Epilogue France
EPILOGUE
FRANCE
THIRTEEN MONTHS LATER
ALEXANDER
Over in the wide, grassy area by the house, a few grape rows away from where Sage and I are strolling, we can hear Laurent calling to the dog in strident French: “Viens, Chouchou… non non non… Lache!” Sage and I exchange an amused look.
“Bloody hell,” I say, “between the different names—Gaston or Chouchou—and commands in two languages, that poor feckin’ confused mutt doesn’t stand a chance of obedience. No wonder it’s so horrid.”
“How dare you say that about our godson,” Sage mock-scolds. “Or… uh, god-dog?”
She takes my hand and does a little pirouette, and I reel her in close, wrapping her in my arms. In the low August light, her pupils are dark pools ringed in sultry gold, and she tips her head up in invitation.
I tease her lips in light brushing passes before squeezing two handfuls of her now fully emerald-green hair and going in for a deep kiss.
Lost in each other for a long minute, our hands explore as we map each other’s hunger with our mouths.
The scent of grapes and earth and sun mingles with Sage’s sugary warmth, and I’d pull her down on this shadowy row of dirt and undress her right now if six other people weren’t roaming this French vineyard.
As if on cue, I hear a foot scuff against the ground as someone rounds the row we’re in.
“Oop, sorry—as you were,” Maya says with a giggle, looping an arm through her husband Tau’s and dragging him away.
Somewhere in the orchard, Priya and Julian are wandering too, all of us invited by Badrick and Laurent to a late one-year wedding anniversary gathering.
Laurent and Sage are thick as thieves now, so he and Bad delayed the party by two months to coincide with the F1 summer break, specifically to give Sage the chance to spend several days vacationing in the French countryside with no work pressure.
Last year, Emerald F1 took third place again in the Constructors’ Championship, but didn’t rise any higher due to Sage’s dip in performance during her injury (to say nothing of the drama between us, and Julian’s struggles).
But this year, roughly two-thirds of the way through the season, they’re flying high, locked in a solid fight for second place.
Next season there are some regulation changes coming to the sport—aerodynamics, chiefly—and Sage and Cosmin and Phaedra and the entire Emerald F1 team think they have a chance at winning Constructors’ for the first time.
Basil Rowley has more skill, experience, and engineering artistry than anyone at Allonby Racing, the current champs.
This vacation feels especially celebratory, because Sage got her history-making win two weeks ago at the Belgian GP. I’m not ashamed to admit I cried more than she did, seeing her atop the podium.
We’re “shacked up” now, as she puts it, splitting our time between her flat in Monaco, my place in London, and a San Francisco loft we bought together last Christmas, in the same neighborhood Julian and Priya call their home base.
So much has happened. For the first time in my life, I feel like part of a true friendship group—Sage and I, Badrick and Laurent, Priya and Julian, Maya and Tau.
My life used to be more like trying to hoard Badrick to myself (and shut out Laurent) while flitting from one blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair to the next.
I’m surprised at how different friendship is with a diverse group, each member bringing their own context and quirks.
It feels like we’re hollowing out a deep pool of experience and memories together, floating confidently on the trust we all have in each other.
I knew love would change me, but to be honest… I never anticipated to what a degree friendship would as well.
Another big change to come: Priya and Julian are expecting a baby in four months.
It was a surprise, but a welcome one. Julian was already doing well, health-wise, but with this development he’s quite transformed; not only is he recovered from his opiate dependence but he also doesn’t drink.
In consideration for his upcoming role as a father, and respecting the limits of his body, he’s no longer globe-trotting to the most dangerous climbing destinations.
He founded a rock-climbing club for at-risk youth, and regularly takes groups to Castle Rock State Park once they’ve graduated from his indoor climbing gym to outdoors.
The assistant editorship of Caterwaul was offered to me this year, but I opted to stick with overseeing the jazz section of the magazine.
My work is mostly remote, aside from visits to the London offices every few months.
Just the right speed, as I feel my most important work is supporting Sage in her career.
When I switched the focus of my blog from F1 to vinyl record collecting, I lost 90 percent of my subscribers, but I really don’t mind. I don’t need an audience anymore—with my sweet Salvia officinalis, I always feel seen.
We turn at the end of the rows and walk perpendicular to them, getting farther from the house, voices and laughter and barking growing dimmer behind us.
Sage lets go of my fingers and trails a hand along a stand of champagne grapes, picking one and popping it into her mouth, then cracking up and unabashedly spitting it onto the ground.
“Shit, no,” she chokes out, wincing. “Not quite ready yet.”
After the words, a funny anxious look passes her expression.
She examines me, then spins away and dances down the path in her capering way, always energetic, always physical, always singing—this time, the Kinks’ song “Strangers,” one of her favorites.
The first time we slow-danced together, it was to that song.
She peeks back at me, and when I take a few quick steps to catch up, she eludes me with a laugh, skipping farther away.
“Wicked girl,” I tease. “Where are you taking us? Did you find a private spot for us to make love amongst the butterflies?”
She catches my outstretched hand and pulls me the last few yards to a huge old tree, then flops down on the warm dirt.
I settle beside her and we gaze up toward the house, where we can see Badrick playfully wrestling a stick from the dog’s mouth with Laurent standing by, hands on hips, surely scolding him (as we’ve all heard so many times), “You make him frantic! Is not good for him!” like a fussy parent.
It’s so beautiful here—the grapes, the perfect clouds, the hum of insects, the peace of being together. I snap off a blade of grass and poke it into my mouth, then lean back on my elbows. Seeing me do it, Sage affects a frown of feigned disapproval and plucks the grass from between my lips.
“Stop chewing on everything. I’ll find something for you to do with those,” she jokes, straddling my hips and leaning to kiss me. When she sits up again, the silvery clouds are behind her like a halo.
“This is so picturesque,” I tell her with a smile, “that it’d be a perfect place for me to propose to you, if you wouldn’t just immediately take the piss.”
Her eyebrows dart up. “Who says I’d make fun of a proposal?”
My own eyebrows mirror hers. “Well now, Ms. Sikora. Full of surprises, you.”
A slow grin blooms on her face, and she removes one of her silver handcuff-shaped earrings.
“I am. Because actually I brought you here so I could propose. You know I have to be in the driver’s seat.
” She pulls me upright and scoots back a bit on my thighs, holding my left hand, the earring poised near it.
“Whaddya say, Sandy? Wanna get hitched?”
A thrill goes through my pounding heart. I inspect her expression, my lips parted.
She tilts her head. “Wait, do you think I’m messing with you? Because I’m totally serious.” Her lower lip pulls between her teeth and she nibbles at it. “I mean, unless you think it’s a stupid idea…”
“It’s the fucking best idea. Though I suspect if you wedge that onto me”—I nod at the earring—“I’ll lose a finger.
” I pull her against my chest. “It might be worth the sacrifice,” I say into her hair with a laugh that’s just broken enough to betray my emotion.
She adjusts herself to meet my lips and we collide rather ungracefully.
After a volley of kisses, she sinks the earring onto my pinky finger to the first knuckle. “There—close enough,” she says, satisfied.
We watch each other quietly, both fairly beaming. “Yes, by the way,” I tell her. “In case you need something definitive, I accept.”
“You’d better. Because I can’t imagine life without you.”
She strokes a fingertip over my eyebrow where the scar is.
I made up a half-dozen fictional origin stories for it after we got back together—katana battle with a ninja assassin, attacked by a vicious hedgehog, that sort of nonsense—before admitting that I went face-first into a park bench trying to learn skateboarding as a teen.
A prosaic truth, but as it turns out, the truth—the “real me”—is more than enough.