Epilogue
FREYA
“What are you talking about?” Elsie squawks, batting away Joyce’s hands. Joyce lunges again, surprisingly spry for a woman in her eighties as she tries to wrestle the brush from Elsie’s hands.
“You have to go with the grain!” Joyce hisses. “Otherwise you might as well be backcombing, and that’s just manufacturing false fluff!”
“I am going with the grain!” Elsie turns away, trying to stop Joyce from seeing what she’s doing.
“Let me do it!”
“No! This is my cat, I’ll brush him any way I please!”
I’m about to step out from behind the booth I’m setting up when Oscar jogs over to see what all the commotion is about. Elsie and Joyce are at a folding table in the corner of the apparatus bay as Elsie is giving her cat a final brush before judging starts in an hour.
“Ladies, can we please take it down a notch,” Oscar says as he nears them.
Joyce huffs, scowling at him. “You know, this wouldn’t be a problem if you would just implement the regulations that I suggested.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “Birdie sets the rules, we’re not changing them.” His voice is grave. “Now, can you cut it out before she comes back, I’m not having you ruin this for her.”
At the mention of Birdie, the women straighten, expressions sheepish.
This cat competition looks like it’s going to be the biggest one in Cedar Creek history, and it’s easy to know why.
Birdie and Joni moved back into town four months ago after living with Joni’s sister for most of the last three years.
This is the first time either of them will be attending the Open House and everyone is determined to make it as good as possible for them.
Joni chuckles from next to me as she lays the tablecloth across the front of our booth. Oscar had invited her as the guest of honor today, but she declined. Instead, she’s here in her capacity as the newest employee of Malcolm Yarn and Crafts.
“Birdie would probably love the drama,” she whispers to me.
After I knitted the blanket for Birdie, she asked me to show her how I made it.
The two of us stayed in touch, with Joni texting me knitting questions until she had nothing left to ask.
Then, we just swapped project ideas, yarn recommendations, and last year she came out to Denver with me to help out at the convention.
When she said she wanted to come home, I couldn’t offer a job fast enough.
“Right?” I giggle back. “That kid lives for this kind of stuff.”
Oscar walks over to us, ducking around the makeshift wall of our booth. “Remind me to ban those two next time,” he huffs as he wraps an arm around my waist and tugs me to him.
“Be nice.” I press up on my toes to kiss his cheek, leaving a smudge of lipstick that I have to wipe away with my thumb. There’s been more than one occasion where the crew have noticed red stains on his skin when he shows up in the mornings.
“I’m always nice,” he grumbles.
“You’re always nice to me.” I quirk an eyebrow. “Everyone else…”
“Hush.” He stops me with a kiss to my lips. As we break apart, my hand on his chest brushes the captain’s insignia.
After he stepped down, the department sent a new acting captain from a neighboring town.
Oscar had been so worried that the crew was going to hate him, but it couldn’t have been less true.
Everyone rallied together to support each other, and a year and a half later when Oscar was offered the job as captain outright, they couldn’t have been happier for him.
I’m so proud of him, it still makes me want to burst. He worked so hard in therapy, opening up about his dad. He’s been talking about him more to me and his mom and it’s been incredible to see him stop hiding himself away.
“You doing alright?” he asks. “I’ve got extra headphones in my office if you need them.”
“I’m fine.” I roll my eyes at him, even as I’m smiling.
“How's the set-up going?”
“Nearly there!” Joni chimes in from where she’s adding the last few skeins to the pegboard.
“Awesome.” He presses one more kiss to the top of my head. “I’d better go, doors open in thirty.”
Just as I peel myself away from him, Ryan appears next to us. “Hey, Cap,” he says to Oscar, sounding a little breathless. “There’s something up with the dunk tank.”
Oscar groans. “Every fucking year…”
“Justin was testing it and it dropped him in early.”
I snigger at that as Oscar rolls his eyes. “Well, at least that’s something.”
Oscar and Justin have largely buried the hatchet—especially after Justin marched himself to the store about three months after the trivia night and apologized—but Oscar still puts him on dunk tank duty every year.
“I’ll see you later,” he says to me before following Ryan out to the yard.
Once the doors are open and the crowds have poured in, it’s hard to find time to see him.
He’s so busy, running between greeting people from town and fixing any problem that arises.
It’s almost like that first Open House, except this time I’m not hugging the wall, wondering where I fit into all of this.
I’ve found my place here, and it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be.
The only time I’m able to catch a minute with him is when he drops off a sandwich I hadn’t caught him packing this morning.
“When did you make this?” I ask as he thrusts the paper bag into my hand.
“It’s my turn.” He shrugs before leaning past me to hand a second bag to Joni. “Prepped them before I left.”
It might have been his turn, but considering he spent most of this morning pacing a hole into the carpet, I assumed he’d forgotten. I have my own trio of lunches stuffed into the bag under the table.
Joni shakes her head at me fondly, quirking an eyebrow at him. “I think he’s a keeper.”
I snort, leaning back against his chest. “You’re telling me…”
Oscar first asked me to move in with him a year before I actually did.
I’d needed some time to get used to the idea.
The thought of sharing a home with someone brought back some of the trauma I was working through.
I was afraid that losing my own space meant losing my autonomy, but Oscar gave me all the time I wanted, never wavering in his patience.
He even offered to move into my apartment, but one look at Harvey’s hutch setup shut that plan down.
It barely fits into Oscar’s living room, let alone mine.
When, ten months ago, I finally started living at his house—bringing my copious throw pillows and taking up most of his closet space with my dresses—we fell into a routine so easily it was like I’d been there for years.
The day I told him I was ready, I suggested a trip back to the lake, and he looked at me like he’d just won the lottery.
Any last doubts I felt were washed away as he kissed me by the water’s edge.
“Mom!” Birdie yells as she sprints at Joni. “Come on! It’s time!” She takes hold of Joni’s hand and starts pulling her out of the booth. Joni shoots me an apologetic look but I just wave her away.
“You heard the lady.” Oscar chuckles as he watches Birdie. “You coming?”
“Of course,” I say, taking his hand. The whole room is moving toward the makeshift stage, so it’s not like we’re going to get any business anyway.
Oscar leads us to the front, where cats from all over town are being lined up by their owners. Birdie stands at the end, bouncing on her toes. When all the contestants are present, Ryan steps up onto the stage.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” he calls out with a flourish. “Welcome to the greatest show on earth… The Cedar Creek Cat Competition!”
He goes down the line, introducing each cat to rapturous applause. When he reaches the end, my jaw drops and Oscar has to stifle a laugh. Valerie stands behind the table, holding Harvey, who’s looking especially out of place among the rest of the feline participants.
“You didn’t.” I nudge Oscar with my shoulder.
“I had to,” he says sheepishly. “Blame Luci, it was her idea.”
“She’s a terrible influence,” I mutter.
He shrugs. “Probably, yeah.”
After their less than ideal first meeting, Luci and Oscar have become fast friends. I’m not always sure how much I like it, especially when the two of them gang up on me.
Once all the cats have been introduced, Birdie starts working her way down the line, inspecting each one.
She doesn’t need a step to reach them anymore, and in the years she’s been away, she’s apparently been plotting a far more rigorous judging matrix.
What was once a fun game meant to satisfy the whims of a toddler, is fast turning into the most prestigious prize in town.
When she reaches Harvey, she turns to the crowd, throwing Oscar a withering stare before declaring the rabbit disqualified.
“Dammit.” I feel him deflate. Did he really think he had a shot?
Birdie finally announces the winner, a long-haired tabby owned by Agnes the head librarian, and the crowd breaks out in cheers. Ryan scoops her up onto his shoulders and I lean closer into Oscar’s side.
“She’s so happy,” I tell him.
“Mack would have loved this,” he murmurs next to my ear.
“He’d be so proud of you.”
He takes a second to look around the space, the people smiling and clapping, Birdie squealing with laughter. “Yeah,” he says thoughtfully, “it turned out pretty great.”
“I love you,” I tell him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder.
He tips my chin up with his knuckle until I’m facing him. “You’re my dream, you know that right?”
I beam at him. “It’s not a dream anymore.”
“Nah.” He grins at me, before dipping to speak against my lips. “It’s better.”