41. Epilogue #2
"I know what it feels like to love you in secret," Evan said. "I know what it feels like to lose you in public. I know what it feels like to stand beside you and let the whole world try to turn us into a headline."
His voice shook. Mine went right along with it.
"I don't want to own your story," he said. "I don't want to be the shadow you spend your life fighting. I want to be next to you while you burn the whole thing down and rebuild it with better lighting."
"That is weirdly romantic."
"I'm trying."
"You're doing good."
His smile trembled.
"I want the ugly parts," he said. "The stubborn parts.
The parts that run. The parts that come back.
The parts that steal hotel shampoo and call me a haunted guitar God.
I want Lila Russell. However you choose to be named.
However you choose to be known. I just want to be the person standing beside you when they say it. "
I was crying. Again. My tear ducts had become unreliable contractors.
"Evan," I whispered.
He held up the ring. "Marry me?"
I looked at him. At the boy who once fell off a stage and proposed before he knew my last name.
At the man who wrote me into a song because he didn't know how else to survive losing me.
At the person who had loved me quietly, badly, beautifully, publicly, privately, through every version of myself I had been terrified to become.
Then I looked at Finn.
He was silently crying into Harper's chip bag. Harper looked disgusted and teary, which for her was basically a sonnet. Raven had fully given up pretending not to watch.
I looked back at Evan.
"Yes," I said.
The word landed clean. Not small. Not hidden. Mine.
Evan exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for years.
Then he slid the ring onto my finger, stood, and kissed me.
The studio erupted.
Finn screamed. Harper clapped once, hard, like she was approving a murder. Raven whooped. Somewhere outside, a car alarm went off, which felt correct for us.
Evan kissed me carefully because of the fresh tattoo, which was considerate and also deeply annoying because I wanted a far less considerate kiss.
I pulled back, breathless. "You proposed in front of a possum with a knife."
His forehead rested against mine. "I did."
"I need you to understand I will be telling this story forever."
"I'm counting on it."
Finn appeared beside us, eyes red, phone raised. "Okay, great, beautiful, legally binding vibes. Now show me the ring."
"It's not legally binding," Harper said.
"Soul binding," Finn corrected. "Gay adjacent paperwork."
I held up my hand.
Finn gasped. "Oh, that's pretty. Annoyingly pretty. Evan, I hate when you succeed."
"Thank you," Evan said.
Harper leaned closer, studying it. "That is very Lila."
"It is, isn't it?" I whispered.
Evan's thumb brushed over my knuckles. "Had it made."
I looked at him. "How long have you had it?"
He hesitated. "A while."
"How much of a while?"
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Define while."
Finn's mouth dropped open. "Oh my God. You've been carrying that thing like a Victorian widow locket."
Harper pointed at him. "You owe me twenty bucks."
"You bet on his proposal timeline?" I demanded.
Harper shrugged. "I'm invested, not dead."
Evan lifted one shoulder. "I wanted to ask when you were ready."
Something inside me softened so fast it hurt.
I looked down at the ring, then at the tattoo under the plastic wrap, those three words tucked against my ribs.
Say it slow.
So I did.
"Yes," I said again, softer. "Yes, yes, yes."
Evan's smile broke open.
And this time, when he kissed me, I let the whole room see.
Three Months Later
Being engaged was peaceful. For six minutes.
Then my mother asked if we had considered a destination wedding, and everything went directly to hell in a flower crown.
"It'll be simple," Mom had said. First lie. "Small," Dad had added. Second lie. "Relaxed," Grant said, which was so criminally inaccurate that I briefly considered firing him from both management and unclehood.
Now there were spreadsheets. There were mood boards. There were flight confirmations, resort contracts, menu tastings, dress fittings, weather contingency plans, seating charts, and one deeply cursed email thread titled TROPICAL LOVE WEEKEND MASTER DOC FINAL FINAL USE THIS ONE.
It was not final. Nothing was final. Ever.
I stood in our kitchen wearing bike shorts, Evan's hoodie, and the expression of a woman one floral arrangement away from felony charges. My laptop sat open on the island. My phone buzzed every twelve seconds. A stack of sample napkins lay in front of me like tiny linen threats.
Evan leaned against the counter, eating cereal out of a mixing bowl because we were apparently engaged to be married, yet still living like raccoons with a mortgage.
"Babe," he said carefully.
I didn't look up. "Choose your next words like they affect your organs."
He paused. Smart man.
"I love the ivory napkins."
"There are fourteen ivory napkins."
"They all look great."
My head snapped up. His spoon stopped halfway to his mouth.
"Do they?" I asked.
He swallowed. "Some of them look… more committed."
Finn, who was sprawled on the couch with his shoes on because he had no respect for upholstery or society, lifted his head. "That was impressive."
Harper sat beside him, scrolling on her phone. "He's learning."
I pointed at the napkins. "This one is cream. This one is ivory. This one is champagne. This one is pearl. This one is bone, which is a disgusting name for a wedding napkin and whoever approved it needs jail time."
Evan nodded. "Agreed. Anti-bone."
Finn wheezed.
I glared at him. "You laugh, but wait until I assign you linen duties."
"I will fake my death."
"Get in line," Harper muttered.
My phone buzzed again. Mom. I answered on speaker because I had apparently learned nothing from every horror movie ever made.
"Hi, honey," Mom said brightly. "Quick question."
"No question involving this wedding has ever been quick."
Dad's voice came from somewhere in the background. "She's right."
Mom ignored him. "How would you feel about a ceremonial dove release?"
"No."
"What about butterflies?"
"No."
"Tiny sparklers?"
"Mom."
"Fine. No airborne romance."
"Thank you."
A pause. Then, too casually: "Also, your dad got a letter."
My entire body went still. Evan looked up. Finn sat upright. Harper's thumb froze over her screen.
Dad sighed in the background. "Molly."
"What kind of letter?" I asked.
Mom cleared her throat. "From Paula."
The kitchen went silent. Not normal silent. Horror-movie silent. The kind where even the refrigerator seemed to stop humming because it wanted to hear whether someone was about to be murdered.
Evan straightened. "Paula?"
Finn whispered, "Oh, the satin nightmare."
Harper muttered, "I knew we should've picked an island with volcano access."
"Everyone calm down," Mom said. "She's still very much locked up. Extra locked up, actually."
"What does extra locked up mean?" I asked.
Dad came on the line. "It means she is not invited to the wedding."
"I would hope that was implied."
"It was implied before the letter," Mom said. "Now it is notarized in my soul."
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "What did she say?"
Mom hesitated. Dad made a sound like a man trying to physically stop his wife from continuing and failing because he married Molly Russell, who considered privacy a decorative concept.
"She sent a wedding RSVP," Mom said.
I stared at the phone. Evan blinked. "To our wedding?"
"Yes."
"She is not invited."
"We know."
"How did she get an RSVP card?" I asked.
"That," Dad said grimly, "is being investigated."
Finn raised one finger. "Sorry, I have several questions, but I'm going to start with: did she check chicken or fish?"
Mom went quiet. Dad said, "Molly."
My eyes widened. "Mom."
"She wrote in swan."
Harper made a choking sound. Finn fell sideways onto the couch. Evan covered his mouth with one hand, shoulders shaking.
I closed my eyes. "She wrote in swan."
"In red ink," Mom said. "Very dramatic."
"Of course she did."
"And then she included a note saying she objected to the marriage on the grounds that all Russell weddings belong to her spiritually."
Evan stopped laughing.
Dad's voice sharpened. "Again, she is not coming anywhere near the wedding."
"I know," I said quickly. "I know."
Because I did.
Paula had been a shadow in my family before I ever understood what shadows were. The woman strangers wanted dead after seeing the movie. The villain people loved to hate. The reason my parents had security systems, boundaries, and a very specific ban on surprise wedding guests.
But time had done something strange to her. Not redemption. Absolutely not. Nobody was handing Paula a cupcake and a second chance montage. Time had made her ridiculous.
Still dangerous enough to take seriously, sure. But also the kind of ridiculous that mailed an RSVP to a destination wedding she wasn't invited to and demanded a swan entrée.
"What happened?" I asked.
Mom's voice brightened in the way it did when she had gossip and baked goods nearby. "Well, apparently after the movie came out, people started sending her fan mail."
"No," I said.
"Yes."
"No."
"Not nice fan mail," Dad clarified. "Mostly requests for her to die."
"See?" Finn whispered. "The audience has taste."
I pointed at him even though Mom couldn't see me. "Do not encourage the murder fandom."
Mom continued, "Anyway, Paula became furious because she believes the actress who played her made her look quote, desperate and weird."
Harper stared at the phone. "Where's the lie?"
"So she wrote the actress a sixteen-page correction letter," Mom said.
Evan's brows lifted. "Only sixteen?"
"Front and back."
"Ah."
"And now," Mom said, with the kind of theatrical pause that had definitely been passed to me genetically, "the actress has optioned the letter for a one-woman stage show."
Silence. Then Finn screamed. Not laughed. Screamed.
Harper dropped her phone. Evan folded over the counter, laughing into his forearm.
I gripped the island. "I'm sorry. Paula's rage letter is becoming theater?"
"Off-Broadway," Mom said proudly, as if she had somehow accomplished this herself.
Dad sounded tired enough to become furniture. "It is called Sincerely, Still the Bride."
Finn slid off the couch onto the floor.
I covered my face with both hands. "This cannot be real."
"Oh, it's real," Mom said. "And Paula's facility banned her from reviews after she tried to submit a six-page correction to the Playbill bio."
Evan wiped at his eyes. "I'm sorry. I know she's awful, but that is incredible."
"It gets better," Dad said, with the deadened voice of a man who had seen the bottom of the barrel and then discovered stairs.
"There's more?" I asked.
"She is now demanding royalties."
Harper whispered, "Legendary villain behavior."
"No," I said. "We do not call Paula legendary."
"Infamous?" Finn asked from the floor.
"Acceptable."
Mom sighed. "Anyway, sweetheart, we just wanted you to know before someone posted about it. Security is handled. Paula is handled. No one is crashing your wedding."
The second she said it, every person in my kitchen went still.
Slowly, I looked at Evan. He looked at me. Finn sat up from the floor. Harper's mouth curved.
Dad groaned. "Molly."
Mom gasped. "I didn't mean it like that."
"You absolutely cursed us," I said.
"I did not curse you."
"You said no one is crashing the wedding."
"That is a perfectly normal thing to say."
"Not in this family."
Evan reached for my hand, thumb sliding over my ring. "We'll be fine."
I looked at him. "We're having a tropical island destination wedding with my entire family, your band, my band, movie people, musicians, at least three unstable fan accounts, and a villain in a psychiatric facility demanding swan."
He considered that. "Fine adjacent."
Finn raised his hand. "For the record, I would watch Sincerely, Still the Bride."
"Same," Harper said.
"You're both uninvited," I said.
"No, we're not," Finn said. "You need me. I'm your chaos support menace."
Harper lifted her phone. "And I have all the vendor passwords."
I pointed at her. "That is extortion."
"That is friendship."
Evan came around the island and slid his arms around my waist from behind, careful of the healing tattoo even though it had been months. He always remembered things like that. Tiny tendernesses. The kind that didn't make headlines, which made them my favorite.
His mouth brushed my temple. "You know, we could still elope."
I leaned back against him. "Don't tempt me."
"I'm serious."
"No, you're not."
"I could be."
"You want the wedding."
"I want you."
My chest softened. Rude. He knew exactly what he was doing.
"You also want to see me become a bridezilla."
His lips curved against my hair. "A little."
I twisted in his arms and narrowed my eyes. "Excuse me?"
"You're hot when you're terrifying."
Finn gagged from the floor. "Please remember some of us are single and breakable."
Harper snorted. "You flirted with a bartender last night by asking if she believed in ghosts."
"It worked."
"It did not."
"She gave me extra cherries."
"That was pity fruit."
I turned back to Evan, but I was smiling now. Against my will. Against my spreadsheets. Against the tiny linen army waiting on the island.
He kissed the tip of my nose.
"Whatever happens," he said, "we'll handle it."
There was a time when I would have heard that and thought he meant he would handle it for me. That he would step in front of me, absorb the lights, take the story, become the headline.
Now I knew better. He meant beside me.
Messy. Public. Ridiculous. Ours.
My phone buzzed again. Another message from Mom.
MOM: Also, how do you feel about flamingo-shaped place cards?
I stared at it for a long second.
Then I screamed into Evan's chest.
He laughed, holding me tighter.
The ring on my finger caught the kitchen light. The tattoo beneath my ribs pulled a little when I breathed. Somewhere in the world, Paula was probably writing an angry review of her own villain monologue. My mother was threatening me with flamingos. My wedding binder had tabs.
Tabs.
And somehow, impossibly, this was my happy ending.
Or at least the beginning of the next disaster.
Same thing, really. Especially in this family.