Epilogue IEpilogue II
EPILOGUE I
Thanksgiving
Nick
“Are you ready for this?” I asked her. We’d just pulled up to my parents’ place in the hills of Calico Cove. The driveway was already packed with the cars of our families.
“I am,” she laughed. “Are you?”
I loved this family. I loved everyone in that house. But God…they we …were a lot.
I got out of the truck, and from the back seat I pulled a box of pies.
Six pies for twenty people seemed like a high pie to people ratio, but Nora insisted.
And since Birdie and Antony were doing all the rest of the cooking, she wanted to make sure we were contributing for both of us. I helped with the pumpkin, apple and pecan. Nora handled the lemon meringue, key lime and blueberry.
We were a team.
From inside the house there was a slam and a scream and everyone was laughing. We stopped halfway up the driveway and looked at each other.
“You want to make a run for it?” She asked.
“All of our siblings are home from college, so this is the first time they’re seeing us together as a couple. The first time my siblings are meeting my half-brothers. Everyone is freaking out over Sydney being here. Za is already talking about reading her aura. Listen to them. It’s started already. It’s going to be a madhouse.”
She smiled and tugged on my arm. “Yes, exactly how family holidays should be. It will be fun.”
“No, fun will be when we’re home together in our bed and all the craziness is behind us.”
“You know, you keep doing that,” she said, pressing her hip against mine. “Calling your apartment home and saying things like our bed.”
“Because it is our home, and what is it if it’s not our bed?”
“I’m just saying, technically, I don’t live with you,” she said.
“You don’t live with me? My bathroom is eighty percent filled with your skin products.”
“We really do need to get you a good skin care ritual, Nick.”
“The closet is at least ninety percent your clothes.”
“Because you only have three outfits,” she said.
“They call it minimalism,” I said and she laughed. Which was the point, always the point. “I can’t help it. Now that I’m making money again, I’ve re-discovered my love of fashion,” she said. She wore black tights and black boots and a black sweater with a bright orange skirt. The skirt was tight. I liked it.
I loved the way she looked anytime we went out. I also loved that her renewed love of fashion included sexy lingerie.
“My point is,” I said. “You stay over every night-”
“Because you whimper like a puppy dog if I say I have to go,” she cut me off.
I did whimper. The truth was, I liked Nora in my bed. I’d never been a cuddly guy. I liked my space and privacy in all things. But with Nora, like everything else when it came to her, it was different. I needed to hear her breathing. I needed to know I could reach out and touch her and she wouldn’t be gone. I needed to wake up and see her hair spread out on the pillows. Anytime I woke up and she wasn’t there, I lost my shit a little bit.
So yeah. Whimpering worked.
“I don’t understand what the problem is,” I said.
“A girl likes to be asked!” She snapped. I startled because she seemed actually upset. “It’s not like, whoops, I guess I live with you now. If you want me to move in with you, you should ask me to. It’s a step, Nick. In this big ass journey we’re on, and you missed it.”
She was right. It was something I was working on with my therapist. Nora said if we had a chance of making us work, I was going to need to start dealing with my past shit a little more. I couldn’t argue with that, and seeing someone once a week again had helped.
He was a cool dude, didn’t get in my business too much and just listened, really.
However, one of the things he pointed out was not only did I have a hard time expressing my feelings. Hello, Captain Obvious. But I also didn’t do a good job of asking for things I wanted.
If I didn’t ask, then I couldn’t be hurt.
Old habits that needed to be broken.
I took my box of pies and set them down on the driveway. Then, not knowing what else to do, I got down on one knee and took Nora’s hand.
“Nick,” she growled.
“No, I’m formally doing this. Will you, Nora Barnes, live with me in sin?” I smiled up at her, and, based on the way she was twisting her lips, she didn’t think my joke was very funny.
And neither did I, when the front door opened and a crowd of family gathered. Some of them started screaming and jumping up and down.
“Is he proposing?” Roy barked.
“He’s proposing!” Birdie cried.
“The fuck? They just started dating.” Liam said.
“This is so gross. I can’t watch.” Will said.
“Oh my gosh! Are you getting married? Nora, if you’re going to run, do it now!” Vanessa yelled.
I hopped back up to my feet and shook my head. “No, no, no. I’m not proposing!” I held up my hands. “See? No ring.”
“He was just asking me to live with him,” Nora told her parents, my parents, our siblings. My half-brother’s dad and my mostly grandmother.
“Live together?” Roy barked. “Without a ring? That’s bullshit.”
Vanessa elbowed him in the ribs. “We lived together before we got married.”
“It’s different,” he protested.
“How?” she asked him.
“Because,” he replied.
“Holy shit, they really are together. This is so weird,” said RJ, Roy’s oldest son. “Dad, I don’t know how I feel about this. Should we, like, beat him up?”
“You can’t beat him up, because then we’d have to take his side and we’re professional hockey players, so you know…you’d lose,” Wyatt calmly explained to RJ.
“RJ,” Nora called out to her brother “No one is beating anyone up. Besides, we brought pie.”
“Pie!” Bethany squealed.
Well, at least someone was excited. “Let’s get this show on the road,” I said, and I picked up the box of pies.
“Yep,” Nora said, walking in behind me. “Oh, and Nick, the answer is yes. I will live with you. Under one condition.”
“What?”
“I’m going to need a little bit more closet space.”