Epilogue
TWO-AND-HALF YEARS LATER
Emma
It’s not every day your mother gets married for the fourth time.
I wanted everything to be perfect for Mom, because I can tell this is the first time she’s been truly excited about getting married. She liked Mark—we all liked Mark, including his poet friend—but she loves Chuck.
I have much more value for that kind of love than I did at Anthony’s wedding, and he and Rosie keep proving that my preliminary judgement of their chances of marital happiness was just that—preliminary and unfounded in reality.
“You may need that drink more than I do,” my mother says as I pass her the gin and tonic I made her for a little stress reliever. We’re relaxing in one of the sitting rooms before the ceremony. Claire and Declan are already here, and so is Chuck. He moved into Smith House two years ago, and I moved into the apartment he was sharing with Seamus. He’s made the joke about trading spaces many times, but we all still offer him polite laughter. Seamus is keeping him company right now, along with Claire and Declan.
“I’m not nervous,” I say automatically. “Besides, I’ll pour one for myself, too.”
I do, feeling my mother watching me as I take a gulp of the drink.
“You’re practically jittering,” she says. “Everything will be fine. Claire made a lovely cake.”
She did. It’s sitting out in the ballroom—a mammoth cake, at least two feet high. Seamus told her it was more of a first marriage cake when she and Declan brought it in from her van a half an hour ago, and she quite rightly shoved him.
“I’m just really happy for you two,” I tell my mother, smoothing the side of her dress. She’s wearing a gorgeous blue lace gown. My bridesmaid’s dress is cream-colored—unconventional, to be certain, but so is she. Claire, Rosie, and Lainey are all bridesmaids too, while Seamus, Declan, Anthony, and Jake are standing up with Chuck.
My mother had a surprisingly large list of invitees, and so did Chuck, who has only been in Asheville for a few years but has a large and varied list of friends.
When someone asked my mother if she’d be wearing white, she gave them a death stare and said, “I’ve been married three times and have two children, what do you think?”
She captures my hand to stop me from continuing to smooth the fabric. “Are you ready to get married?”
“Seamus and I don’t need to get married,” I scoff, summoning an eyeroll. “We’re not sure about kids, and we both know exactly how we feel about each other.”
It’s true. I love Seamus completely, and I know he loves me the same way. We give each other shit constantly, and we both know that if the other person needed something we would drop everything, instantly, to give it to them. I never, ever thought I could have a relationship like this.
And yet…
Part of me feels a sense of yearning . I never expected to feel this way. Although I don’t work on only divorces anymore, I have seen love destruct thousands of different ways.
Why, even my friend Sophie, who I reconnected with this year, has her own heartbreak story about the dud of a fiancé she had during Operation Love Destroyers. She’ll be here today. My business partner, Mary, also had a horror story of a divorce, although you wouldn’t know it now. She and her second husband are blissfully happy together, and even more different from each other than Seamus and me.
Because Seamus and I have the same fire inside of us.
That’s why, despite having seen all that heartbreak, part of me wants to pledge forever to him, and for him to do the same to me. I’ve stopped trying to muffle the different parts of myself, so I’ve acknowledged that feeling’s right to exist even if I don’t totally understand it.
“True,” my mother says with a shrug. “But Chuck will be disappointed to hear that. It is a good excuse to have a party. We plan on doing a lot of traveling after the wedding, but I don’t want him to give up what he enjoys.” She takes another sip of her drink, watching me over the lip of the glass. There’s a sparkle in her eyes. “You might also want to mention your disinterest in marriage to your young man. He asked me for my blessing, you know. Anthony too.”
“He did what?” I snap, nearly dropping my glass.
“Goodness, Emma. Drink that up. He asked for our blessing, not our permission. Everyone knows you’re not a goat.”
I take my mother’s advice and knock back the drink, my heart thumping quickly in my chest.
“When did this happen?” I ask tightly.
“Oh, who knows,” she says as if it doesn’t matter. “When you’re my age, the days start to float together.” She peers at the clock mounted beside the door, then takes another sip of her drink, her hand shaking the slightest bit, showing that even the great Dahlia Rosings isn’t immune to nerves. “It’s almost time. Are Anthony and Rosie here yet? Wouldn’t it be something if the baby was born today?”
Rosie is eight-and-half months pregnant with their first child.
“My niece will have the sense to wait,” I say, leaning in to kiss her cheek. I set the glass down and leave the room. As I walk, I tell myself, focus on the wedding, focus on the wedding…
Because my mind keeps skipping to Seamus. Seamus, asking for my mother’s and brother’s blessing.
That’s not like him at all.
It’s also heartbreakingly sweet.
I go off in search of my brother, and find him with Rosie and Seamus, who’s teasing her about the possibility of her water breaking mid-ceremony. I force a laugh as I circle around one of the pillars, all of which are decorated with bright flower arrangements, courtesy of Chuck.
“It’s her fourth wedding,” she says. “I think we might need a little water-breaking for excitement.”
“There you are,” Seamus says, grinning at me as he wraps an arm around my back. “I’ve been looking for you and my flask. Chuck just about talked my ear off.”
“And you enjoyed every minute of it,” I say wryly. “Meanwhile, my mother insists I’m more nervous about this wedding than she is. She’s in one of the sitting rooms with a gin and tonic.”
“You know what they say,” Rosie says as she waggles her eyebrows up and down. “Fourth time’s a charm.”
“Someone had to say it for the first time, I guess,” Seamus puts in.
“But you know what?” my brother says, wrapping his arm around Rosie’s waist. “I think the fourth time really will be a charm. I’ve never seen Mother so happy.”
“She’s almost agreeable,” I put in. “It’s uncanny. But the drink probably helped.”
Rosie laughs and places a palm on her belly. “Good on you. How’s your non-alcoholic drink game?”
“Piss poor,” Seamus says, giving her an arch look. “I wouldn’t say it’s her expertise.”
“I can do anything I set my mind to,” I tell him pointedly, thinking about him sitting my mother and Anthony down for that talk. “Anything.”
Something flashes in his eyes, but he gives me one of his many smiles. Fond, warm. “Oh, I know. You’ve proven it to me any number of times.”
His request of my mother almost slips my mind as the day passes in joyful chaos. Nicole brought a petting zoo, for “old time’s sake,” and set it up in back. One of the goats eats part of a woman’s very expensive dress, and she puts up a fuss until my mother gives her an epic set down.
My mother’s cousin Jennifer nearly chokes on a cherry, and Declan has to give her the hug of life.
Sophie tells Nicole and me the story of her ex Jonah, who was seeing three different women behind her back.
Her cousin Otis, whom I invited because I still feel bad about the whole Ellie thing, drinks too much and vomits in the punchbowl.
Mary’s son tells me more facts than I’ll ever remember about Ankylosauruses.
Rosie’s water doesn’t break, but she does have Braxton Hicks contractions that put Anthony into a worried frenzy.
Seamus and I dance , and we eat, and we make merry. The only face I put red lipstick on is mine—and his—because I can’t stop kissing him. But at a certain point in the reception, he nods toward the door.
“What?” I ask, breathless.
“Come with me.” He smooths back his hair. “We’re taking a smoke break.”
I lift my eyebrows. “Did you decide to piss me off by taking up smoking again?”
“Something like that,” he says, his voice as smooth as butter. I figured we needed something to argue about.
My heart beats faster, because this obviously isn’t about smoking, and I give him my hand.
We exit the room together, and Nicole whistles at our backs and shouts, “We all know what those two are doing!”
We’ve gotten very good at ignoring her when need be.
He leads me through the halls of Smith House and then outside, shaking his head at the warm, temperate night as he leads the way around the side of the house. “The weather could have at least cooperated so I could offer you my jacket.”
He’s referring to that night, the night we began, and my lips lift in a smile. “Look at it this way, you can go straight to kissing me against a wall and stealing the flask back.”
The flask has become an ongoing joke—we pass it back and forth at least three or four times a week, and sometimes we hide it around the apartment.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he says, backing me behind the shrubberies—no longer as tall and broad as they used to be, because Chuck is all about bringing things into the light rather than concealing them.
I laugh as he presses me into the wall and leans down toward me, as handsome in his groomsman’s suit as he is in his leather jacket and work clothes. “Hello, handsome.”
He leans over me, his mouth inches from mine. “Did you come out here to be kissed?”
Grinning up at him, I say, “Absolutely. Do you intend to be withholding?”
“Never.” He bends down and kisses me, and I kiss him back, feeling emotion welling inside of me, along with a new certainty. If he asks, I know what my answer will be.
Then he leans in, skimming his hand over my leg, and I smack it before he can get to the flask.
He nips my lip before pulling back with a grin.
“There’s something you might want to steal from me in my back pocket right now,” he says, his look all innocence. “if you want to cop a feel.”
“Oh?” I ask, my eyes widening. He couldn’t mean that , could he?
“ Oh ,” he echoes.
Watching him, I reach around and dip my hand into one pocket, then the other.
“They’re empty,” I point out.
“Oh, huh, maybe my front pocket then,” he asks, grinning like the devil he is.
“You’re not bothering me,” I say. “I’ll feel you up anytime, anywhere. Just ask Anthony.”
Who’d walked in on us one day in the library of Smith House and now looks embarrassed every time he passes the room.
He shakes his head slightly. “The things you do to me, Em.”
I reach into one pocket and find nothing, then the other…
I run my fingers over the box and around before taking it out, looking up at him.
“Seamus.”
“Emma.”
My hand trembles as I draw it out, but there’s still a chance it’s a pair of earrings or a brooch.
I meet his gaze. “My mother told me—”
“Of course she did,” he says, shaking his head ruefully this time. “How’d you feel about that hypothetical information I totally didn’t expect her to tell you at the first opportunity to help you get used to the idea?”
“Are you really proposing at her wedding?” I ask, glancing around. No one is near us, but there’s distant talking floating down from inside, the same way there was that first night.
“Hypothetically, I don’t see what the problem is,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “There’s no one out here to see us, and I already got the blessing of the people whose opinion on the subject would matter.”
“Including Chuck’s?”
“No,” he says with a fond smile. “If I’d told him, everyone would be out here watching, though I’m guessing there’s a chance your mother may have let him in on the secret. If there is a secret,” he adds pointedly. “You still haven’t opened the box.”
I pull it out, my hand trembling, and glance up at him.
He looks…nervous.
I’m not used to Seamus looking nervous.
I lift up on my toes and kiss his lips.
“I don’t care what’s in there,” I say. “If you want to marry me, the answer’s yes. But we’re not doing it like this. We’re going to go off, just the two of us, in Ingrid and we’re going to come back married, and then we’re going to tell everyone.”
“Bossy already,” he says as he beams at me, his eyes aglow, like a kid on Christmas morning.
Happiness floods my chest. “Are we going to do it?”
“Yes, Emma.” He traces the side of my face and buries his hand in my hair, bringing me close for another kiss, this one longer. “Just like that. Now, can you give me a break and open the box?”
I do and gasp, my gaze flying up to him. It’s gorgeous, with an enormous blue stone shaped like an oval, surrounded by small diamonds, and there’s no way…
His mouth forms a wry twist. “Your mother might have helped me a little. I’ve insisted I’ll be an indentured servant until I can pay her back. She says she’ll likely be dead first, but she’ll forgive me if we decide to give her more grandchildren someday. I will if you want them. I’ll do anything you want.” His eyes are warm and so deep I’d be happy to get lost in them. “You know that.”
“Right now,” I say, my heart thumping hard. “All I want is to say goodbye to everyone and take off in Ingrid. You and me. We’ll figure it out together.”
“Don’t forget Carrot and Shadow.”
“I would never ,” I say. “The four of us, on the road.”
“God, I love you,” he says, and then he kisses me again, against the side of the house, until I’m gasping.
Love may be for suckers, but if it is, I’ll happily be a sucker for the rest of my life.
Are you curious about Bad Luck Sophie? She’s the heroine of the first book of my new series! (Jonah is NOT the hero, of course.) Her book, Best Served Cold , releases at the end of May. Read on for the first chapter or PREORDER NOW .