EPILOGUE
HOPE: NEXT NOVEMBER
I ’m glad we decided to drive my Jeep down to Miami. The top is off and the warm wind whips at us, the sun blasting from above. I’m sure my hair looks like black flames behind me and that I’m going to have a hand shaped tan line on my thigh by the time we get to Kelly and Mitch’s McMansion, but I have no complaints. The weight of Cade’s hand has become my favorite feeling.
There’s no doubt it’s also his, especially because I’m wearing really short jean shorts for the trip.
We’re off the big highways at last and into suburban traffic when we roll to a stop at a red light, and he turns his head to me. His brown hair’s also a beautiful mess, and I’m equal parts annoyed that I can’t see his brilliant eyes behind the dark aviators, as I’m thrilled that I can’t tell where he’s looking.
“Hey,” he says in a raspy voice that could be from the wind, from the off tune karaoke session we had a few miles behind, or from something else. I hope it’s the latter.
I cross my legs, imprisoning his hand. “Hey.”
“You look beautiful a little wild like this.”
My heart skips.
I try to fix up my hair and straighten out the open Orlando Wild jersey that shows his last name and number one on my back, and my yellow bikini top. “Better?” I ask.
“Still you, and I like all versions of you.” Cade reaches over the console in the middle and I fully turn into the kiss. The last time we kissed was as we were leaving Orlando, and I’ve missed his lips so freaking much.
Honking behind us forces us to separate. Sighing, Cade gets the car going again.
I don’t move one bit, though, drinking him with my eyes instead. He’s also wearing some shorts that ride high enough to show the defined cuts of his quads around his knees, plus an Orlando Wild shirt he custom made with my last name that he also kept open the whole way For Reasons. Them being that I really enjoy looking at his abs and the hint of V at his hips.
“Do you think the shirts are overkill?” I ask, propping my elbow on the middle console and my chin on my hand.
“Why would they be overkill?”
Has anyone told him that the way he turns the steering wheel with one hand is supremely mouth-watering?
Oh, right. I have. Multiple times.
I force my brain to get back to work with a deep breath that brings in the familiar scent of his aftershave. “Erm. I’m just wondering if it’s too on the nose. Too middle school.”
Cade shrugs. “I have no problem telling the whole world that I’m yours and you’re mine. I’m making up for almost three decades of not belonging anywhere.”
I reach for his knee and give it a squeeze—and I don’t remove it. Cade flashes me a quick look, but the GPS instructs him to take a right turn and he focuses back on the road.
“Listen, if this Friendsgiving is in any way uncomfortable for you, you call for a wild pitch and I’ll bail us out of here,” I say in all seriousness.
“Ditto. I may or may not have looked up some hotel alternatives already.”
That might actually be preferable to this. I’m debating whether to just tell him that we should ditch, but too soon we’re pulling to Kelly and Mitch’s street and it feels like too late.
We’re a bit earlier than I would’ve arrived normally, and there’s still plenty of room by the curb of their house. I instruct Cade to park under the shade of a massive oak lining the street, and we get out of the car to put the top back up and secure it. After getting our overnighter bags from the back, Cade locks the car and pockets the key so he can offer me his hand.
A new development is that he’s learned to rub the back of my hand with his thumb even as I grab his hand in a vise. I can’t do the same in return because of the sheer size of his hands, but also because I’m not hypermobile and with fingers nimble enough to hold a baseball with a million different grips.
Taking a deep breath, I ring the doorbell and wait.
A few seconds pass. Setting my bag down, I tug Cade lower and start combing his hair back into order.
That’s when the door opens. “Hey guys.” Mitch smiles at us—although it turns into a grimace as his baby girl pulls at his ear. “Come on in.”
“You doing okay, man?” Cade’s lips curl in amusement as the baby keeps pulling and papa keeps grimacing.
“Living the life.” Mitch grins though, like he means it. “You can leave your bags here and head to the back. We got drinks and food already.”
“Great, I’m starving.” I try to smile but the truth is that just setting a foot inside their house has my stomach turning already.
The literal last thing I want to do is see the judgy faces of the other people I went to college with. I debated whether to come at all or just excise myself from that toxicity forever, but Kelly and Mitch don’t deserve that. They’re probably the reason I even hung out with this clique in the first place, because Kelly—and whatsherface—were my OG friends I thought would always be my ride-or-dies.
“Wild pitch?” Cade whispers to me.
I steel myself. “Not yet. I’m not a coward.”
He runs his thumb across my skin again and the little spark there fires up my engine, so I keep going.
Their previously picture perfect house is now much homier, with colorful toys and cushions strewn all over the place, and some curious stains on a wall that can only be the masterpiece of a toddler with some markers. It reminds me, like Cade’s hand in mine, that sometimes things do change for the better.
This house isn’t the same and neither am I, so what happened last year has no damn chance of repeating itself today. Whatever my ex friends do, it won’t faze me.
But then we walk out to the terrace, and aside from Kelly working on the grill, and some gigantic floaties on the pristine pool, there is literally no one else.
“Wha…” I babble.
“Welcome!” Kelly abandons the grill and rushes over to engulf both Cade and I in a single hug. Her face is brighter than the sun as she says, “Mitch and I decided to change things up a bit and only have Friendsgiving with real friends from now on.”
I blink a few times before sweeping my eyes around her. But other people don’t jump out of the woodworks to scream surprise at us. Slowly, my pea brain figures it out.
“You mean…”
“That’s right.” She pulls away, hooking her arm with mine and Cade’s in her other one. “It’s just the five of us this year.”
My jaw drops. Even Cade does a double take.
Nonplussed, Mitch carries the baby around the pool toward the smoking grill. “Hey, Cade. One patty or two?”
“Two?” my boyfriend responds like it’s a question.
“Drinks?” Kelly adds. “I make a mean mojito.”
“She does,” I say in a breathless way.
“Sure…” Cade drags the word and Kelly hops over to the outdoor bar that I know is stocked with any flavor of booze under the sun.
Pulled by the same string, Cade and I turn to each other and just ponder about what just happened for a quiet moment. Until he tugs me closer.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t use your wild pitch?” he mutters into my ear.
“So glad.” I dig my face into his bare chest, where he no doubt can feel the tears springing from my eyes. I wrap my free hand around his waist from under his shirt. “Thank you for giving me strength.”
Cade presses a kiss on top of my head. “It’s the least I could do, when you give me strength every day.”
“I love you.”
The way he grows rigid makes me wonder if it was way too soon to say those words, but we’ve been dating since March and there’s no denying that that’s how I feel.
Cade frees his hand, sending my heart to a plummet, but then he sneaks both under my shirt to find my bare back, and he nuzzles my hair before speaking.
“I was waiting for the perfect moment to say it and now I feel like a fool.”
“I’m sorry. I?—”
“No.” He runs his hands up and down my skin. “The perfect moment is every time I’m with you, and I’m a fool for not recognizing that until now. Hey, Hope?”
“Yeah?” My voice is but a thread.
“I love you more.”
I sniffle against his skin and turn slightly to kiss his chest, the fuzz of hair tingling my nose. “Good, because I have no plans to let you go.”
“That’s great, because I’m not going anywhere.”
We probably would’ve kissed indecently after that if it wasn’t for Kelly returning to booze us up. Cade keeps his arm around me as we join my friend on the way back to the grill, officially kicking off the best Friendsgiving ever.
THE END
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Thank you for reading Wild Pitch !