Epilogue
“Thank you, Mikey,” Felicity said before Cristiano could end the call. She hadn’t exactly spent every day since her introduction to her soon-to-be-in-laws in their presence, but she felt like she was developing bonds with them. At the very least, it was polite to express her gratitude when they did favors for her.
Cristiano tucked the phone away and recaptured her hand. “If he’s right, then we should be close. You gonna tell her we tracked her?”
Felicity scrunched up her face, her eyes catching on a squirrel as it jumped from one long tree branch to another. “I suppose if she makes me.” She drew a deep breath and held tighter to his hand. “Thank you for coming out with me.”
“It was the least I could do, baby.”
She smiled, opening her mouth to comment on that, when she spotted a familiar head of short-cut, spikey dark hair with bottle-blonde tips she hadn’t seen in far too long. The woman underneath the hair was sitting on a bench, hunched forward, frowning at a textbook. Felicity picked up her pace, still holding tight to Cristiano’s hand. “There she is!”
Cristiano tugged her back to him with obnoxious ease. He cupped her cheek, stealing a kiss, and said, “I’ll hang back a couple feet, give you space. I won’t be out of sight.”
“Well it’d be hard for me to introduce you if you were.” She let him see her smile before sliding her hand from his and resuming her forward motion. The woman on the bench hadn’t moved. Felicity tangled her hands in front of herself as she drew nearer, bringing her feet to a stop, and projected her voice. “I’m sorry it took me so long, Tay.”
Taylor’s head whipped up, her eyes blowing wide. “Felicity?”
Felicity offered an apologetic smile. She was excited to see her friend again, but she knew this reunion would be difficult. She knew—as hard as it was to think about—that Taylor might not care to hear what she had to say. All she could do was try. “You said to reach out again when I could tell you the truth … so here I am.”
Taylor closed her textbook and stood, her brow furrowed. “It is nice to see you,” she said, “but I’ll be honest, you better have a damn good explanation. Because lying like that was not okay.”
“I know.” A breeze danced through, blowing her hair over her eyes, and she brushed it back as she steeled herself.
“What is that?” Taylor pointed at her, looking shocked again.
Felicity paused, realizing she’d tucked her hair back with her left hand. She smiled despite the tension in her stomach. “That’s part of my story,” she said. “It’ll make sense when I tell you the whole thing, but … I’m getting married.”
“You’re what? When did you even get a boyfriend?”
“While I was in hiding.”
Taylor stared at her for beat, then stalked forward and clamped her free hand onto Felicity’s shoulder. “You better be being straight with me, Felicity.”
Felicity nodded. “I swear. No more lies.”
“You were in hiding? And somehow you found a guy while you were there? What, was it some witness protection group home?”
“Nothing like that,” Felicity said. “The bastard made some enemies, and my name got dragged in by association as someone he might have a reaction to.” Taylor’s eyes went wide, but Felicity plowed ahead. “It was pretty sudden, but obviously I couldn’t be going around telling my contacts ‘oh hey, I’m just hiding out,’ and we were worried he might know about you or drag you in somehow, so you were safer if you didn’t know.”
Taylor shook her head. “Obviously there’s more to it than that. But okay. That’s a start. Except I still don’t see what it has to do with you being engaged.”
Felicity released a breath and glanced over her shoulder, simultaneously motioning for her fiancé to join her. “He’s the one who was protecting me the whole time.”
“He’s— Holy shit.” Taylor took a half step back, her eyes sweeping up and down Cristiano’s frame. But Felicity wasn’t bothered, because she knew her friend, and Cristiano wasn’t Taylor’s type.
“Tay, this is Cristiano.”
Cristiano curled his arm around Felicity’s waist without prompting and extended his other hand in greeting. “It’s nice to meet you, Taylor.”
Taylor stared for ten more seconds before accepting the handshake. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “Sorry. It’s just… This is a lot.” She shook her head and looked back at Felicity. “I want to know everything. Including whether you’re visiting or moving out here, and when the wedding is. I need time to plan my schedule, classes are tight.”
Felicity smiled wide. “We’re here until Monday afternoon, but I’ll be able to visit sometimes, too. The wedding is the Friday before Halloween.” Technically that was the thirteenth day after Dante and Iris’s wedding, but Felicity had looked at a calendar and realized the twelfth landed on a Thursday. And it felt a little too risky to do something so bold as try to reclaim Thursdays for such a big-deal event.
“You’re welcome to come,” Cristiano added. “If you can make it work in your schedule, I’ll fly you out.”
“Seriously?” Taylor’s gaze snapped between them. “Wait, this Halloween? That’s barely a month from now.” Her eyes narrowed. “Is this some kind of ‘oops I got pregnant’ thing?”
“I am not pregnant, thank you,” Felicity replied. She stuck out her tongue for good measure, mostly to assure both her companions she wasn’t upset.
Taylor looked skeptical.
Cristiano pulled Felicity closer to his side. “Love at first sight. Only idiots let that shit go.”
Taylor squinted at him, sighed, and said, “You know what? You’re buying me a round-trip ticket to Jersey next month, book it before you leave town, and if this all blows up, at least I get to spend a day or two with my best friend. If it doesn’t, I get to see her get married. Even better.”
Felicity patted Cristiano’s chest, eased from his grip, and took Taylor’s free hand into both of hers. “Actually,” she said, “you’re the only family I have that I’m not marrying into. So I was hoping you’d be in the wedding. Will you be my Maid of Honor? And walk me down the aisle? It’s non-traditional, but….”
A slow, watery-eyed smile lifted Taylor’s face. “I’ve never been a traditional kinda gal. Hell yeah, I’ll do that for you.”
They hugged, textbook and all, and Felicity wiped tears from her eyes as she stepped back to Cristiano’s side. He curled his arm around her again and spoke to both of them. “Felicity will text you our hotel information, if you want to swing by in about two hours for pasta and that overdue conversation?”
Taylor laughed. “We could just go to the restaurant.”
“No,” Felicity said. “We have this unreal suite, full kitchen and everything.” She grinned, salivating a little at the thought. “So he’s cooking. Which means it’ll be so much better.”
“He cooks?” Taylor asked.
“He does,” Cristiano replied.
Taylor laughed again. “Sorry.”
Felicity pulled out her phone and quickly texted Taylor the information Cristiano had promised. “There, I sent it. If two hours isn’t enough time, since we kinda surprised you, we can push it back a bit.”
“Nah, it’s fine.” Taylor lifted her phone, checking the message. “Yeah, definitely fine. I could swing by earlier, even.”
“A good sauce needs time to build flavor,” Cristiano said. “We’ll see you in two hours.”
Felicity laced her fingers with his when he adjusted his hold, offering Taylor a finger-wave. “I promise I’ll tell you everything you want to know, and probably some things you don’t. I really am sorry. See you soon!” She watched Taylor grin back at her, then let Cristiano turn her away, in the direction of their rental car.
His sauces did not need two hours to build flavor. But that was fine. Time in his arms would help give her strength for the sordid details she had to relive after dinner. So she would soak up every second she could get, for tonight, and for every night and every day moving forward.
The End…