Epilogue
EPILOGUE
SIX WEEKS LATER
COOPER
I t’s Nate and Juliet’s wedding day, and I’m sitting in a beautiful white barn in Sugar Maple, South Carolina watching my girlfriend walk down the aisle in her sexy bridesmaid’s dress while her dad and brothers sit next to me.
Lucas elbows my gut. “No ogling.”
“When are we gonna be past that, man?” I say through clenched teeth.
“Never,” Logan mutters on my other side.
“She’s my girlfriend,” I whisper.
Lucas inclines his head toward me as the music changes to the Wedding March. “You could be celebrating your twentieth wedding anniversary, and we’re gonna punch you if you kiss her for too long.”
“She’ll always be our sister first,” Logan says.
“Tweebs,” I grumble, even though we’ve become good friends in the six weeks since Christmas. I watch Nate’s the moment he sees Juliet walking down the aisle with her dad. The way his eyes widen and his mouth parts like he’s trying to catch his breath—he looks like he’s in awe of her. Like he can’t believe that someone so magnificent could really be his.
My eyes find Liesel’s.
I know the feeling.
The wedding is beautiful and goes off without a hitch, as does the family dinner. During the toasts, Juliet’s identical twin sister stands up and speaks glowingly of her sister and of the way that Nate changed their family’s lives for the better.
“Nate, you helped us realize how dangerous it is to put people in a box and keep them there. I had done this to my own sister, and I almost lost her. But because of you, we’re closer than ever. I’m so happy I can now call you my brother,” the sister says, and I don’t know why I’m crying, but it’s a wedding, and that’s what you do.
Liesel’s tribute to Juliet is beautiful, funny, and heartfelt.
“It’s crazy how things that seem like a disaster on the outset can turn into your biggest blessings,” Liesel says. “Like parking space wars and a dumb white Prius.”
“White Prius!” Juliet says loudly, shaking her fist at the sky. I understand the joke now—it was Juliet’s nickname for Nate before they got stuck on the elevator—but it’s one of those things that’s funniest for the people who lived it.
“That car is the best thing that ever happened to you, too,” Nate says to Liesel from his seat, and she blushes and looks at me. “Stop pretending you two won’t be here in a few months.”
I grin when Liesel’s flush deepens prettily. “Be that as it may,” Liesel says. “I’m thankful that something as small as a car parked in a covered spot could be the means of bringing you two together. Juliet, I’ve seen you come into yourself because of Nate’s acceptance and love. Nate, you are getting the most incredible woman in the world. Be good to her or I’ll sic my dad on you.”
Laughs circle the room, as everyone has noticed Bruce. He laughs along with them.
She ends the toast with a few more heartwarming words, and we all raise our glasses.
I’m at a table with Liesel’s dad and brothers and Kayla Carville, of all people, who happens to be a friend of Nate’s from their Harvard undergrad days. She’s here with her fiancé, who looks and smells like old money, with his actual wristwatch—not smart watch—and that easy confidence that comes from knowing you could buy everyone here.
Except for Nate and Kayla.
Also, his name is Aldridge Sinclair. What does a guy even do with a name like that?
He’s not funny. He’s not particularly engaged in the wedding. But he’s extremely attentive to Kayla.
And by the looks of it, she’s sick of it.
She keeps trying to talk to the Fischer brothers, but her fiancé stops her every time, trying to draw her attention back to him.
Bruce shoots me a look that I’m sure I accurately interpret: how the heck are these two together?
“It’s one thing for your father to buy you a team in a place called Mullet Ridge ,” Aldridge says in a rich New England accent. “It’s another to keep it. It’s embarrassing.”
“It was sweet,” she says, even though I know she doesn’t care about baseball. “And I’m starting to like it.”
“Are you really going to stay in that town while you find your little workers?”
The “workers” he’s talking about are the coach and GM.
Her smile is exhausted and nothing like the one I’ve seen from her in other circumstances. “Tripp said I can stay at his place in Sugar Maple while I figure things out with it.” She looks at the rest of us. “My cousin, Tripp, owns this farm and has some beautiful places to stay here. Bruce, you’ll have to stay in one of the cottages when you come out to see your boys play.”
Bruce nods, but he looks as sympathetic as I think the rest of us feel.
Aldridge Sinclair is an emotional leech, and how he landed Kayla is a mystery.
But it’s not one I care to solve. The only thing I care about is getting Liesel back in my arms.
The dinner ends and it’s finally time for the reception and dance. I’m eager to hold the woman I love. Her thick blonde hair is pulled into a side ponytail, her sleek, silky sage green dress is doing incredible things for her curves, and the small, secretive smile she’s flashed me a dozen times tonight needs to be kissed off those sexy lips of hers.
Lucas and Logan chat up a couple of Juliet’s cousins, and Bruce sits down to talk to Juliet’s gran, who is the cutest little old woman alive. She and I sat together while Nate and Juliet were taking pictures, and she showed me all her favorite GIFS.
It was odd, but totally awesome.
Liesel saunters over to me in a way that makes her hips look like lethal weapons. “Want to dance, hotshot?” She pulls me up by my tie.
“More than anything,” I say.
We walk over to the farthest side of the dance floor from her meddling family, and I wrap one arm around her waist and a hand around one of hers. Her hand around my neck plays with my hair. “You know,” I tell her, gazing into the gorgeous blue of her eyes, “you lied in your toast.”
“How do you figure?” she asks.
“You said Nate is getting the most incredible woman in the world. But that’s not true, because she’s currently mine.”
“Currently?” she tugs on my hair.
“Now and always.” I kiss her temple, and I feel her eyelids flutter against my cheek in a butterfly kiss that sends a wave of goosebumps over me.
“Oh, it’s always now, is it?” she teases as we sway.
“I’m not letting you go,” I say in her ear. “I haven’t gotten that Christmas sweater yet.”
A laugh bursts out of her, and she leans closer to me. “In that case, I guess I’ll have to keep it forever.”
“In that case,” I echo. “I guess I’ll have to keep you forever.”
Liesel’s heels are at least four inches, and it erases enough of our height difference that I can feel the ball of her cheek against my chin as she smiles.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I tease.
“That, you glorious dumb jock” she says, kissing my neck with each word, “could take all day.”
“Since there’s no place to go …”
“Actually, the correct lyric is ‘we’ve—’” she starts, but I kiss the words and the laugh from her mouth, grateful we have all the time in the world together.
Because I want every second.
Curious what happened when Nate and Juliet got trapped in an elevator together? Read all about it in Single All the Way !
And read on for a BONUS EPILOGUE featuring Kayla Carville.