing years apart.
When he was in the Army and I was drunk on oysters in City Island.
Life was good. There was no ceiling keeping us from floating higher. It took until that moment, standing in my new house, with Mia sauntering, strategizing, making herself a permanent life inside mine, that it really hit me.
I was the goddamn luckiest man in the world.
"Can we color drench the bathroom down here?" Mia asked in her small, syrupy voice, as if she even had to run it by me.
"I have an idea for something we could do right now," I suggested, lifting her up on the kitchen counter and coming to stand between her legs.
A tiny gasp fell from her lips. "I'm fine with the change of subject," she mumbled.
"You can talk my ear off all night long about paint, trim, and pillows," I whispered, kissing her collarbone. "I love when you talk house-ish with me."
Mia hummed. "I love when you listen to me talking house-ish."
"But right now, I want to make love to my beautiful girlfriend in my brand-new house." I slid my hands down her thighs, lifting the long hem of her dress up to her hips. "We already ticked off the bedroom, but I think there's about nine more rooms in here left to christen."
"Ten," she said against my lips. "If you count the half bath."
"How could I forget the half bath?" I smiled into her kiss, rolling our bodies together softly, her hands threading into my hair.
Every moment leading to this one suddenly felt like an inescapable fate.
I was always worried nothing would work out for me, like I was bound to one thing, one life.
It turned out the answer was in Florida the entire time, waiting.
And her name was Mia. I needed the dots to connect, for us to meet, to hate each other, to fall for each other, before this day could exist.
Mia looked at me breathlessly and my heart melted. "Do you remember when you asked me to give myself a chance to love you?"
I nodded.
"Well, I do."
A broad smile broke across my face instantly. “I know you do," I told her, brushing her hair behind her ear. She dropped her forehead onto mine, blushing, releasing a small puff of amusement. "Took you long enough, baby."
"I needed to make sure you got the big house first before I could say anything," she joked.
A laugh shot out of me, and I kissed her with every emotion I was feeling all jammed sloppily into one. "I love you too, my Mia."
Her legs tightened around my waist, full lips curving.
"Now, come on. Give me one last house tour."
THE END