Epilogue
WEST
SEVEN MONTHS LATER
“You have to understand, I’m glad you did that, but I’m just not at a place where I’m ready to see you yet.
Maybe one day, but not now. Everything is still too fresh.
” I watched Juno pace in front of the stone fireplace, the flames flickering and adding much-needed warmth to the cold cabin.
Phone pressed to her ear, she nodded along to whatever the other person said.
“Again, I’m happy for you, but give me time, okay? You too. Bye.”
With an exaggerated groan, she tossed her phone onto Langston’s chair, disturbing GG’s nap, and stomped over to the couch, falling down beside me.
I chuckled at her dramatics. “That bad?”
Sticking out her lower lip in a full pout, Juno laid her head on my lap and turned to stare up at me.
“That was my sister.” Lifting a curly lock, I twisted it around my finger.
“They didn’t have the wedding that weekend, which we figured, since they didn’t want his two black eyes in the pictures.
” Her slow smirk turned into a wide smile.
“But it turns out, it never happened at all. I honestly hadn’t even thought to follow up with everything that happened here and our big news. ”
“Shut the front door,” I exclaimed. What could I say? Her terms had rubbed off on me these past few months.
Juno nodded. “She wants to see me, but it’s too soon for me. The way she believed that asshole in the alley isn’t something I can just get over. It will take more time than what’s passed for me to be ready to see her again.”
“And that douchecanoe?”
“Didn’t ask, don’t care,” she responded with a small shrug.
We both turned to the front door when it swung open, snow billowing inside as Langston stormed in. He slammed it shut, dusting off the thin layer of flakes that had settled on his thick coat.
“How did it go?” Juno asked. “Is Brandon good with the cabin design?”
After removing his coat, he turned with an arched brow. “Do you think I’d actually let him say no to something you want?”
She looked at me with a wide grin, making my own lips pull upward.
“Told you.” I pitched forward and planted a soft kiss on her lips. Without even realizing it, my hand settled on her lower belly, dipping beneath her thick sweatshirt. She shivered as I drew lazy circles around her belly button. “Like he’d ever let you or this little guy—”
“Or girl,” she cut in.
“If it’s a girl”—Langston’s knees popped as he squatted beside the couch, brushing his lips against hers—“I’m going to need more guns.”
“Either way,” I laughed. “No way would Langston let him or her not have the very best.”
Just thinking about being a dad had my heart rate picking up. There was equal amounts of fear and excitement that constantly flowed through me after Juno told us she was pregnant. I didn’t have a father figure to look up to, but I sure as hell had several I knew I never wanted to be anything like.
Same with Langston.
The grump had always been high-strung, but he’d been a thousand times worse since finding out about the baby.
Hell, all the men in the community had. It was a fucking baby boom, to the point that Carl was debating adding a school to the building list on top of all the three-bedroom cabins. Ours being one of them.
“I know one thing he or she will have the best of,” Juno said, her lids fluttering closed as if already halfway asleep.
“The best dads. Loving, protective, fun.” I brushed some hair off her forehead, my heart swelling to the point that it ached.
“They are already so lucky to have something none of us did.”
“A family,” I whispered. “A real, happy, loving family.”
“A home,” Langston added. “Safe, secure, warm.”
Her soft snores filled the small space, barely audible over the crackle of the fire.
I couldn’t stop watching her, in utter awe of how my life had turned out.
It took living through hell and barely crawling out of it for me to be here, with her, with Langston, beyond happy and unconditionally loved.
I’d always thought that someone like me didn’t deserve a perfect life like this, my past too tarnished, but now that I had this life, I would cherish every moment, each second, forever.
I just wished forever was a little bit longer.