Epilogue
EPILOGUE
NORA
The best part about getting married at your own house is not having to go anywhere afterward. Most of the guests have left, sleeping up in Fairhaven’s guest rooms or over in a nearby hotel.
Only our closest friends are still here. Sitting on the terrace with us, surrounded by the remnants of the party.
Of our wedding party.
Ernest and I chose some of the late-blooming August roses from the garden for my bouquet. The August heat was tempered by cool winds from the ocean, and down by the water’s edge, West and I said our vows.
It wasn’t a giant wedding.
It wasn’t a small one either.
It was the perfect size. Our friends and family, both biological and chosen. A wonderful band and caterers that were, like West’s mother assured me, truly the best.
My mother and West’s were seated near each other for the dinner. Over the past months, they’ve found a tentative kind of friendship; one is tightly controlled, and one is not controlled at all. But they both enjoy the finer things in life and meddling in their children’s lives, and maybe that’s something to bond over.
The day is over, and the new one hasn’t quite begun yet. West’s beside me on the sectional, the bow tie of his tux undone. He has an arm around me and a lazy smile on his lips.
My husband.
And somehow, he has a plate with his second serving of wedding cake. I have no idea where he found the space. Or the cake.
Across from us are the few brave souls still awake. Amber and Rafe. Alex and James. There’s a half-empty bottle of champagne on the table, and Amber’s slipped out of her heels. She hides a yawn with her hand.
It’s been a long day. A long week.
“Nora, tell the others,” Alex says, “what you did.”
He won the spot for best man. James did too, and Rafe. They all stood up there as groomsmen, with West insisting that he had no favorites.
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” I say, and reach over to take West’s fork out of his hand. He watches with a smile while I take a bite out of this cake.
“West hates when you eat off his plate,” Alex says.
“I do hate it,” West says, and takes back the fork I hand him, “when it’s anyone but my wife.”
I smile at the word, and he smiles at me.
Rafe reaches for the bottle of champagne. “You two…”
“It’s their wedding day. Well. Night,” Amber says. “They’re allowed to be sappy.”
“I don’t know what it says, that you’re choosing to spend that night with us, by the way,” James says.
West ignores them all. He polishes off the final piece of cake and then reaches for my legs, pulling them up and onto his lap.
His left hand rests on my thigh. Gold wedding band on his ring finger.
“Tell them,” he says, and there’s pride in his voice. “What you did.”
I smile at our friends. “I sent Ben Wilde an invitation to the wedding.”
There’s a variety of shocked gasps around the circle. I wanted him to know that I knew. Even if I never confronted him.
Rafe leans forward. “You did what?”
“Brilliant, wasn’t it?” West asks.
“He’d never show up. But I wanted him to feel…” I shrug a little. “Awful.”
Amber laughs. “You’re ice cold. I love it.”
“I want him to know that I know.”
“Kill him with kindness,” West says. There’s pride in his eyes. At first, when I sat down weeks ago, and in a beautiful, slanting calligraphy, wrote an invite to a man I don’t like, he thought I was out of my mind. “You’re better than me.”
“While I hate Ben Wilde,” Alex says, and gestures over at me and West on the couch opposite him, “he’s sort of responsible for this happening.”
Rafe groans. “No. We’re not thanking that bastard for a single thing.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, and you’ve had too much to drink.” Alex reaches over and grabs the bottle. “Leave some for me.”
“You’ve all had too much.” James is sitting on the far left, and there’s a cigar in his left hand. He nods over at Alex. “Billiards?”
“Thought you’d never ask.” He stands and stretches with a groan. “We have to get some kind of competition in before Nora over here sends us on a silent meditation retreat for the next Lost Weekend.”
I pretend to shush him. “That was a secret!”
My brother groans. “Don’t do that to me. Please.”
“Please do, Nora,” James says. He leaves his cigar to die on the tray and pulls Alex into the house. Amber rises with a yawn and joins them inside.
West smooths a hand over my ankle. His fingers are warm, finding the skin beneath the hem of my white dress.
“You’re not playing?” he asks Rafe. The two of them have settled into a new kind of friendship over the past few months. It took him a while, my brother, to fully accept this new reality.
Me speaking out. West dating me.
The two of us… getting married.
“No. I should go to bed,” he says. “But I’m not sure what kind of reception I’ll get.” Rafe is sprawled out, his head against the headrest. His dark hair is mussed, and like West, he’s long since undone his bow tie.
He’s turning something over on his own ring finger.
Because West and I aren’t the only ones who got married this summer.