Epilogue
Owen
Adler scratches the back of his neck. “So, if your mom and her dad get married…”
My eye twitches. “Adler.”
“Will that make Remy your stepsister?”
“Adler.”
From Adler’s other side, Lenyx hisses, “Legally speaking, yes.”
Adler nods. “Kin-ky.”
I’m surrounded by actual idiots.
It would be extremely cathartic to throttle one or both of them.
As soon as the thought crosses my mind, I fall into my habit of timed inhales.
A year ago, I probably would’ve snapped at somebody by now.
Progress. It’s harder today, mostly because my nerves are coming from a ton of different directions at once.
I’m nervous about the ceremony. I’m deeply uncomfortable in this tux.
I’m about to make a huge commitment, and while I’m absolutely sure that this is the right choice, it’s bringing up all kinds of questions about my dad that nobody will ever be able to answer for me. It’s a lot to balance.
Happiness feels strange enough sometimes that my brain instinctively starts looking for the catch.
And on top of it all, of course, there’s my team.
“Where’s Sofia?” Adler asks.
“There was a butt-related emergency,” Knight hisses. “She had to go home to change Kiera.”
“There’s a changing station in the bathroom, isn’t there?” Camden asks from somewhere down the line of groomsmen.
Knight grimaces. “Yeah, this was more of a full costume change and shower type of situation.”
Cam thumps his shoulder sympathetically. “Yeah, been there. But with dogs, obviously.”
I lean forward to glare around Lenyx. “Can you guys knock it off? This is my wedding.”
Knight snorts. “Consider this a warning. Babies are super cute, but you need emergency supplies at all times. They lull you into a false sense of security with their chubby little cheeks and big eyes and little rosebud lips, and then, bam!” He slaps the back of one hand across his opposite palm. “Literal shitstorm.”
Camden grins at him. “Yeah, but you love her.”
Knight’s eyes unfocus, and his smile turns dreamy. “Yeah, I really do. She’s perfect.”
Now I’m thinking about babies. I haven’t spent a lot of time around newborns, but I’m good with kids. And baby Keira is indeed one of the most adorable babies in existence. As one of her designated uncles, I am admittedly biased, but I will die on that hill.
Although I’m immediately alarmed by how easily my brain supplies an image of Remy holding a baby.
I bet Remy and I would have even cuter kids, though.
Little goalies with freckles. Not now, not for a while, but eventually.
Which is apparently how my life works now.
I accidentally think terrifyingly domestic thoughts and then just…
keep having them. That’s a long way down the line, though.
The guys are still yapping when the music starts. We fall into a silent line as we wait for the doors to open and for Butch to guide Remy through. We know the blocking. We did a whole rehearsal last night.
But that was just the practice run. Last night, Remy was wearing a simple sundress, not the fitted sleeveless dress she’s wearing now.
When I skimmed through the bridal catalogs the WAGs brought over, I couldn’t picture her dolled up like a giant creampuff.
This dress, however, is perfect. The lacy bodice is an off-white color that’s probably called something like “French eggshell” or “fresh cream,” and the skirt bells out around her knees, embroidered with tiny flowers.
Her hair is pulled up in a complicated braided bun studded with live blooms.
The ground tips beneath me. Every single thought in my head disappears at once.
“Breathe, dude!” Knight hisses.
Ah, right. Oxygen. Important wedding component.
I suck in a lungful of air, which does keep me from falling over, but doesn’t make Remy any less breathtaking.
Butch leads her toward the altar, though he does pause to make eyes at my mom.
The fact that they flirt every time we get them in the same room together weirds me out, but it’s hard to argue with anything that makes my mom happy and carefree, so whatever.
Honestly, after everything she survived, she deserves every ridiculous ounce of flirting she can get.
At long last, Butch places Remy’s hand in mine. He kisses her cheek. “You picked a good one, kid.” The approval in his voice lands harder than I expect it to. To my surprise, he clasps my shoulder and turns his watery eyes on me. “Take care of each other, okay?”
“Of course,” I tell him. “I will. We will.” Commitment doesn’t feel like a trap waiting to snap shut.
Butch steps aside, giving me a perfectly timed view of Dante pointing at our interlinked hands and saying, “I did that. I got those two together.” Unfortunately, he’s not entirely wrong.
Remy stifles a laugh as Viktor clears his throat.
“I call this wedding to order.” He folds his hands in front of his chest and speaks with a solemnity I rarely see from him.
“It’s not a courtroom,” Knight hisses.
“Order!” Viktor repeats. “No interrupting. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the union of this man and this woman …”
Remy shakes her head and smiles. I’m glad that she wasn’t disappointed by my desire for a small wedding and that she was amused by Viktor’s offer to get ordained for this event.
All that mattered to her were the same things that matter to me.
We’re here with the people we love, and who love us in return.
Just us and the people who helped us become who we are.
I know that I was nervous only a few minutes ago. But with Remy’s presence grounding me, I can’t seem to remember why.
* * *
For at least the fifteenth time tonight, somebody taps their knife against their water glass. People hoot and whistle as Remy pulls me in for another soft, sweet, perfect kiss.
“I love you,” I whisper.
Saying the words feels a little miraculous every time.
She brushes a follow-up kiss against my cheek. “I love you, too, babe.”
At the next table over, Bowen has a notebook out. He’s scribbling furiously as Knight asks Cara a series of questions.
“Okay, so you’ve got twenty dollars on them getting a second dog within the next six months.”
“That’s right.”
“First big fight?”
“Oooh, let me see.” She reaches into her clutch. “I’ll split my bet. Let’s go twenty on whether to stay in the neighborhood, and twenty on Remy getting mad about Owen being away all the time.”
“Got it.” Knight tucks her money into an envelope. “And for the baby pool?”
I’m deeply uncomfortable with how invested everyone is in my reproductive timeline.
“Ooh, no bet. I’m thinking it’s going to be a three-year minimum before they start seriously discussing it, and I don’t trust you to hold my money for that long.”
“Fair enough. It’s a pleasure doing business with you.”
Cara reaches into her clutch again. “Now, not so fast. Are you taking bets on Remy’s career? Because I’m pretty sure she’s going to go solo within the next year.”
Honestly? I can see it too. Remy’s spent her whole life making other people shine. She’s finally starting to realize how extraordinary she is herself.
“Bowen?” Knight asks.
Bowen flips to a fresh page. “One sec, let me do some calculations…”
Across the table, Ma laughs while Butch balances a dessert plate in one hand and gestures animatedly with the other.
“…and then Frank tells me the gutters are completely shot,” she says. “Apparently, the house is falling apart one expensive problem at a time.”
I immediately look up from my drink. “Ma.”
“What?” She waves a hand dismissively. “I wasn’t going to touch the ladder again.”
“Again?” Remy echoes.
Patty points at me defensively. “Your husband overreacts.”
“You climbed onto the roof during a wind advisory,” I remind her.
“It was barely an advisory. More like a stiff breeze.”
Butch snorts into his whiskey. “Good thing Frank called me.”
My head turns. “He did?”
“Course he did.” Butch shrugs like this is obvious. “Guy wanted backup dealing with your mother.”
Patty gasps. “Traitor.”
“I told Frank if anything breaks, leaks, explodes, or starts making weird noises, he calls me first.” Butch points at her with his glass. “And you stay off ladders.”
To my complete shock, Ma doesn’t argue.
She just smiles softly into her champagne, and my chest quietly loosens. From beside me, Remy threads her fingers through mine.
For the first time in my life, it feels like somebody else is helping me carry the weight of worrying about Ma.
The photographer is moving around the room, taking photographs of the various tables.
Adler is circulating, too, a few tables ahead, asking all the single women—including my mother—if they want to see his special workout technique.
The terrifying part is that this strategy somehow occasionally works for him.
Remy clocks this at the same moment that I do and makes a frantic gesture toward Knova.
She immediately locks in and stalks over to intervene.
That’s when I hear the giggling.
Never in my life has a sound filled me with this much immediate dread. I whip my head around faster than I’ve ever moved on game day. Ma is standing at the dessert table, a glass of champagne in one hand. Butch stands beside her, one hand on her elbow as if he’s just stopped her from falling.
My mother is blushing. As in, all-the-way-down-into-the-collar-of-her-dress blushing. This isn’t a cute little back-and-forth.
“Oh, my God.” Remy covers her mouth with one hand. She doesn’t look anywhere near as horrified as I feel. In fact, she seems delighted. Betrayal. Absolute betrayal from my own wife. “You don’t think they’re…”
“No.” I shake my head. “No way.”
“Because they are staying on the same floor…”
“No.”
“Come on, it’s sweet.”
Easy for her to say. That’s not her mother aggressively flirting at the dessert table.
“It’s sweet when they flirt,” I tell her. “But I don’t want to think about them doing anything more than that.”