Nova
NOVA
EPILOGUE
“ J eremy, don’t look,” June pleaded as she tried to hide the cake she’d worked on all morning.
“Yeah, Jeremy, don’t look,” mocked and stuck out her tongue.
“Fine, but the natives are getting restless. Croon and Squatch have to get on the road to Canada, but they want cake first.” He pitched his voice behind him. “The thought of serenading Vicious makes Croon a hungry boy.” Hook laughed.
“Shut up, TAW,” Croon shouted from the other room. “I lost by fifty-seven minutes. I’m still counting it as a win.”
“CROON!” scolded from the kitchen, and Hook raised an eyebrow to her.
“TAW? Do I even want to know?”
“No,” confessed with a blush she felt to her toes. Hook would weasel it out of her one way or another, and she didn’t mind his methods.
“Count it any way you want in your head, but you better loosen up the vocal cords before you hit the border.” That sounded like Zombie. The rest of the words were lost when Hook dipped back out of the kitchen, closing the door behind him with a wink.
Always with the wink.
Heidi pulled the lighter from her pocket to light the candles. “You did a great job on the frosting, June. The dandelion is beautiful.” Heidi smiled down at ’s daughter.
“Thanks. It’s Jeremy’s favorite, dandelions and vanilla.”
That wasn’t exactly true, the vanilla was and June’s favorite, and well, the dandelion had become Hook’s favorite, but only because of his Flower . It had become a theme in their lives since the day Hook showed up to tow their car. The sweet man had even tattooed one of June’s dandelion drawings on his arm.
“Are you sure you don’t want to write Happy Birthday or his name on it in frosting?” asked for the hundredth time.
“No, Mom. This is how I want it.” It was a pale green cake with a big white dandelion on it and three candles. Why three candles? It made no sense, but quit questioning her daughter’s logic. She usually had a reason, even if it wasn’t for her to understand. And who cared? It made June happy, which made happy.
Hook and June had become inseparable—she was almost jealous. They shared a bond that defied explanation. For example, it wasn’t even Hook’s real birthday. June declared today his birthday when she found out he didn’t even know his real birthday, just the one they gave him when he was left at a church and entered the system. June had been appalled in only the way an outraged child can be.
She’d picked her favorite day of the year and declared it his birthday. wasn’t sold on the favorite-day-of-the-year thing. It was more likely an excuse to have a party. June had asked everyone in the club about their birthdays and written them on the calendar in her room, a dandelion one, of course. Then she chose a day in between all the others so she could practically have a party every month. The kid was an evil genius.
“Ready, Mom?” June asked, cake in hand, walking slowly so as not to put out the candles. Heidi held the door open.
“Let’s ride,” June declared in the tone Hook did, and rolled her eyes.
“Go on, , we’re right behind you,” Heidi ordered.
thought the cake should enter first, but it wasn’t her show. They were both following the orders of the pint-sized party planner.
When turned, it took a hot second to absorb the scene before her, even then she didn’t comprehend it. The Royal Bastards stood in a semi-circle, hands clasped in front of them. On the floor before them, Hook was kneeling, and Devin hovered with her phone up.
“What…” She turned from the men to look at her daughter and Heidi. Both were beaming like they had a secret. June stepped forward. “Come on, Mom, Jeremy’s waiting,” she stage-whispered. did as her daughter bid her, and realization struck.
Hook and June had tricked her. This wasn’t Hook’s new birthday at all.
Hook reached up and took her hand, clearing his throat.
“I never had a reason to believe in magic until I made a wish on a weed. That day, and the ones that followed, proved to me that magic is real. I can’t think of anything more magical than the two of you loving someone like me.”
sobbed. She couldn’t hold back the sound, no matter how hard she tried. Under the armor he’d inked himself in, beat the heart of a hopeless romantic. How many ladies could say their man had the body of a badass biker with the soul of a poet? It was as if she were in a romance novel, and she was getting the perfect happily ever after.
“I’m asking you”—he turned his gaze to her daughter—“and you”—he turned back to . “To make a wish, one we can make come true together. Will you, Grace Harper, and you, June Bug—Flower Harper, honor me by legally becoming my family?”
He looked so hopeful and open. So different from the closed-off man who’d winked at her while staring at her tits with his arm draped around another woman.
He was still a helpless flirt, but it reached his eyes now when he looked at her.
looked at her daughter, who was nodding so hard the cake was in peril.
“Psst,” Santa goaded. “I think you’re supposed to blow out the candles to make that wish, but what do I know.”
nodded and bent toward the cake. Hook and June leaned in too, and the club counted.
“One, two, three.” On three, they each extinguished a candle.
Gwen appeared and reached for the cake. “I’ll get this cut while y’all finish up.”
Finish. What was there to finish?
June leaped at Hook as soon as her hands were free, and he opened his arms with zero hesitation. “I got you something.” He pulled a small velvet box from his pocket. “Will you be my daughter and share your special magic with me always?”
June nodded with tears in her eyes, but had more. Thank God Devin was recording, because would want to relive this moment at least once or twice. Even if she had not snagged her man, June did, and that was worth everything it took to get there.
Hook opened the box, and there was a delicate gold necklace with, what else, a dandelion. He set the box on the floor and clasped the necklace around her neck.
She threw her arms around his neck, and his engulfed her. “I love you, Daddy.”
bawled.
When June loosened her hold to admire her necklace, Hook whispered. “Ok, Flower, go have cake, I have to talk to your mom now.” She bounded off, and Hook stood.
“.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t have the vocabulary to even begin to tell you how you’ve changed my, no, given me life or how deeply I love you. Will you make me happier than I ever dreamed possible?” He held out a box like June’s and opened it. Instead of a necklace, there was a ring nestled into the velvet.
A ring with a star. A blackish star with colors of red and green. It was stunning.
“Do you like it?” His voice sounded insecure, and she hated that. “I know it’s not a diamond, but that’s just not you.”
“I love it, it’s magnificent. What is it?” She reached out to caress it. Hook removed it from the box and slid it on her finger, not letting go of her hand.
“It’s a star for , made of black fire opal. It will burn bright and not flame out.” Referencing a nova and giving her an opal was more romantic than diamonds in blue boxes. If she thought he was perfect before, she was wrong, he’d just topped himself.
“Like our love.” She spoke to herself, but he heard it and scooped her up in his arms.
Swinging her around, he shouted, “She said yes.”
The whoops and whistles were deafening as he set her back on her feet and kissed her soundly.
“Technically, I didn’t say yes…yet.”
“The fuck you didn’t.”
“I didn’t. I said?—”
Hook crushed his mouth to hers, then pulled back. “I don’t deal in technicalities, only absolutes. Virus taught me that. And you absolutely said yes, the minute I made that wish.”
“A wish isn’t an absolute.”
Hook turned them so her back was facing the people eating cake just ten feet away and slid his hand up between her breasts and held her neck. “It is when someone else picks the perfect dandelion, didn’t you know that?” he teased. “Now shut the fuck up and kiss me.”
THE cocksuckingmotherfuckinggodsdamnedfuckitalltohell END
Dear Reader,
I hope you fell hard ’n fast for Hook & (+ June) as I did. If so, please consider leaving a review so others can fall too.
If you haven’t done so already, be sure to go back & read Bitten by Zombie, which kicked off the Provo chapter of the RBMC.
Verlene