Extended Epilogue Five Years Later
MATEO
“Trick or treat!”
“No, Benny,” Crew complains, slapping his head against his forehead. “You’re supposed to wait until they answer the door.”
“But you said to say it after we ring the doorbell.” Benny, Jack and Rumi’s four-year-old daughter, crosses her arms over her little chest. Her voice is a little muffled behind her Spider-Gwen mask she insisted on wearing once she found out Crew was dressing up as Spider-Man.
Crew shakes his head, lifting his mask up, and I see the way his shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath.
At ten years old, he’s the oldest of the kids out trick-or-treating tonight, since Georgie stayed in the dorms to celebrate Halloween with her friends, and the little kids often test his patience.
“Benny,” Evee says with a laugh, coming to Crew’s rescue, “if you don’t wait for them to open their door, then you don’t get the candy.” She places a hand on Benny’s shoulder.
“They need to be able to hear you,” Eliana adds from where she’s standing next to Evee.
The two are dressed up as Peach and Daisy, with Eliana’s younger brother, James, as Yoshi, just watching the interaction, his bag of candy hanging in his hands as he waits for someone to answer the door. Quiet and observant, as usual.
Benny turns to where Jack, Anderson, and I are standing, just a few feet behind them in the grass.
“Daddy!” Benny yells to Jack, “Evee and Crew said I don’t get any candy.”
“Bennett Mae, that is not what they said,” Jack yells back, and I cover my mouth with my hand to hide my laughter.
Over Benny’s head, I can see Crew and Evee look at each other and giggle, the two having grown close now that their three-year age gap doesn’t seem so wide at ten and seven.
Their laughs elicit a laugh from Eliana and James just as the front door they’re waiting at opens.
“That little girl is giving me a run for my money,” Jack sighs as we watch the kids hold out their bags of candy, but I can just make out the small smile on his face in the low light of the early October evening.
“She’s just like Evee was,” Anderson laughs, swaying back and forth to keep Levi, Ava and Anderson’s six-month-old son, asleep in the carrier strapped to his chest.
After a series of “thank you”s, the kids come running our way to show us the candy they got before heading to the sidewalk. I turn over my shoulder, seeing Emerson, Rumi, and Ava at the end of the driveway, the three huddled together as Crew, Evee, Eliana, Benny, and James open their bags.
“Why do they get the ‘mom tax’, but we don’t get a ‘dad tax’?” Anderson asks as I watch Emerson take a 3 Musketeers bar out of Crew’s bag as Rumi and Ava do the same with their kids’ bags.
Jack grunts something as an answer, but I’m too focused on my wife to really register it.
Even though we never had a wedding or made the trip to the courthouse, Emerson is my wife in every way that matters. I knew the legal route wasn’t in the cards for us when I got down on one knee and tried to propose to her two years ago.
She told me to stand up.
No hesitation. No second-guessing. Just Emerson, staring at me like I’d completely lost my mind for thinking maybe she’d want to make things official. I never thought I’d remarry, but I knew I’d do it in a heartbeat if it’s what Emerson wanted.
Safe to say, a piece of paper didn’t mean shit to her.
It took me a whole month to convince her to wear the ring I bought her and another two months before she let me call her my wife without immediately rolling her eyes or telling me I was being dramatic.
Of course, she only agreed to wear the ring after I pointed out that she never took the bracelet Crew gave her off—the one he picked out for her on her first Mother’s Day.
She'd worn that thing everywhere. To work, to bed, on vacation, even when the clasp started looking like it might give out at any moment. She never wanted to take it off.
And maybe that was when I really understood just how much our lives had changed.
Emerson never wanted to be a mom in the traditional sense. She never dreamed about pregnancy or planned out names or pictured herself raising a child. But somehow, she stepped into her role as Crew’s stepmom so seamlessly, it’s like she was meant for it. But not for anyone else. Just for Crew.
And sometimes, when I look at the two of them, I can barely remember what our lives looked like before she came into them.
“Hey, rockstar,” Emerson says as I step onto the sidewalk.
“Hi, baby.” I grab her hand, interlocking my fingers with hers. The two of us trail behind the kids and adults as we all make our way to the next house on the block.
“Can you believe this is our fifth Halloween?” Emerson asks on a sigh, shaking her head. Her bangs are long enough to tuck behind her ears, her voice low, just loud enough for me to hear.
Around us, there’s chaos, Crew and Evee arguing over whether or not the real Peach could beat the real Spider-Man; Benny asking Jack to put her on his shoulders; Eliana and James taking turns telling Anderson to hold their candy bags to see whose is heavier; Rumi and Ava walking arm-in-arm, laughing at the scene in front of them as they keep calling for Emerson.
“Can you believe Ava and Anderson added another kid to the bunch?” I whisper in Emerson’s ear, and her giggle warms me up from the inside out.
“I told the four of them the year James and Benny were born, no more kids. We’d be outnumbered.
” I shake my head, my eyes going to those four people who have become not only my greatest friends but aunts and uncles to Crew.
“And what do Ava and Anderson do? They go and have Levi.”
Emerson’s barks out a laugh, causing Rumi and Ava to turn around.
“Are you guys planning on making a run for it?” Rumi asks.
“Again,” Ava adds, and I roll my lips together to hide my smile, reminded of last year’s Halloween when Emerson and I snuck off mid-trick-or-treating to make out like two teenagers behind one of my neighbor’s sheds.
“Is that why you’re ignoring us?” Rumi turns over her shoulder, raising a brow.
“No running off this year,” Anderson yells loud enough for us to hear over the kids giggling as they all head up the next driveway.
“No running,” Emerson laughs. “Pinky promise.” We watch all of the kids hold out their bags to the older couple sitting on their porch with a bowl of candy. Emerson leans in closer to me as we all follow them up to the doorstep. “Yet,” she adds, giving me a wink, and I swat her on the ass.
“Keep it PG, Lane,” Ava scolds over her shoulder as we stop just a few feet from the porch, but I can’t help but sneak a kiss to Emerson’s lips anyway, pulling away before I have no other choice but to throw her over my shoulder and run back to our house—fuck the pinky promise.
“Well, what a fine bunch we have here,” the older woman says, standing from her rocking chair and bringing me back to the moment.
We all watch as she smiles down at each of the kids, dropping a handful of candy into their bags.
She compliments all of their costumes, and they each beam at the praise.
When she gets to Benny, she says, “Well, aren’t you the cutest Spider-Girl I’ve ever seen? ”
“I’m Spider-Gwen,” Benny announces proudly before pointing at Crew. “I’m Spider-Man’s girlfriend.”
Crew tips his head back, lifting his mask again. “Benny,” he groans, “I am not your boyfriend.”
Emerson grabs Crew by the shoulder, pulling him into her chest, as we all laugh. Crew is shaking his head, but his lips curl as Benny tries to show the older couple how to “shoot webs”.
Our group makes our way back to the sidewalk, the moms each taking their “mom tax” before we head toward the last house on the block.
From there, it’s back home, where we’ll watch from the kitchen as the kids dump out their candy, sort it into piles, and divide it up so everyone gets a little bit of everything—the way we’ve come to call “Auntie Ava’s way. ”
I glance at Emerson beside me, her hand still tucked in mine.
“Five Halloweens,” she says quietly, watching the kids run toward the next house, Jack, Rumi, Ava, and Anderson just a few feet ahead of us.
“Yeah,” I murmur.
Five Halloweens ago, I never could have imagined this.
Not the kids running through the neighborhood. Not the friends who became family. Not the little moments that somehow became the life I never thought I’d have.
I look down at the ring on Emerson’s finger, the same one she once insisted she didn’t need.
“You know,” I whisper, “I still think I could’ve convinced you to marry me.”
She looks up at me, smirking. “I prefer you on your knees for much more important things.”
I laugh, pulling her a little closer. “You could’ve at least said ‘yes’.”
Emerson squeezes my hand, and I look at her, then at my son walking ahead of us.
For so long, I thought happily ever after was something that happened once everything else was over. And I thought I already blew my one shot at it all.
Now I know better.
Sometimes, happily ever after is just another night.
Another Halloween.
Another walk home with the people you love.
Another night with Emerson’s hand in mine.
And as Emerson pulls me toward our family, I realize that maybe happily ever after was never about getting everything I thought I wanted.
Maybe it was about finding something better.
And I did.
I found her.