Epilogue - Erin
EPILOGUE - ERIN
“ C an I open my eyes yet?” I asked Rusty.
“Nope.”
Ten seconds passed. “Now?”
“Patience isn’t your strong suit, babe.”
“I hate surprises.”
“No, you don’t.”
I felt the car turn and crunch over gravel before finally slowing to a halt. Where were we? The urge to cheat and peek was almost overwhelming, but Rusty was right. I’d learned to love surprises, especially his surprises.
“Okay, now you can look.”
We were parked in front of a house. A beautiful house, white with pale blue trim and a yard planted with flowers and grasses. When I stepped out of the car, a breeze brought the sea air.
“Where are we?”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s pretty. Who does it belong to?”
“It’s ours.”
I whirled to face him. “What?”
“Right now, I rent the place in Fresno, and I could get traded anywhere on the continent. There’s no stability, and I want that for you. For us. So I bought this place. I might not be able to live here all the time, but I’ll always come back to this spot.” Rusty wrapped me up in his arms and kissed my hair. “I’ll always come back to you.”
“Great, now I’m going to cry.”
“As long as they’re happy tears, I’m good with that. I brought tissues.”
Of course he did. Rusty thought of everything. In the two months since we left Las Vegas, we’d spent time in Fresno and Seagrass Point, and we’d met each other’s families. His parents were surprised to see me but real polite, and I liked his sisters. Oh, and Florence’s fiancé got arrested for being drunk in a strip club, which took some doing, I could tell you from experience, so that was nice.
Selene was doing okay too. The charity Priest referred her to had helped her to rent an apartment not too far from Kelsey and Silas, and she’d gotten a part-time job in an art gallery. Kelsey said she’d even started painting again. We planned to get together as soon as Rusty’s and Silas’s schedules allowed, but that wouldn’t be for several months. Kelsey was still settling into her new job and getting used to the responsibilities of partnership, while it looked as if I had a house to decorate.
“I love you,” I blubbered.
“I love you too.”
“So where even are we? I mean, where’s this house?”
“A couple of miles up the coast from your brother’s place.”
I turned and saw the sea view, and the beach, and the tears wouldn’t stop.
“Locals surf here,” Rusty said. “I asked around before I signed the papers.”
“But you don’t even like surfing. ”
“I like watching you surf. Do you want to look around inside?”
The house had four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a dream kitchen, and a huge living room that overlooked the terrace. I’d be able to watch the sunsets from there. See my kids play on the beach. Grow old with Rusty overlooking the ocean.
“There’s no bed,” I pointed out. There wasn’t any furniture, but the missing bed seemed like the most pressing issue at this particular moment.
“I thought about buying furniture, but I figured it would be more fun to do it together.”
“So…wall sex?”
“Wall sex later. Ari has another surprise for you.” Rusty glanced at his watch. “We should mosey on over to her and Zach’s place.”
Another surprise? I’d spoken with her this morning, and she hadn’t mentioned any surprise. But it was Kai’s birthday next week, so maybe that was part of it?
“Careful, I might start to feel spoiled.”
“I’m happy to hear that.”
A car I didn’t recognise was parked in the driveway at Haven’s Rest, and my brother was there too, as usual. Rusty took my hand as we walked to the door.
“If you want to leave, just say the word.”
Leave? Why would I want to leave?
I soon found out.
A woman I’d never seen before was sitting at the counter in the open-plan kitchen, her hands wrapped around a mug of peppermint tea. I studied her as she did the same to me. Her hair was brown with salt-and-pepper streaks, cut into a stylish bob, and she’d dressed in smart jeans and a peach silk blouse. She was around forty? Forty-five?
She smiled warmly as Ari made the introductions.
“Erin, this is Sarah Molineaux. A few years ago, her name was Sarah Wilkes.”
My heart stuttered. Wilkes? Not so long ago, I’d been Erin Wilkes.
“Hello, Erin.”
“Are you…? Were you…?”
She nodded. “I believe we both once had the misfortune to be involved with the same man.”
“You’re wife number one?”
“The one and only. Your friend called me with questions, and since I don’t live too far away, I thought I’d come and set your mind at ease.”
“You…you were married to Elvis?” Who was totally not the king.
“I was.”
“Absolutely, definitely, legally married?”
“Absolutely definitely. I still am, although I haven’t seen him in over two decades.”
“But your name…”
“I changed it officially, but not through marriage. My girlfriend and I are quite happy living in sin, as the Prophet would say.”
“You were a part of People’s Promise?”
“Briefly. I was young and lost, and for some unfathomable reason, I thought I might find myself in that place. Elvis was handsome, probably still is, and for about a year, I was head over heels in love with him.”
“What happened after a year?”
“I missed going out for dinner with my friends. I missed television. I missed wearing clothes that didn’t itch. When I asked myself whether I still wanted to be picking up Elvis’s dirty socks in fifty years’ time, the answer was no. Since he’d never change, I had to, and one night, I walked out of those gates and never looked back. I understand the place is pretty hardcore now, rules-wise.”
“No TV, no novels, no fun.”
“Well, you were smart to leave.”
“And I’m definitely not married?”
“Not in the eyes of anyone but the Prophet. If Elvis does anything stupid like try to convince you otherwise, just you mention my name and the word ‘bigamy,’ and he’ll soon go away again.”
I couldn’t help it; I leapt around the room like a mad thing, waving my arms. “I’m not married. I’m not married! Halle-freaking-lujah!”
“Not yet, anyway,” my brother joked.
I hugged Sarah, and after a moment’s hesitation, she hugged me back.
“Thank you. I love you so much for this.”
“Well, that’s very sweet of you, my dear.”
There was a dinner, and my brother and Zach manned the grill while Maya and Nana cooked. Even though she wasn’t my actual nana, she’d told me to call her that, the same as everyone else did. Haven had decorated sugar cookies, and Sarah seemed surprised but pleased when she was invited to stay. In the end, she called her girlfriend, Marta, who lived in San Jose, and she came over too.
As the sun set over the ocean, I squashed onto a sun lounger in the front yard with Rusty and held up a glass of wine.
“To my new life.”
He clinked his glass against mine. “To your new life.”
Until now, I hadn’t realised just how much the marriage thing bothered me. I’d told myself over and over that it didn’t matter, that it was only a piece of paper, but really, it had been more than that. A tie. A tether to my old life. And thanks to Ari, Sarah had cut it.
“I’m so freaking happy,” I said, leaning my head against Rusty’s shoulder.
“I do just have one question.”
“As long as it isn’t ‘will you marry me?’ then shoot.”
“Fuck.”
I stiffened. “Ohmigosh. It is?” My heart began racing. “You were going to ask me to marry you? Hell, I’m so sorry. I was kidding around, I swear I was. Can we just rewind? Like, to the part where I say I’m happy and then you say you have a question, and…”
I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. Marriage wasn’t something I’d given much thought to, mainly because I’d tried to block it out of my mind completely, given my circumstances, but now that Elvis had been outed as a bigamist and I was free, the idea of spending the rest of my life with Rusty, like, with a ring and everything… I didn’t hate it. Erin Bolt. Mrs. Erin Bolt? Mrs. Erin Kealoha-Bolt? Hmm.
“And…” I tried again.
“I don’t want to pressure you.”
“Okay, fine, then I’ll ask. Rusty Bolt, will you marry me? Shit, I don’t have a ring. And I’m supposed to be on one knee.” I tried to get up, but my legs got tangled in his and I fell off the sun lounger. Now my knee was bleeding. Great. “Fuck.”
He turned on his phone flashlight and began picking gravel out of my knee. “Yes, I love you. Yes, I’ll marry you.” He fished a ring box and a tissue out of his shorts pocket and handed them to me. “We should probably put Betadine on this.”
I opened the box and found a solitaire diamond, simple but cute. Kind of like me. Huh. Did I just insult myself? Anyhow, the ring was perfect. Rusty slipped it onto my finger, then carried me into the house to clean up my graze. Ari the all-seeing PI spotted the diamond first, obviously, and as everyone screamed around me, I clung to my anchor in a storm.
My for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.
My hot hockey player with a heart of gold.
I took his hand. “I can’t wait to be Erin Bolt.”
“So, I was thinking… How do you feel about keeping the Kealoha part?”
“You mean we’d have different surnames?”
“No, we’d both take yours.”
“Is that even allowed?”
Rusty nodded. “Yup, I checked. I’ll be marrying you out of love, but the thought of my name no longer being a meme is a definite bonus.”
Three months ago, my answer would have been “hell no.” Have my surname splashed across gossip sites, and my picture too? Turn myself into a target for the Prophet and his minions? But that was then and this was now, and now I had my family fighting in my corner and the Choir too. Why should I be the one to hide away? Okay, so I’d killed a man, but that was partly an accident and Ari assured me the case was icy cold with no real evidence anyway.
Screw Elvis Wilkes.
Screw the Prophet.
Screw People’s Promise.
I was taking my life back.
“Hell yeah.” I grinned and flung my arms around Rusty again. “We’re gonna be the Kealohas. In our Kealo-house.”
He kissed my hair. “You’re such a dork.”
“But you love me anyway.”
“I do. My love for you is deeper than the, uh…the deepest part of the ocean. The Marina Trench? ”
“The Mariana Trench. And cheesier than mozzarella.”
“You have a problem with that?”
“Nope, not even a little bit. Hey, can we have a cheese fountain at our wedding?”
“Like queso?”
“Yeah!”
Rusty lifted me onto the counter, and Ari passed him the first-aid kit. Kai’s eyes had gone all watery, which was super sweet actually, and I didn’t miss the way he glanced across at Maya. Why couldn’t those two just give in to their feelings?
“You can have anything you want,” Rusty said. “A nacho mountain, a taco tower, anything.”
“How about we live-stream the ceremony on BuzzHub?”
I managed to keep my face straight for three whole seconds before I collapsed into giggles.
“Almost anything,” he amended, then kissed my forehead. “Now, sit still while I fix your knees.”