Epilogue One Year Later
I’d like to say everything was easy after that, but it wasn’t, because I started grad school soon after, and it felt like I was living at the lab when I wasn’t teaching or sitting in seminars.
His hours were pretty long too, and sometimes the only time we could be together during the week was at lunchtime in his trailer or for maybe half an hour at night before bed.
But every Sunday, we had the whole day together.
When he had time, he’d come with me to rehearsals with my company, and when I had shows, he’d come out with Bex and Ben to watch.
But we were discreet. We’d managed to keep our relationship out of the media.
Nobody except our friends knew we were together.
He’d changed. I used to be his best friend as well as his boyfriend, but now he made space in his life for Joel and Casey.
I got used to Joel. Eddie made sure we got to know each other.
I met Joel’s husband, Reg, who’d been out of the country traveling and writing poetry.
He reminded me of Jack: tall, sophisticated, and handsome, but unlike Jack, he was a decent guy.
Eddie made sure I wasn’t neglecting Ben and Bex, which became more of a thing when, after the shooting of the first season of his show ended, he accepted a contract to star in a big movie in LA.
I had to admit I was pretty upset when he did that, because it meant he was out of the country for six weeks, and I couldn’t come with him, because I had exams and teaching commitments.
He said that not having him around all the time would help me focus on school.
But we already weren’t seeing each other nearly as much as I wanted.
We FaceTimed, and we kept our daily tradition of asking each other one really personal question.
And he was right. I hadn’t really known him.
It was scary finding out new things about him.
And it was scary telling him stuff about myself I’d never told anyone, not even my therapist. But he never judged me.
Then one Saturday night, a year after we’d gotten back together, after the filming for his movie was done, and he was working on season two of his TV show, I was sitting in the living room going over some data on my laptop.
We were still living in my apartment. We could afford a better place on what he was making, but I wanted to pay half of our expenses, and I wasn’t making that much.
I was on a scholarship, which my advisor topped up with his grant money, and I was making a little extra, teaching undergrads, but I didn’t have a whole lot extra, and I was saving for our future.
Whatever that was going to look like. It bothered me that things were up in the air.
But whenever I felt impatient, I reminded myself of how long he’d waited for me when we first got together.
I figured now it was my turn to wait for him.
It was Saturday night, but he’d texted me to say he’d had to fly up north for the day for “location work.” I didn’t know when he was getting back, so I did what I usually did when he wasn’t around, and I was missing him and wanting him.
He’d pretty much encouraged me to jack whenever that happened, so...
Anyway, I was getting close when I heard his key in the door, and I pulled my hand out of my pants. But he saw me anyway, and he grinned.
He went up to me and put his arms around me, and he looked over my shoulder at my laptop. “Tapper, that isn’t sexy.”
“It’s thesis stuff.”
“That’s what’s got you worked up?”
“I was thinking about you, and...you know. You said I should take care of myself if you’re not here.”
“But I am here.”
“Well, yeah, you are now, but I didn’t know when you were coming back.”
He put his arm around my chest and tightened his hold.
“Um, what are you doing?”
“It’s a trick I learned at work. Try to get away.”
I tried, but I couldn’t break his grip. So I relaxed against him. He had me pinned, which was one of the things we’d discovered I was into. It was a preference, though, not a kink.
“That’s better,” he murmured in my ear. “Relax and let me look after you.” Then he slipped his hand into my pocket, which would have made me jump out of my chair if he hadn’t had me pinned.
“Jesus!”
“Took the word out of my mouth. Did my little move excite you, tapper?” He rubbed me through my pocket. “You’re fucking primed.”
“Yeah, fully aware of that, Eddie.” I’d already done most of the work there; he’d just pushed me right up to the edge.
He squeezed me.
I grabbed his wrist. “I’m close.”
He nuzzled the back of my neck. “You want to know where I’ve been?”
“Um...yeah?” I was breathing hard now.
“I was up north...,” he said, and when he said, “north,” he squeezed me again, and I arched back against him hard enough that the chair creaked. “Looking at a place...” He rubbed me a little more, which was making me totally crazy. I put my hand over his, pressing him against me.
“You want me to keep doing this to you? Or do you want to fuck?”
I didn’t have a choice at that point, because I shot. He held me tight, and when I was done, my head fell back against his shoulder, and he pressed his face against me, breathing me in, because that was what he went for.
“Guess that answers my question,” he said.
I sighed and closed my eyes.
“Normally, we’d make these decisions together,” he said. “But we weren’t engaged when I made this one.”
What? I blinked. “Weren’t what?”
“You know that cottage you’ve been looking at on your laptop for the last few months? The one you’ve been using as your desktop background?”
“Yeah. It sold three weeks ago.”
“I know.”
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a set of keys, and put them in my hand. “I bought it. For us.”
“We can’t afford the mortgage.”
“We don’t have a mortgage. I bought it for cash. It’s ours.”
“We...how, Eddie?”
“Remember that movie I went to Hollywood to shoot?”
“Yeah?”
“They paid me really well.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
I looked at the keys. Heavy. Real. “Well, I am. Shit, Eddie.”
He let me go, so I twisted around in the chair. “It’s really ours?”
“Yeah. And I thought maybe we could get married there.”
“...what?”
“We could get married at our cottage, by the lake,” he said. “You want something special for our wedding, right? Somewhere private?”
It was the only thing I wanted that he hadn’t given me. Till now. And I just stared at the keys and started sobbing.
Then I felt him tug on my necklace.
“What are you doing?”
“Hold still.” He picked the knot apart and pulled up the cord. Our rings slipped off and fell into his cupped hand. He put the little wooden one on.
“Stand up,” he said.
I got up and faced him.
He held out the gold ring to me. “Will you marry me, tapper?”
No fancy speech, no fancy venue. But he didn’t need one, because I knew he meant it and, like, finally.
I nodded.
He held my hand and slipped the ring onto my thumb. “Fourth time’s the charm.”
I pulled him into a hug, and he put his arms around me and held me tight.
“That was worth waiting for, wasn’t it?” he said, and then he kissed me.