20. Epilogue Shay
Epilogue: Shay
“Don’t you dare put that on the playlist,” Benji says from the patio, pointing a plastic fork at Jude like he’s about to stab him with it.
Jude clutches his phone to his chest. “It’s one song.”
“It’s a breakup song.”
“It’s a banger. Those are different things.”
“It has the word ‘goodbye’ in the chorus.”
“It’s ironic.”
Rhys, sitting beside him with one arm hooked lazily around Jude’s waist, doesn’t even look up from the burger he’s destroying. “Nothing you do is ironic. You mean every second of it.”
Jude gasps. “Babe. In front of our friends?”
“You called it our song after you heard it one time in a grocery store.”
“And?”
“And it was playing over the produce section.”
“That’s where love grows.”
I look at Declan across the patio before I can stop myself.
He’s by the grill in a black T-shirt and faded jeans, one hand braced on the handle of a pair of tongs. Callum says something, and Declan throws his head back, laughing. The new brass sign over the front door catches the warm patio lights.
BYRNE’S & THOMPSON.
It still does something stupid to my chest.
Which, yeah, technically refers to the business—the accountant was very clear on that part. But there’s a pretty satisfying little ampersand sitting between my name and Declan’s on every piece of paperwork in the office, and I’ve definitely stared at it long enough
It’s been a month.
A month since Declan walked into my apartment holding a partnership agreement instead of some bullshit apology he knew wouldn’t be enough. A month since I stopped trying to turn the word partner into a spreadsheet category and just let it mean what it means.
A month since I deleted KnotMe.
A month since I came home.
A month, almost, since the legal-clinic lawyer Rhys found slid the signed lease renewal across our office desk—five years, capped increases, both our names at the bottom.
The buyout offer went back in an envelope with a two-word answer Declan wouldn’t let me write in the margins.
The chain opened their beige nightmare two blocks over anyway.
Last Tuesday their happy hour was four people and a sagging promotional banner. I checked. For research.
The patio is packed. Not Saturday-night packed, when half of Ridgemont decides it needs cheap beer and bad decisions, but full in a way that’s better.
Tessa has claimed one end of the outdoor bar with Diego, who’s wearing a Byrne’s & Thompson.
shirt and looking so proud of it he might actually start glowing.
Ruth is at a table near the railing, red lipstick perfect, talking shit to Knox while Knox just stands there looking like he’s being lectured by the president.
She flagged me down earlier, on my way past with a tub of empties. “You’re the one with the spreadsheets.” She said it the way other people say you’re the one with the outstanding warrant.
“Guilty.”
“Good.” She tapped her whiskey glass against my arm like a gavel. “That man polished glasses for seven years and called it a life. Don’t let him backslide.”
“I have him on a color-coded schedule.”
“I knew I liked you.”
Milo is handing out paper plates with the quiet authority of a man who brought three trays of food and will personally fight anyone who lets it go cold.
Callum follows him around, carrying things before Milo can even reach for them.
Soren’s sitting with his knees tucked up in a patio chair, turning a little carved wooden bird over and over in his hands.
A new one. A wren this time, round and neat-winged, the pale grain catching the patio lights.
It was sitting on the apartment doormat this morning—no note, no name, just the bird, waiting like it knew exactly where he lived.
The group chat has been feral about it all day. Soren hasn’t stopped touching it.
Benji catches me looking.
“You’re doing the face,” he says.
“I don’t have a face.”
“You have, like, six faces. This one is disgustingly soft.”
“I’m literally just standing here.”
“And I’m literally telling you the truth.”
Knox slides an arm around Benji’s waist, presses a kiss into his hair, and Benji immediately leans back into him without losing his scowl.
It’s gross.
It’s also kind of the whole point.
“I’m not soft,” I say.
Milo appears at my elbow with a plate. “You’re holding a bun and you haven’t taken a bite.”
“I’m thinking.”
“About what?”
“Supply chain.”
Milo looks at the untouched bun. Then he looks at me.
“Sure.”
“Don’t use that tone with me.”
“What tone?”
“The one where you’ve decided I’m having an emotion and you’re going to be quietly correct about it.”
His smile gets bigger, because apparently I’m hilarious. “Eat your food, Shay.”
I take a vicious bite of the bun.
“There,” I say around it. “Problem solved.”
“Was there a problem?” Soren asks.
“No,” Milo says.
“Yes,” Benji says at the exact same time.
Jude has finally won the playlist fight, because something old and loud rolls out of the speaker by the patio door, bass thumping through the wooden deck. He throws both hands up in victory.
“Thank you. Art survives.”
“Your art is a crime,” Benji says.
“Your boyfriend has tattoos on his throat.”
“My boyfriend’s art is a crime in a sexy way.”
Knox takes a slow drink of his beer, expression blank. “I’m right here.”
“Yeah, and?”
I laugh before I mean to.
It comes easy now. That’s the weirdest part.
For years, everything good had an exit plan attached.
A footnote. A tiny asterisk at the bottom of the page reminding me not to get comfortable, because comfort is how people surprise you.
Comfort is how you end up with a suitcase by the door while your mom cries over some alpha who swore he was different.
But there’s no suitcase by the door upstairs.
There’s my toothbrush in the bathroom, my shoes under the bed, and two drawers in Declan’s dresser that I filled with my clothes before I could pretend I was just staying for a little while.
There’s a stack of invoices on our desk and a whiteboard in the office where I wrote out the summer events calendar in color-coded marker.
There’s a brass sign over the door.
There’s a life happening around me that I didn’t have to buy, or earn by being useful, or claw out of somebody else’s hands.
I chose it.
That’s different.
My phone buzzes against my thigh. Mom, the screen says, because Tasha Thompson has a sixth sense for good moments—she always calls in the middle of one, like she can smell it through the cell towers.
I step to the quiet end of the patio and answer. “Hey, Mom.”
“Baby.” Bright, then careful. “I’m not interrupting?”
“We’re grilling. What’s up?”
Darren came back. Flowers, a speech, almost an apology. She wants me to tell her it means something, and six months ago I would have run the numbers on him out loud until she cried.
“I hope it goes how you want it to,” I say instead, and I mean it. “But my answer hasn’t changed. I’m not sending money for his half of anything.”
Quiet on the line. Then, soft, no accusation in it, just surprise: “You sound different.”
“I am different.” And the wild thing is how easy it is to say. “Come see the bar sometime, Mom. I want you to see it.”
“The one you own?”
“Half of it. The good half.”
She laughs, wet at the edges, and for once neither of us hangs up feeling like we lost something.
Declan glances over from the grill again.
This time, he catches me staring.
His mouth pulls to one side.
Oh, no.
Nope.
Absolutely not.
That man has been my mate for a month and he can still look at me from twenty feet away and turn my entire brain into the DVD logo bouncing around a blank screen.
The particular tilt of his mouth, the way the skin at the outer corners of his eyes crinkles when he’s trying not to smirk at me, the low rumble I know is trapped in his throat right now.
I want my teeth on that throat. I want to feel the vibration of that laugh against my tongue while he’s still pretending he’s not thinking about pinning me somewhere quiet.
He raises his eyebrows.
I take another bite of the bun, slow and deliberate, and hold his gaze while I chew.
His scent finds me through the warm night, a faint thread under the charcoal smoke and barbecue sauce. Cedar. Woodsmoke. Clean cotton. Home. It’s embarrassing, because I used to hate how much I wanted it.
Now I mostly just hate that he knows exactly what it does to me.
Declan says something to Callum, hands him the tongs, then wipes his palms on the towel tucked through his belt.
The green bar towel.
The original one is upstairs in our nest, folded between a blanket and one of Declan’s shirts because apparently I’m a giant cliché with excellent organizational skills. This one’s newer. Less sacred.
Still smells like him.
He starts toward me.
“Uh-oh,” Jude says, clocking it immediately. “Look at him.”
“Don’t,” I mutter.
“Why? He’s hot.”
“Because he’s my alpha.”
Jude tilts his head. “Exactly?”
Rhys covers Jude’s hand with his own. “Leave them alone.”
“I am leaving them alone. From right here. Loudly.”
Declan stops beside my chair, big enough that he blocks some of the patio lights. His hand settles on the back of my neck, thumb brushing the edge of my mark.
My whole body just… gives.
I look up at him. “Abandoning the grill?”
“Callum’s got it.”
“Does Callum know that?”
“Probably.”
From across the patio, Callum glances over his shoulder. “I heard that.”
“Then you’re good,” Declan calls back.
Callum laughs. “Go.”
Milo’s eyes go wide in that gentle, delighted way he gets when something romantic happens. Benji makes a gagging noise. Jude claps once.
“Oh, this is happening.”
“It’s not,” I say.
Declan’s thumb drags once more over my neck. “You coming inside with me?”
My brain cycles through a dozen answers. The sensible one: No, our friends are here. The professional one: We have guests. The adult one: Absolutely not, we’re business owners with standards.
Instead I put my plate down on the table.
“Need to check the ice machine,” I say.