Bonus Epilogue
One Year Later
Micah
“VICTOR, I HAVE TO SAY, YOUR OFFICE LOOKS AMAZING,” I say, looking around at all the updates.
The space has been modernized with new furniture and fixtures, and the drab colors have been upgraded to brighter, but still neutral, shades.
“Thank you. Dani definitely got her skills of persuasion from Tanya,” he jokes.
“I learned from the best,” Dani says, stepping around me, letting my hand go as she does.
Victor greets us both with a hug before we sit down.
We’ve stayed close with Victor over the last year, now that he’s our lawyer and all.
He’s taken care of the contracts for Dani’s modeling agency, now named the Holden Agency, which just had its launch party last month.
She’s taken great care to make sure everyone who walks through her doors feels safe.
They also offer contract reviews, so models don’t get screwed over by agents, and she personally covers therapy services for all her clients.
Today, we’re here to discuss the launch of Our Place’s second location—the house in Chicago. We’ve been back and forth to visit the house and Slater over the last year, and with his help we realized that something like Our Place would do wonders there.
When I pitched the idea to my fellow partners, they were ecstatic about it. Paris volunteered to move out there temporarily to get the ball rolling, so she’ll be doing that in just a couple of months.
“Is Bailey ready to go on tour?” Victor asks while I’m signing the contracts he handed me.
My smile is wide and full of pride. “Yep, she’s all ready.
” The Legends and Icons Tour is taking off this fall and she will be traveling with them as the lead choreographer.
She and I have come a long way in our relationship.
It’s become easier for me to ease up on her and not breathe down her neck.
She’s even met the people in my group and their families, as they’ve become important people in my life as well.
“I can’t wait to be front row with all the girls at the Baltimore stop.” Dani sighs dreamily.
“Damn, just the girls? I’m not invited?”
“Oh, you can come. You just can’t sit with us. I need space to throw ass.”
Victor chokes on his water.
“Sorry, Victor.”
Once I’ve signed the last page, Dani perks up. “Okay, last order of business. Vacation. You’re due for another one, sir.” She points her fingers at Victor. We’ve taken Tanya’s memo in her letter to heart, forcing Victor to take breaks from work and enjoy his life.
He scoffs. “Tanya was always fussing. I don’t need a vacation.”
Dani and I exchange looks, a silent conversation passing between us.
“Tell you what,” I say. “Dani and I are leaving for Japan in two weeks. If two plane tickets were to end up on your desk, surely you wouldn’t let them go to waste, would you?”
“Two?! Why two?” he balks.
“Aht aht. Don’t even try it. You’ve got a niece in Jersey who would love to go,” Dani interjects.
Victor lowers his eyelids, but Dani is unfazed.
“I’ll think about it,” he concedes.
“Great! Then that settles it.” Dani stands from her chair.
“I said I’d think about it, Ms. Jenkins, not that I decided.”
She gives him a pitying glance before skipping out of his office.
We laugh the whole way to my car, knowing we’ll be seeing Victor and his niece in two weeks.
Dani
Don’t smile. Last time he caught you on the doorbell camera cheesing he teased you for hours.
Too late. It’s been two months, and I still haven’t gotten over calling Micah’s place my own.
It’s surreal, I just break out into a huge smile whenever I walk inside.
This won’t be our home for too much longer, though, because we’re planning to buy something new.
Something with a yard so we can finally get the dog I’ve been harassing him about lately. Deux needs a playmate.
I unpack my haul from my farmer’s market run with my mom and rush to change my clothes before I set out to meet with Veronica. I’m scrolling through my socials as I lotion up my legs when I see a post that makes me pause.
It’s a video of Nigel trying to avoid looking at the cameras as he enters a courthouse.
He looks awful. Like he’s lived a total of forty years in the span of ten days.
The caption details how the civil cases against Nigel keep piling up.
It calls for abusers to stop being able to inflict pain on others without consequence.
It alleges that the seven women who have come forward so far, which does include myself, is only the tip of the iceberg. I have no doubt that’s true.
The Goode doctor has been right about so many things, but she really hit the nail on the head when she said my reactions to Nigel would never be one thing.
When I was called to be a witness at one of his trials, because my circumstances were similar to the plaintiff’s, I was filled with nothing but rage at hearing what he had done to the young woman suing him.
There’s been other times where the panic became so strong I needed to take the Hydroxyzine I’d been prescribed to calm down.
I never know what emotions Nigel—or anything for that matter—will draw out of me, but for now, looking at him with his haunted eyes and haggard facial hair, I feel only one thing: glee.
“I hope everywhere you go, you find hell, Nigel,” I whisper to myself as I pocket my phone and head out.
When I get to Days of the Week, Veronica is already sitting in a booth sipping a glass of what looks like lemonade.
I slide in across from her. “Hey! I ordered you that matcha blueberry tea you like.”
“Thank you. How you been?”
“Good! I’m so nervous for the audition, though.
” Since getting the role of Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, Veronica has gone on to play Rizzo in her school’s production of Grease and Effie in her school’s production of Dreamgirls.
She gets more comfortable with every role, but now she’s venturing outside of her school.
I allowed her to join the Holden Agency under the condition that she finish high school and not let it affect her schoolwork, and she’s done a fantastic job so far. Now, she has an audition for a commercial with a popular brand.
“You belted out ‘And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going’ in front of a packed gymnasium. You can recite a few lines in front of some boring casting directors.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she says as she moves her empty glass to the edge of the table. “But this could be the start of … more. It’s nerve-racking.”
“Well, I brought you something that I hope helps with that.”
I slide a small box across the table to her, and she eyes it with a sly grin. “What are you up to?”
As she opens the box she starts to tell me about a dream she had, but her words die on her tongue when she sees what’s inside. Her eyes fly up to my neck where a certain necklace always used to reside but now lives in that box.
“Dani. Tanya’s necklace?” She never met Tanya, but she knows her all the same.
I nod my head.
“But … what about your luck?”
I think about my incredible friends and family who always stand by my side, the career I’ve found a renewed passion for, and the wonderful man who feeds my soul, and I understand how Tanya was able to part with this necklace. “I have no more use for luck.”
After Veronica and I leave our lunch date, I give Micah a call.
“What are you up to?” he asks as the video connects.
“I was gonna ask you that.”
“Me and Tee just got done visiting his dad and Chi Chi.” He pans the phone over to Tavion sitting in his passenger seat.
“Hey, Tee! Did you send them my love?”
“What’s good, Dani? Of course we did. And guess what?”
“What’s up?”
He grabs the phone from Micah’s hands. “My passport made it!”
“Ayeee!” Sammy and Tee are both going with us to Japan, but it’s taken forever to get his passport in. He was stressed about it, as if we would actually go without him.
We go back and forth dancing while Micah shakes his head at us. When he gets the phone back, he flashes a smile at me. “Need me to grab anything on my way home?”
“Nope, I’m still out anyway, so I’ll meet you there.”
“Oh bet, I’ll drive slow so you beat me there.”
I tilt my head. “Why would you do that?”
“So I can watch you cheesin’ on the camera.”
“Fuck you, Micah. Bye.” I fight to keep the giggle out of my voice as I hang up.
When we get home, at the same time might I add, I smile as I walk by my favorite spot: the wall where our art hangs side by side.
Where they’ll stay forever.
The end.