Epilogue
. . .
Nothin’ Lasts Forever (with Tenille Townes) - Elvie Shane
June in south Texas is unbearably fucking hot.
I step out into the arrivals hall with my purple suitcase and scan the crowd for a familiar face.
Dad said he’d be here, even though a series of rolling delays turned my early-morning flight into a lunchtime one, but there’s no one who looks like him anywhere.
I pull my phone from my pocket and walk with my eyes down, heading for the nearest exit, when a deep voice stops me in my tracks.
“You waiting for someone, devil?”
I look up. Suitcase forgotten, I throw my arms in the air and leap, wrapping my legs around Brooks’s waist as he catches me.
He always catches me. He always has. My lips collide with his. It’s a messy kiss; lips and tongues and laughter, months of lost time to make up for. One of his hands threads into my hair, holding my head against his.
“Missed you like crazy,” he whispers. “You done with New York now?”
“I’m done with New York,” I confirm, lips brushing against his as I speak.
It took an extra four weeks, thanks to spending a little longer than planned at home over the summer, and more migraines than I could ever need when I returned, but my final kitchen internship is complete.
I actually finished back in March, but I’d agreed to stay and work for one of my mentors until graduation.
I graduated ten days ago, and Brooks and my parents flew out to watch me cross the stage.
They took almost everything I had home with them, leaving me with just a week of essentials, my trusty purple luggage, and the last loose ends to tie up before leaving my Bronx loft for good.
“Good,” he says, before kissing me again.
We’re putting on quite the show in the airport, but I can’t bring myself to care.
The last nine months have been the best and worst of my life.
The best, because Brooks and I are finally together.
It’s what I’ve always wanted, and it’s better than I ever could’ve imagined.
And the worst, because we’ve been apart for almost all of it.
Being away from him when we were just friends was one thing.
Being away from him and loving him—knowing he’s in love with me—might just be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
“Come on,” he says, taking my suitcase in one hand and my hand in the other. “Let’s go home.”
Over the last few months, Brooks has slowly been moving himself into my cabin.
It started when I flew home for a quick Christmas visit.
I flew in on Christmas Eve to meet two-week-old Zachary Silas Forbes, the newest member of the family.
I stayed for Emmy Jean’s cow-themed third birthday party on December twenty-seventh, and just long enough to get a ride back to the airport with my brother on December twenty-ninth, when he left Texas for London.
Pretty soon after that, Brooks was calling me from my bed at night, rather than his own.
I don’t think he left my cabin much after I did.
I can’t say I’m mad about it. Waking up with him gives me butterflies, and I hope it always will.
We’ve just got back from Ev’s place, where he and Ruth threw a small party to celebrate a year of marriage.
It’s crazy to think it’s only been a year—and that it’s coming up on a year since I came home to heal.
A year since I realized my teenage crush on my brother’s best friend wasn’t just a teenage crush.
It turned out to be so much more.
I kick my feet up onto the couch, into Brooks’s lap. His arm is slung along the back of the cushions, fingers playing idly with the ends of my ponytail.
“Now I’m moved in, you’re gonna have to put up with me forever, you know?
Don’t even think about kicking me out. I ain’t leavin’ that shower behind,” Brooks says.
I knew that shower was worth every damn penny I spent on it.
His eyes sparkle as he grins at me. God, he’s handsome as hell, and my stomach somersaults in the most delicious, anticipatory way.
“You know that’s a myth?” I retort. I’m feeling a little antagonistic. Like I might want to poke the beast and see what happens. With a smirk, I continue, “Forever’s a con. Nothing lasts forever. Not horses, not trucks, not even great sex—”
“We’ll always have great sex,” he interjects. His chest puffs out a little with pride. He’s so sure of himself, and I can’t help but smile back.
“It’s gonna come a time when you can’t get it up anymore. You know that, right?” I’m only half joking. Goading him in the way we’ve always done.
“Look, Ashton,” he begins. His smile falls just a little, turning his cheeky, prideful expression into something more serious, more earnest. “I want this. You. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. Five years from now. When we’re eighty, and you can’t even get on your knees anymore to suck me off, and my cock is shriveled and shrunken and useless.
It’ll still be you. Maybe it is a myth, but we’re gonna give forever a damn good try, okay? You and me, devil. We’re destiny.”
“Me and you, demon,” I whisper. I smile through tears. My god, the man sure knows how to get to me. He always has, and that, I suppose, is how I fell for him. He’s always seen me, and isn’t that what love is all about?
I can’t pretend my mind hasn’t been to some pretty dark places recently.
Places that would have had my mom scared, had she known about them.
Places that would have had my brother slamming his fist through a wall.
Places I didn’t even know I knew the way to, until I wound up there without a map to guide me home.
But it turns out I never needed a map. I just needed my heart. Because as battered and as bruised as it was, I know I can always trust my heart to take me where I need to be. And where I need to be?
Right here on the ranch, with a Hart of my very own.