Epilogue
Three months later.
Cobalt blue drags across the canvas in a long, wobbly streak. It’s not perfect, but the color is right, deep against the warmer tones underneath. I step back and squint at the whole thing.
Huh. It actually looks intentional.
I’ve been taking lessons for two months. Now I’ve got paint under my fingernails more days than not, and my instructor says I have a good eye for light.
I wipe my hands on the flannel I stole from Leo. One of his old ones he never wears anymore. It’s covered in paint.
He’s never getting this back.
“Alice!” Leo’s voice carries up the stairs, and my whole body warms from his Scottish rumble. “Come down here, lass!”
There’s something in his tone I can’t place, and now I’m curious.
I set my brush in the jar, wipe my hands again—more blue smudges on the flannel, sorry not sorry—and head downstairs.
Leo’s standing at the open front door with his arms crossed and that grin. The one where the lines around his mouth go deep and his hazel eyes crinkle and he looks like a man holding back a secret.
“What?” I ask.
Then I hear a car door slamming.
I peer around his shoulder, and my heart hammers so hard it might burst through my chest.
There’s a vintage car in the driveway. The backseat is packed, and the trunk is open, stuffed with cardboard boxes.
Holy shit. Dane’s finally here. He’s visited a couple times, but it took him longer to pack up his life than any of us liked.
Dane comes around the side of the car and—okay.
He looks different, but it’s not physical.
He’s still tall, still broad-shouldered.
Still the kind of handsome that makes my brain short-circuit on a regular basis.
But there’s something looser about him. Like he finally put down a weight he’d been carrying so long he forgot it was there.
He sees us waiting for him, and the corners of his mouth lift. “I brought more than a suitcase this time.”
I look at Leo, and he’s still grinning. “Did you know about this?”
“Who do you think helped him find a shipping company for the rest of it?”
I bolt down the front steps. Dane catches me when I throw my arms around him. He holds on longer than I expect. His chin rests on top of my head, and I breathe him in, sandalwood and clean cotton, and my eyes sting.
When I pull back, his expression is soft. This is his expression reserved just for me.
“You’re back for good,” I say. It’s not a question.
“For good,” he repeats, and a burst of happiness deep in my stomach makes me giggle.
We spend the afternoon unpacking. Which mostly means Leo gives unsolicited opinions about where everything should go, Dane ignores him with the patience of a man who’s been dealing with Leo for twenty-five years, and I sit on Dane’s new office floor surrounded by books.
“You own more books than furniture,” I say, pulling a worn book from a box.
“Furniture is temporary.” Dane takes the book from my hands. His fingers brush mine, and the contact zips straight through me. “Books are the only things I kept from every apartment.”
Leo chuckles. “He showed up at college with two duffel bags and a box of paperbacks. Some things don’t change.”
“And you showed up with a kilt and an ego the size of Edinburgh Castle.” Dane doesn’t look up from the box he’s sorting. “Some things really don’t change.”
I laugh, finally relaxed for the first time in weeks.
After dinner—Leo made paella, belting out some ridiculous sea shanty the whole time while Dane chopped vegetables—we end up on the couch. I’m tucked between them. Leo on my left, arm slung across my shoulders. Dane on my right, his hand resting on my thigh.
I’m sandwiched between two stupidly attractive men. I’ve got paint in my hair and a studio upstairs and a life that doesn’t make any kind of sense.
I’ve never been happier.
I’m also not on the pill anymore.
Now that Dane is here, it’s time to start trying for real.
I give them both a long look. They’re watching me the way they always do, like I’m the center of their universe.
I grin. “Now, Sirs, it’s time to take your freeuse slut to bed and breed her for real.”
Leo’s laugh is a rumble I feel deep in my core, while Dane’s mouth curves into that slow, devastating smile.
They don’t have to be told twice.
The End