Epilogue One #2
He dropped a kiss on my lips, and then hauled me into his arms, racing up the stairs one last time. Inside, we all spent a few hours packing the last of our shit up, and then the removal van and movers showed up.
“So, where are we staying tonight?” I asked, since the guys had been telling me for weeks that they had this sorted. Only, they’d provided zero other details.
All I got was secretive smirks, and that continued until we all piled into Connor’s bulletproof escalade and drove out of Meadowridge for the last time. I said a silent goodbye to our college, and then let myself relax and enjoy the journey.
It took a few hours and I dozed the entire time, the low lilt of their voices and that spicy masculine scent they all had lulling me into slumber. When the car slowed, I blinked my eyes open, just in time for a blindfold to be dropped over them and then secured behind my head.
“What the hell?” I said with a laugh. “Are you taking me into the forest to kill me? This is the slowest catfish I’ve ever been part of.”
Brodie howled with laughter, shaking his head. “Yes, I’m not a movie star. I’m a farmer from Kentucky.”
Andrew was the one to help me out of the car. I knew by the feel of the starched, button-down shirt he wore. Another one of them, maybe Connor, judging on size alone, stepped in on the other side of me, and they led me forward over what felt like a paved path.
We walked for maybe five minutes until they slowed, and I knew the others were joining us, from the footsteps that died off with ours.
Nerves, both excited and intense flutters, filled my gut as I waited for their surprise.
The blindfold was slowly slipped from my face, and for some reason I kept my eyes closed.
“You can look now, baby,” Ethan whispered, his voice right behind me, as if he was almost pressed to my back.
My eyes fluttered open, and my gasp was rapid and forceful as I took in the house. “We’re staying here?” I asked, staring at the gorgeous two-story manor that looked like a very modern, very expensive version of Bluebell House. Right down to the rows of bluebells in the front gardens.
“We’re living here,” Andrew said, and I could hear the hint of nerves in his normally rich, cultured tones. He was nervous about my reaction, and I wondered if he’d been the one to choose this.
I bet it was all of them.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, turning to throw my arms around him. I then hugged all the others, with Haze last, as he lifted me off my feet.
When I wiggled for him to set me down, he did, and I just about died when all five of them dropped to their knees, right there on the paved front path of a house that looked just like the one that had made us a family.
I stared between the five of them, my eyes already welling with tears. And when each of them pulled a box from their pocket, opening them to reveal what was clearly going to be a stackable set of diamond rings, I couldn’t stop multiple sobs from escaping.
“Yes,” I said in a rush, and Andrew shook his head.
“We didn’t get to ask the question,” Brodie said, blinking up at me, his eyes as blue as the sky around us, even in the fading light.
“Let us ask the question, brat,” Connor said, scowling before he too shook his head.
“Baby, we love you so much,” Ethan started, and I was lost in the very green eyes that had saved me all those years ago on my first day at Meadowridge.
The safety I felt with him had never changed, and now I had four more amazing men to call my own.
“We want to spend the rest of our lives with you.”
“Will you marry us?” Haze finished, and I was bawling like crazy now, trying to figure out how I could jump on all five of them at once.
“Please,” Andrew added, his voice low and formal. “Make us the happiest men on the planet.”
“Yes, a million times yes,” I breathed. “You five are the best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn’t be here today without you.”
They’d saved my life in more ways than one, and I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of my days with them.
Falling to my knees in the middle of them, they leaned in and wrapped their arms around me, until I couldn’t tell who was where.
But it didn’t matter. We all touched and hugged, and eventually they got the stunning rings on my fingers.
I’d been worried that five stacked bands of diamonds, with a huge six carat stone in the center—according to Brodie, who told me everything about every stone—would be too much. But somehow it worked perfectly.
“I love it,” I cried, wondering if I’d ever stop sobbing.
We stayed like that for a long time, until my knees started to protest and Brodie joked about me needing a little more practice. It broke the moment, but in a perfect way, and when Haze helped me up, he hauled me into his arms and carried me up the front porch bridal-style.
“You can’t cross the threshold any other way,” Andrew said seriously, as if he’d studied a handbook on it. Knowing him, he had.
“Isn’t that after marriage?” I asked, teasing him with a grin.
He shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, we proposed, you accepted, and now you’re our wife. We will carry you over the threshold.”
Wife. That one word sent a shiver down my spine.
Even when Haze set me on my feet, and the five of them dragged me from room to gorgeous room, all with flowered wallpaper and intricate wainscoting, new and already furnished, since most of our stuff stayed with Bluebell House, all I could think about was being their wife.
When we hit the second floor, I was directed through multiple bedrooms, all with their own bathrooms, until finally we hit the main bedroom.
The looks on their faces should have told me that this was another surprise, and sure enough, when we entered, I found myself staring at a room big enough to house a mini apartment.
And dead center was a bed that had to be the size of two or three kings together.
“That’s massive,” I said, blinking.
There was an extended silence, but all the guys found enough maturity not to call me out on that comment. “Whose room is this?” I asked.
“Ours,” Ethan said, taking my hand. “Ready to christen the bed, wife?”