Epilogue
TOBY
“Ibrought something home for you,” he said.
I paused my show on the iPad and looked up at him with a smile, my eyes going to the red rose in his hand.
“Really?” I asked, quirking a brow.
“Really,” he confirmed. “It’s been three months since you came back.” His smile faltered a little, and he gave me that wounded puppy look — like he was just waiting for me to shoot him down.
I took the thornless rose from him and inhaled deeply, catching the subtle scent of the flower. “It’s beautiful,” I told him.
“Yeah?” Relief crossed his features, and I reached up with my other hand to catch his with my own. Our fingers twined together. “I hoped you’d like it.”
“I do. Thank you. Where’s a vase?” I asked, squeezing his hand before letting go so I could put the iPad down and stand up.
“Kitchen cabinet, above the cups,” he directed me. He lifted a grocery bag, showing it to me. “I got you something else,” he said, a little bit of a mischievous sparkle in his eyes.
“Uh oh,” I said, deadpan. I never minded his gifts. Sometimes they were for his kitten, and sometimes they were for me. Either way, he spoiled me rotten, making sure I had everything I could ever want — let alone what I needed.
I traipsed into the kitchen, bare feet plodding along the cool tile floor, and searched out a vase. I found one, filling it with water just as he followed me in and set the bag down on the counter.
I set the vase on the kitchen table before carefully sliding the rose into its place. “So what did you get?” I asked him.
He pulled out a package, smirking at me. “Tuna.”
I started to groan, but then I realized he’d gotten the real stuff. I perked up. It had been forever since I’d had an actual filet of tuna. “Real tuna?” I asked hopefully.
He set the package on the counter. “Real tuna,” he told me, unpacking a few more items from the other bag. “And I’m not cooking the shit out of it.”
I snorted. “I wouldn’t want you to. Are you going to feed it to me?”
He started, glancing at me as though he wasn’t sure whether I was serious. We still had moments like this, where he didn’t know what I was really willing to do, and we were still learning about one another.
“I can if you want,” he said cautiously.
“Good.” I sat down at the table instead of going to the dog bed, getting comfortable so I could watch him cook. “Carry on.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “So demanding,” he said, but he got the pan out from the cabinet anyway. “Do you like sushi?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I figured you didn’t or something.”
“We should get it sometime.” He looked at me, still with that careful look on his features. “Together.”
I froze, staring at him. Did he mean…
“I mean, if you want to.”
I hadn’t left the house since I’d returned, and the idea of it was a little frightening. What if someone recognized me? I’d never given an explanation for the first time I’d vanished, and the second…
They’d probably never think the note I’d left was sufficient.
“I think I’d like that,” I said.
Every time I thought things had changed as much as they were going to, they caught me off guard again.
“I know this really good place,” he said, still watching me as though he thought I was going to refuse or panic or… whatever he thought.
“Then yeah. We should do it. But not tonight,” I told him. “Tonight, you’re fixing me tuna, and you’re going to feed it to me.”
He smiled at me, slow and relieved. “Good.”
I settled back in the chair, trying to come to terms with the idea of going into public with him. What if I saw someone I knew? They’d have so many questions for me, and they’d never understand why I’d disappear to be with him.
They didn’t know him like I did, and they never would.
Maybe I shouldn’t have completely vanished, but I knew they’d never stop asking me what had happened, why I was there, what I was doing. They’d want to know everything, and there were so many questions I was never going to be able to answer.
I didn’t even want to try. This was my life — truly my life — and it didn’t belong to anyone but me.
It belonged to him, too, to the man who had stolen me away from my old life and given me a new one.
The two of us had everything we needed — me, Toby, and him, Griffin Meyers.
And both of us left our old lives behind for each other.
Together, we would move forward.
Together.
THE END OF
THE BEAUTY’S BEAST
(THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
BOOK 2)