Epilogue #3
He jerked his chin in an abrupt nod before pressing his lips to my temple. “Thank you.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder, breathing him in with a contented sigh. “I love you.”
“Love you too, baby.”
We stayed like that for a moment longer before Teddy cleared his throat and stood, pulling me up with him. When we turned back to the table, both girls were pretending to be engrossed in their phones, though Sky’s eyes were suspiciously shiny.
“All right,” he announced, his voice still rough but steadier. “It’s after one. Y’all should get some sleep.”
“But what about presents?” Sky protested, gesturing to the pile of wrapped packages under the tree. “We always open them first thing Christmas morning.”
“First thing being a reasonable hour,” I interjected. “Like nine or ten. Not the middle of the night.”
Addie yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. “Actually, sleep sounds amazing right now. I think all the late-night plotting is catching up with me.”
“Mm, that reminds me. You’re both on kitchen duty tomorrow,” I said as I gathered the empty mugs and carried them over to the sink.
“Working on Christmas?” Sky questioned with a theatrical gasp, as if it was the first she was hearing about it. “How very Ebenezer Scrooge of you.”
“Look, while we appreciate the thought behind your little plan, it doesn’t change the fact that you lied to us about where you were for days,” I said, filling the sink with hot, soapy water before deciding the dishes could wait until morning. “Consider it your penance.”
“Worth it,” she declared with a smug smirk. “Seeing you two finally get your shit together was the best Christmas gift we could have asked for.”
“Language,” I said automatically before remembering I was talking to the child who’d been born without a filter.
Teddy snorted. “Baby, that ship sailed about twenty-one years ago when her first word was ‘fuck’ because someone couldn’t watch her potty mouth around the baby.”
“That was your fault!” I protested, smacking his arm. “You’re the one who taught her that.”
Addie stood, stretching with a groan that belonged on someone twice her age. “Okay, before this devolves into another round of ‘who corrupted Skylar first,’ I’m going to bed.”
She paused at the foot of the stairs and primly adjusted her glasses, her mannerisms so like mine it was scary. “I just wanna say that I’m not sorry we meddled. You two were miserable apart and too damn stubborn to ever admit it.”
“Great. Doesn’t change the fact that you’re still grounded,” Teddy said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Can’t ground adults,” Sky sing-songed as she headed for the stairs. “We have jobs and apartments and pay our own bills.”
“Watch me, brat,” he called after her, but she was already halfway up, Addie following close behind.
“Night, Mom! Night, Dad!” Addie said over her shoulder. “And remember, the living room couch is considered a public space and should remain family-friendly.”
“Yeah, keep it in the bedroom, you two!” Sky added. “Some of us might need water in the middle of the night and would prefer not to be traumatized again!”
Their footsteps thundered up the stairs—how two relatively small women could sound like a herd of elephants was beyond me.
“Better hurry, or Santa won’t come!” I called after them, unable to resist one last joke.
“Mom!” came the mortified chorus from upstairs, followed by Sky’s muffled, “I’m sending you my therapy bill!”
I shook my head and moved through the kitchen, folding the dish towel over the oven handle and switching off the lights.
“Think Santa already came.”
I turned at the sound of Teddy’s low voice, ready with a quip about how that was a terrible line even for him. The words died in my throat.
He stood in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, backlit by the fireplace and twinkling tree lights. In his hand was a small velvet box, navy blue and battered at the corners, like it had been waiting a long time for this moment.
My hands came up over my mouth. “Teddy? What—”
He held up his free hand, a slight tremor in his fingers betraying his nerves. “Just... let me get this out before I lose my nerve.”
Even in the dim light, I could see the nervous energy radiating off him—the way he shifted his weight from foot to foot, the tight set of his jaw.
“Bought this right after Irish offered me a spot here. Thought maybe...” He trailed off, dragging one hand through his hair.
“Thought maybe if I showed you I was serious about starting over, about building something new here together, you’d give us another shot.
Thought maybe if I could just get you away from there, we’d find our way back to each other. ”
I thought back to that horrible time period, remembering the way he’d come home talking about the mountains and the chapter and how much I’d resented him for running away when I’d needed him most.
He’d been trying to save us, to help us heal, and I’d handed him divorce papers.
“Had this whole plan to bring you here for our anniversary, show you the mountains and the life we could build, but it all went to shit before I could even bring it up.” He swallowed, his nostrils flaring wide as he fought to hold back tears.
“Thought about selling the ring or maybe chucking it into the Dillon Reservoir. But every time I took it out of the safe, I just… couldn’t. ”
“Why?”
Teddy shrugged. “Guess some part of me never stopped hoping. Even when I was convinced we were over, even when I was drinking myself stupid and picking fights with anyone who looked at me wrong, some part of me knew. Knew that if you ever gave me another chance, if we ever found our way through all the shit and pain and mistakes, I wanted to have it.”
The box opened with a soft squeak, revealing a ring that stole what little breath I had left.
Not a diamond—he knew me better than that.
The stone was a deep green; darker than the emerald I’d worn for three decades.
It reminded me of a forest, with a vintage-gold setting—Art Deco, maybe—and tiny milgrain details.
“Tsavorite garnet,” he explained, taking a step closer.
“Jeweler suggested it, said they’re formed under extreme heat and pressure that would destroy most things, but instead…
” He lifted the ring from the box, twisting it to catch the tree lights.
“Instead, it creates something that can last forever.”
Teddy’s eyes met mine again. “We’ve had more pain than any two people should have to carry. Lost more than...” His voice caught, and he had to stop, jaw flexing with emotion. “Lost our boy. Lost those babies that never got to be. Lost each other for a while there.”
The other pregnancies. The ones we never talked about, that ended almost as soon as they began. Just one more thing we’d buried under silence and Perfect Kelsey’s carefully maintained surface.
My throat felt tight, all the words I wanted to say stuck somewhere between my heart and my mouth.
“We did thirty years the hard way, baby,” Teddy continued. “Fighting ourselves, fighting each other, fighting against what we both knew was true—that we’re better together than apart. Like to try doing the next thirty different.”
He reached for my hand, and at the last moment, I pulled back, unable to keep the smile from tugging at my lips even through tears. “Was there a question attached to that speech, Theodore?” I asked,
The side of his mouth tipped up. “Don’t ask questions I already know the answer to,” he said, gruff and certain. “You’ve been mine since I was seventeen, Kelsey Dawn. Ring’s just making it official. Again.”
“You’re not getting down on one knee either?”
He stared at me for a long moment before shaking his head. “Baby, think we both know what would happen if I got on my knees right now,” he said, his voice dropping low.
I playfully pushed against his chest, and he caught my hand, sliding the ring onto my finger before I could pull away. It fit perfectly, and I held my hand up, watching the way the stone caught the light, throwing tiny prisms across the walls.
He pulled me in for a kiss that started soft and turned heated within seconds, his hands tangling in my hair, mine grabbing at his shoulders.
I could feel thirty-four years in that kiss—every first, every last, every moment we’d convinced ourselves was an ending when it turned out to be just another beginning.
We eventually migrated toward the fire, with Teddy making a quick detour to the liquor cabinet.
“Just one glass?” I asked when he returned with only one tumbler of whiskey.
“You plan on sitting across the room from me?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Then we’re sharing.” He settled into the leather armchair near the fireplace before patting his thigh. “Come here.”
I curled into his lap without hesitation, like I had a thousand times before the weight of the world convinced us we were too old for such things.
His arm came around me automatically, hand settling easily against my hip. The whiskey glass rested on the chair arm, within reach but forgotten for the moment.
My gaze drifted to the pile of presents beneath the tree. Wrapped in paper that hadn’t come from the same roll. The ones I’d brought had elegant gold stripes. Others were wrapped in birthday paper and what appeared to be newspaper, decorated with a marker by someone—likely Teddy.
“I don’t have anything for you,” I said softly, guilt needling at me. “I didn’t think about it. Didn’t know any of this would happen.”
Teddy’s arm tightened around my waist, pulling me closer. “Baby, I got exactly what I wanted for Christmas.”
“But—”
“Got my whole damn heart back,” he continued, his voice a low growl against my shoulder. “Don’t need anything else.”
He paused, taking a sip of the whiskey before offering me the glass. I took it, letting the smoky caramel liquor warm me from the inside out while the man I’d loved since before I understood what love really meant watched me with a soft smile.