Epilogue
Gracie
Three Months Later
“So, what’s on the menu?” Hunter sits on a chaise longue on the grass with an arm behind his head and a book in his hand, looking relaxed and just a tiny bit cocky. He’s wearing a pair of workout shorts and nothing else, his tanned chest beautifully sculpted.
“Not sure, since you’re cooking,” I say in a cheery voice.
“Um, no. It’s definitely you.”
“I really don’t think you’re correct on that one, hate to break it to you.” I stand on the deck behind the Santa Monica bungalow Hunter and I are renting until his house is finished being rebuilt. As much as Ky protested and said he liked having us as roomies, we decided to give him his space.
As soon as we did, my brother got a dog. With as much as he travels, we’ll be dog sitting quite a bit, but Bogie won’t mind the company, and I’m probably more excited than anyone. I’ve officially become a dog person.
But I’m not cooking dinner. I put my hands on my hips and give Hunter a fierce staredown, but he only laughs.
“I wish you could see how adorable you look when you try to pretend you’re angry at me.” The dimple in his cheek taunts me, and he gives me his very best smirk. I wish he wasn’t so damn hot. No, I don’t.
But he is very good at using his charm to get out of cooking duty.
So I stomp down the steps to where he’s being lazy on the chair and stand directly between him and the late afternoon sun. His expression dims a tad.
“Are we back to that silly bet again?” I ask.
“What’s that?” Ignoring my question, he points to a radish I’ve plucked from the soil in a raised bed, where I’ve been trying to grow vegetables.
Of the two dozen seedlings I planted when we moved in, this is the only one that has survived.
I feel strangely proud of it, even though I barely did anything to ensure that it flourished.
“A radish. I grew it.”
He laughs. “I see. And will you be using it in the dinner you’re cooking?”
“I’m not cooking. You are. You lost the bet. You brought me back to Ky’s house for a hookup, not the other way around.”
We’ve been arguing about this for months now, trying to determine who won the bet we made in the early days of living at Kyler’s house over who would hook up first. I’d long ago accepted that neither one of us won or lost because we ended up together.
And since we stayed at a hotel that first night and agreed that it wasn’t really a hookup, it nullified the bet.
That made sense to any rational person, or so I thought.
Apparently, my boyfriend is not a rational person. He keeps insisting that I owe him a home-cooked meal, and even though he probably cooks more often than I do, I’ve made my share of dinner.
Today, for some reason, he has a bug in his muscle-hugging britches and won’t let it go.
“If you want me to rustle up some stuffed potato skins, just say so,” I tell him, holding the radish close enough to his nose for him to smell the fresh dirt.
He grabs me around the waist and pulls me on top of him, which causes the book he was reading to fall on the grass.
I glance at the title and see that he’s back to the classics.
He nuzzles my ear and squeezes me until I laugh. “I don’t want that. I want you.”
His lips find my neck, and he trails kisses from my ear to my collarbone before flipping me around so I’m lying on top of him.
He kisses my lips softly, which immediately makes me press into him, wanting more.
It only takes a minute for him to go from playfully nipping at my lips to diving in for a kiss so deep I feel it down to my toes.
I moan and wrap my arms around his neck as our tongues delve deeper, and I lose myself in the kiss. Which happens every damn day. By the time we come up for air, my brains are so scrambled that I feel like a robot programmed to do his bidding.
Rolling to the side to lay on the chaise next to him, I run a hand over his tattooed arm, remembering the conversation about him wanting to be more Zen.
He’s come a long way toward that goal in the past few months.
Still fierce on the field, he’s been able to separate his playing style from his judgment about himself.
He seems lighter. More free. It’s good to see.
“Okay, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll cook tonight if we agree that it has nothing to do with winning or losing any bet. It’s just me cooking.”
Hunter kisses my temple and agrees. “Sounds fair, Tink. I’ll come in a few minutes and help.”
I take my radish into the kitchen, cradling it like a tiny friend, and consult a cookbook from the stack we bought at our local library’s used book sale.
Hunter has made some good progress at replacing some of the books he lost in the fire, and I’ve been slowly threading the needle between recipes that aren’t too healthy or too much like fast food.
It isn’t easy, hence the big stack of books.
Settling on a roasted chicken dish I can make in one pot with rice and vegetables, I put on Taylor Swift’s new album and go to the fridge for ingredients.
Except that the refrigerator is inexplicably empty, save for one large brown box, even though I went to the grocery store earlier and Hunter put everything away.
“Don’t worry. The food is in a cooler in the garage. No perishables were harmed in the making of this movie.”
“What movie?” I turn and find Hunter no longer in the shorts he wore a few minutes ago. He’s changed into a dark suit, looking impossibly handsome with a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar and his hair perfectly rumpled. Bogie sits next to him with a black bowtie around his neck.
My mind races, trying to remember if we’re supposed to be somewhere that I’ve forgotten. In my sweatpants with my hair in a ponytail, I’m no match for his style, and it would take me a while to get there. “Do we—?”
Hunter steps closer and reaches for my hands, wrenching away the cookbook I’ve been white-knuckling without realizing it. I shake my head, so confused. “Is this—?”
He interrupts me with a finger against my lips like he regularly does when I’m about to talk before figuring out what to say. Hunter puts his phone on the counter, positions it so the camera can record a video of us, and turns it on. “You’re not cooking,” he says.
“Well, no. Not when you confiscated all the ingredients.” My brain stops spinning out because I can see he has something planned, and all of his plans have worked out well in the past. So I’m along for the ride now, wherever he wants to take us. “What’s with the video camera?”
He glances at it, adjusting it slightly so we’re centered in the frame with Bogie, who hasn’t moved. “I thought you might want to remember today.”
“Is this the day you admit you lost the bet?”
He starts to nod, but then shakes his head with a grin.
“Never. But this is the day I give you this.” He points to the box in the still-open refrigerator and slides it out, exaggerating the weight of it and making me glad he’s the one carrying it.
He pulls over a barstool and puts the box on it so it’s in view of the camera. “Go ahead.”
Casting him one more quizzical look, I shake my head, confused and delighted by his constant surprises. I’ll never get tired of them. Or him.
I pull the tape from the top of the box and it springs open to reveal a small shopping bag from a boutique I’ve never been to and plastic bag filled with pale sand. It I lift it out and understand why the box was heavy. There’s a note taped to the bottom.
I read it out loud, mostly so it’s caught on the video. “I love you. Please have dinner with me at the beach.”
Smiling, I marvel at this man in front of me who always goes the extra mile to make my life special. “I would love to,” I say.
Hunter tips his head toward the shopping bag, so I dig in and find a simple but elegant black dress. It’s short and backless, tasteful and sexy at the same time. I look down at my sweats and back at Hunter. “You want me to put this on now?”
But Hunter isn’t where he was a moment earlier.
He’s in front of me, kneeling with one more box.
He pops it open to reveal a sparkly solitaire diamond ring.
“I want you to put it on after you’re wearing this ring.
After you agree that we’re meant for each other, Gracie Albright.
I knew it when I was sixteen, and I’m even more certain now. ”
I nod. “We are.”
“Then, let’s make it permanent. Will you spend your life with me?
Because I love you more than anyone and I want to fucking marry you so much it hurts.
” He squeezes his chest with one hand, and I know exactly how he feels.
I get that same ache when my heart floods with love for him, like it can barely contain the wealth of feelings.
“Yes,” I say. It’s the easiest decision I’ve ever made. “I love you. So much.”
Hunter stands and takes the ring from the box. I extend a shaky hand so he can slide it on my finger. Bogie yelps like he understands the significance of the moment. We both laugh and Hunter slips him a treat.
I glance at the phone and see the two of us in the frame, now engaged, and I love Hunter even more for knowing I’ll want to watch this moment again and again.
For always knowing what I need. And for wrapping me in his arms for the best kiss I’ve had in my life.
And I’ve had some good ones. Each time, with him.
Thank you so much for reading Gracie and Hunter’s story—I hope you fell for this couple the way I did while writing them!