Epilogue
COLTON
FIVE MONTHS LATER
The odds of The Kooky Coconut accidentally double booking two events in one night is usually always slim considering Saltwater Springs is a small town, but double booking both Griffin's bachelor party and Eliana’s bachelorette party should’ve been damn near impossible, yet here we are.
“What do we do?” Maliah whispers to Kairi as Eliana and Griffin walk over to a corner to discuss the situation. “There’s nowhere else that we can do this tonight, and the freaking wedding is in two days!”
“I knew we shouldn’t have scheduled the bach so close to the wedding day,” Kairi says in a hushed whisper.
“How’d this even happen?” Zale asks the bartender behind me.
“We hired a new guy,” Jazzi says. “He claims he didn’t know it was one event booking per night.”
“I hope you fired him,” Zale mutters.
“He’s long gone,” she confirms. “Look, if you guys want to just combine this party into one, I’d be happy to refund one of the deposits.”
“We’ll do it,” Eliana calls out as she and Griffin return hand in hand. “We talked and we think it’ll be fun to celebrate all together anyway.”
“Much appreciated,” Jazzi says before returning behind the bar.
“Eliana, are you sure?” Maliah asks.
“Yeah,” she nods. “When was the last time we were able to all party together like this? Let’s make the most of it.”
Maliah turns to Kairi, grabbing hold of her arm. “Does this mean I need to cancel the firefighter strippers?”
Kairi’s eyes grow so wide, I’m scared they’ll pop out of her head. “You hired strippers?” she hisses in a hushed whisper. “Are you out of your mind? That was one of Eliana’s hard-no’s!”
Maliah flashes her an innocent grin before pulling out her phone and rapidly dialling a number as she walks over to an excluded corner to take her call.
“You guys didn’t hire strippers, did you?” Kairi asks, turning to look at me with narrowed eyes.
I laugh and boop her nose. “No, darlin’. Griffin would kick my ass if I let that happen.”
She breathes a sigh of relief. “Okay, good.”
Jazzi brings over a tray full of drinks for each of us and Eliana begins to clink the side of her glass with her spoon.
“I know tonight is supposed to be about me and Griffin, but before we jump into the celebrations, I wanted to take a moment to congratulate our friends, Kairi and Colton, on winning the qualifiers and earning their spots on the world surf tour next year.”
I pull Kairi close and she rests her hand on my chest while she smiles as the others clap for us. It was no easy feat getting to qualifiers, and to be completely honest we were so neck and neck with The Rip Raiders we would’ve been screwed.
But it turns out that karma is real and the whole team was suspended for the next two years because of the comment Davis Anderson made to Kairi all those months ago.
Apparently Gabriel had opened a complaint against him, and somehow got his hands on a copy of camera footage that recorded the whole thing.
That little lifeline opened the gates of qualifiers wide open for us and we gave it our all out on the waves. We deserved to make it onto the tour, and I’m so happy I get to experience it for the first time with Kairi by my side.
“Yes, congrats to the two of you,” Griffin chimes in. “Let’s get another gold for Saltwater Springs.”
“Thank you,” I say, raising my glass alongside Kairi’s. “We’ll do our best.”
“And Kairi,” Eliana pauses, with a proud smile. “Congratulations on your collaboration product project. It has been an absolute privilege to stand by your side and watch you become so passionate about something so meaningful to the surf community, and I know big things are coming your way.”
Kairi quickly swipes at her eyes as they turn glassy. “Thank you,” she sniffles.
"Okay, enough chit-chat. Let's party," Zale interrupts, raising his glass before chugging the whole thing.
A chorus of cheers erupts and within minutes, the music is turned up, chairs are pushed aside, and whatever plans had previously existed for either party are abandoned.
Which feels fitting because nothing about this group has ever gone according to plan. Honestly, I can’t think of a better way for tonight to go.
I lean back against the bar, wrapping an arm around Kairi’s waist as the rest of our friends scatter across the dance floor.
Minutes later, Koa somehow ends up carrying both Eliana and Maliah on his shoulders at the same time while Griffin follows behind them, seconds away from a panic attack.
"Put my fiancée down!" Griffin shouts over the music.
"No," Koa replies.
"That's my answer too," Eliana yells, raising her drink. "You can't tell me what to do."
“What if you get hurt?” he asks. “We get married in two days!”
“I’ll be fine,” she giggles, dangerously teetering on Koa’s shoulder before Griffin grabs ahold of her waist and gently lifts her back to the floor.
Kairi laughs against my shoulder and I glance down at her with a smile of my own.
The past five months have been a blur of early morning practices, competitions, sponsorship meetings, road trips, and stolen moments squeezed between all of it.
Life has gotten really busy, but no matter what’s happening around us, hearing her laugh is still the highlight of each day.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks.
I blink. “Like what?”
Her eyes narrow suspiciously. "You've got that look."
"What look?"
“That look,” she says, drawing an invisible circle around my face.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She laughs again and shakes her head, while I grin despite myself as I pull her a little closer and kiss the top of her head.
My gaze drifts around the room, landing on Griffin and Eliana as they dance like they’re in their own little world.
They look happy, and after everything they’ve been through, they deserve that.
A strange warmth settles in my chest as I watch them, because there was a time when I thought I’d never be a part of moments like these again.
A time when I would’ve been watching from the outside along with everyone else.
And now I can’t imagine my life without any of them, but especially Kairi. I glance down at her again, quietly appreciating her. She’s become tangled in every part of my life over the last few months, showing up for Sunday dinners with my family almost every single weekend without fail.
My brothers have started asking if she’s coming before they ask if I am, my mother texts her more than me, and my father practically adopted her after the second dinner. The last time we’d visited, he’d shoved an entire container of my moms homemade cinnamon buns into Kairi’s hands.
“Take these home, sweetheart,” he’d whispered to her. “And don’t let Colt have a single one.”
Kairi had laughed so hard she’d nearly fallen off her chair. Somewhere along the way, they stopped treating her like my girlfriend and started treating her like family, as if she’d always been there.
They made her feel like she belonged, and I’m sure that’s one of the many reasons she prioritizes Sundays with them.
Kairi glances up at me, catching me staring, and grins. And just like that, every thought fades away and I’m left only thinking of her.
When the music changes to a slower tempt, I grab her hand and pull her toward the dance floor, her eyes widening.
“Absolutely not,” she says, going stiff.
“Come on.”
“Colton.”
“Darlin’.”
“I’m not dancing while all our friends are watching.” I glance around but not a single one of them is looking at us.
“You’ll be fine,” I murmur as I pull her into my arms.
Kairi groans, but settles against me anyway, her head resting beneath my chin as her skirt swishes around her ankles. I close my eyes for a minute, trying to memorize the feel of her, and the life we’re slowly building together.
She chose me, and keeps choosing me, even when I feel like I didn't deserve it. Five months ago, I would've given anything just to hold her, and now I get to call her mine. I press a kiss into her hair and she squeezes my hand in return.
And as our friends laugh and dance around us, celebrating the upcoming wedding, world tours and everything still waiting for us in the future, I realize something. For the first time in a long time, I'm not wondering what comes after this.
Because this—
her,
them,
all of it—
is exactly where I want to stay.