Epilogue
HE ISN’T THE ONLY PERSON HOLLERING THE NAME OF the prettiest graduating student in all of Cove College, but he makes damn sure he’s the loudest.
He’ll pay for it later, he knows. Narrowed eyes – the richest, most beautiful brown – promise retribution for being so obnoxious.
The ceremony’s almost done, barely twenty people in the master’s program to cycle through, barely double that in the crowd.
She’ll be on him any second, and, God, he hopes that second comes soon. Hopes it’s a long, leisurely second.
A long, leisurely lifetime would be preferable.
His mom is the first person to hug her. He is literally shoved out of the way, the same way he was shoved down the hierarchy of Belfort children pretty much the very second they met, at his own graduation three years ago, when his mom overheard Dani griping something snarky, snapping his ego into check, and declared very loudly, so unashamedly, that Dani was her new favorite child.
He didn’t care then. He doesn’t care now. How could he, when the easy open affection makes the woman he loves light up so prettily?
She doesn’t dodge the affection anymore.
Doesn’t look surprised when it happens. She leans into it, unabashed.
She lets his mother squeeze the life out of her, lets his sisters and his dad and his niece and their friends do the same, and by the time her brother is finished ruffling her hair and pissing her off, she still has enough tolerance left for him.
She saved some for him. She amps it up a notch for him. She fucking glows for him as she wraps her arms around his neck, presses that perfect smile against his own.
‘God.’ He groans, his palms finding their favorite spot at the base of her back, thumbs finding those dimples even through several flowing layers. ‘You look good in a cap and gown.’
Her snicker is music to his damn ears. ‘Need a picture? Might be a while before you see it again.’
‘I’ll survive.’ Burying his face in the notch of her throat, he inhales greedily until that familiar scent makes him dizzy. ‘Delayed gratification.’
He feels her blush. Knows her eyes roll, knows it’s his favorite kind – hiding a sweet, bashful reaction.
Drags his mouth across the scar that didn’t ruin her life so much as gave her permission to start it, up the curve of her neck, along her jaw, until he finds a warm cheek to kiss. ‘Congratulations, baby.’
‘Thank you.’ That freckled nose scrunches. ‘I didn’t know everyone was coming.’
‘Well, with deductive reasoning like that, I don’t know how the hell you’re gonna get a PhD.’
‘Good thing I’ve got a year to hone it then,’ she snarks, shoving him away, only to pull him right back by a fistful of his shirt, to kiss him again, to incite a round of childish, garish croons.
A year, he croons quietly to himself. An entire year, just him and her, doing some of that travelling she’s always wanted to do.
She’s been planning since Christmas, since she plucked a pair of open-ended plane tickets out of her stocking, scribbled a hundred different itineraries in the notebook he got her too.
The ring safely stowed in his backpack, that’s for next Christmas. Wherever they are. Doesn’t matter. As long as it’s the two of them, just them. Together. In love. Happy.
God, there’s nothing better.