Extended Epilogue
I’m used to walking into a room and shifting the balance of it on sheer size alone.
This backyard party doesn’t even register me.
Everyone is nearly my height. I should have known it ran in the family. Freya’s tall, her mom is… but the men in her family? It’s like I wandered into an NBA scrimmage. I’m not used to being eye level with so many people.
We’re at Freya’s grandma’s house in Santa Clarita.
It’s a hot day, and there are enough people here that I could use name tags.
Freya’s cousins gather around an industrial-sized grill and smoker at the back of the yard.
Cards slap down at a line of picnic tables where spades is in full swing, while a group of girls sit on a blanket in the grass with nail polish spread out between them.
Meanwhile, I’m in the pool with the kids, dipping under and coming back up while they jump in around us. Gabrielle laughs in my arms, the skirt of her butterfly swimsuit floating with the water.
One of the boys, Jaden, suddenly squirts me in the face with a very aggressive water gun.
“Gotcha!”
I shelter Riri but spin toward him and use a pretend menacing voice. “Once I put this baby down, you’re finished.”
His laughter is almost a squeal as he swims off backward, kicking his feet hard so he splashes me more. Riri gets it in the eyes and startles, but doesn’t cry. She flutters her cute, curly eyelashes, blinking the water away.
“What was that?” I kiss her chubby cheek. “A monsoon?”
Just then, Faith Johnson appears at the side of the pool.
She holds a plate of watermelon rind and puts it down on a folded table near one of the sun loungers.
“Anton, baby.” She crouches down and reaches for my daughter. “The boys need you over at the barbecue.”
Baby.
When I met this woman a little over a year ago, she hardly ate the food I put in front of her, eyeing me with polite suspicion. I never thought I’d earn that term of endearment. Now, just like my fiancée is Freya baby, I’m Anton baby.
And I love it.
I reach Gabrielle up into her grandma’s hands and then hoist myself out of the pool.
Glancing toward the grill, a cluster of men joke and argue loudly near the flames. “Seems to me like they’ve got plenty of talent over there.”
Faith hums. “Oh, they don’t need help cooking. They need help taste-testing.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “That sounds like a good way to earn an enemy today.”
“I set you up.” A playful smile teases the corner of her lips.
“Baptism of fire?”
She hands me a towel from the back of the lounge chair. “Don’t even think about being diplomatic either. “You’ll lose their respect.”
I wrap the towel around my waist. “Thanks for the tip.”
She leans in slightly, lowering her voice. “Now don’t go and tell them I already voted your ribs the best in the family. You hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I salute her.
She bounces Riri on her hip. “I trust you.”
Trust.
It’s just a joke. She doesn’t want a feud to break out in the garden over ribs. But the word still hits me straight in the chest. I love this woman. I’m as lucky to have her in my life as everyone else here.
Faith’s presence is solid beside me in a way that reaches a place in my life that’s been empty since my mom died. She matters to me not just as Freya’s mom or Gabrielle’s grandmother, but as someone who’s stepped into that space.
Now, I have someone caring for me in those practical ways.
She calls people from her network who might want bespoke furniture.
She tells me to eat more, even when I have a full plate.
She asks me how I’m sleeping.
She includes me in everything.
We’re family.
She shoos me off toward the grill. “Now go put some meat on your bones.”
I wander toward the back of the garden and barely get through the smoke before Lita zeroes in on me, a balled-up napkin in hand.
“There you are, honey,” she declares. “The chef.”
She escorts me by the arm toward her grandsons, Cory and Micah, who argue near the smoker.
“Anton will settle it,” she insists.
Cory turns toward a table set up near the smoker and grabs a plate with two ribs.
Micah points to the plate being handed to me. “Fifty bucks is riding on this.”
I take the plate.
Cory, the tallest one here, bends over to look me in the eyes. “Choose wisely.”
“High stakes,” I say, already inspecting the color of the barbecue sauce.
Before I tuck in, Freya slips in beside me and steals a rib straight off my plate.
“He might be the chef in our house,” she says, pointing the rib at her cousins, “but I’m the judge.”
She turns to me and drags her gaze down the length of my still-wet torso like I’m the one winning the contest right now.
I take the other rib from the plate. “Two mouths are better than one.”
Micah pulls a face. “Should I be telling y’all to get a room?”
Freya laughs and takes a bite. She considers the flavors, nodding, brows furrowed. I taste mine, and then we swap ribs.
“Go on then,” Micah says.
Freya swallows. “Okay.”
Micah and Cory lean in.
She wiggles the rib between her fingers. “This one.”
Cory groans. “Unbelievable.”
I glance down at my own plate. “I liked this one.”
Both of them stare at us, unimpressed that we’ve settled nothing.
“You two?” Micah points his finger between us. “No taste. None.”
Freya tilts her head with a smile. “This sounds like a you problem.”
Freya takes my plate from me and hands it back to her cousins, then reaches for my hand. “I’m stealing him while we’re baby-free.”
She tugs me through the crowd and doesn’t stop until we reach some sun loungers tucked into a far corner, close enough to hear the party, but far enough to breathe. I drop into one, stretching my legs out, and she settles onto the edge, draping her leg over mine so she doesn’t slide off.
Her arm loops around my neck. Mine finds her lower back and the top of her womanly ass.
The sun shines warmly on our moment.
This—all this family, laughter, kids laughing and squealing around us—is heaven.
I let my hand rest at her waist, feeling the heat of her skin through the thin strap of that coral bikini that should be illegal on anyone, let alone my fiancée.
She leans in and kisses me warmly, then pulls back and wipes off some of the vanilla gloss she left on my lips.
“Those two better hope you never enter the contest,” she says. “Those ribs had nothing on yours.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “That’s what your mom said. But it was Luis’s recipe.” My thumb rubs a slow circle at her hip. “I just followed instructions.”
She tilts her head, studying me. “Why are you always so humble?”
Her chestnut eyes warm with seduction. Damn, this woman is trouble.
“I have a secret for you.” Her fingers curl around my shoulder as she leans closer, her lips skim my earlobe. “It’s not the recipe.”
“No?”
Her tone drops into pure heat. “It’s knowing exactly how to do the rub.”
She kisses behind my ear, and heat rolls through me.
“You have to know when to lean in…” another kiss, “and when to pull back.”
Fuck, we might need to get that room after all.
I turn my head just enough to catch her wicked gaze.
“Is that your professional opinion?”
“Mm-hmm.” She bites her lip. “Applies to more than ribs.”
Thank you so much for reading!