Epilogue
TWO YEARS LATER
Owen
“You know what we need?” I said as I wiggled my toes in the sand, grinning as the evening sunshine warmed my skin.
Christmas in the sun was one of the best things in the world, and it was something that would never get old to me.
And I loved that after two years of sun, sea, and absolutely no fucking snow, Darcy agreed with me.
“What?” Darcy asked, leaning against my shoulder as we watched the waves breaking on the shore. His feet were buried in the sand next to mine, grains of it clinging to his skin.
“A bucket and spade. We should build a sandcastle.”
Darcy laughed. “It’s six o’clock on Christmas Eve, nowhere is going to be open for you to get a bucket and spade.”
“Guess I’ll just have to make one with my hands then.”
“Or you could wait a couple of days and then get one.”
“Boo! I wanna build one now.” I laughed as Darcy snorted fondly, his body shaking slightly where he was laughing. I fucking loved it when he laughed. It was one of my favourite things about him. And about life in general.
If Darcy was smiling and laughing, then life would always be good.
Falling in love with him was the best fucking thing I’d ever done, and I’d forever be grateful to him, and everyone at home, for helping me get my head out of my arse before I lost him. Because if I’d tried to live without Darcy, then my life would be a piss-poor imitation of what it was now.
I kissed the top of his head and put my arm around his shoulder, drawing him against me. He sighed happily, the sound making my heart bounce. “Did you ever think it would be like this?” Darcy asked quietly, his hand resting casually on my knee as his fingers traced the lines of some of my tattoos.
“What? This trip?”
“No… well, yes, but I meant life, I guess.”
“Sort of, but this is better than I could’ve imagined.” I kissed the top of his head again, my thumb stroking back and forth on his arm. “I always planned to be on beaches at Christmas, but I never thought I’d get to share them with anyone. Not like this. I kind of always thought I’d end up alone.”
“Me too—the single part, not the beach at Christmas. Although Heather Bay does have a beach so I could have gone for a walk if I’d felt like it.”
“Would you?”
“Probably not.” He chuckled softly. “Especially not if it was cold. Alfie said it’s been raining a lot lately, but no snow. Milo’s words were ‘it’s fucking miserable’.”
“Does that mean we shouldn’t send them a picture of us right now?”
“Depends. How much do you want to be told to fuck off?”
It was my turn to laugh then, because I could already picture Milo’s face. “Maybe not. We’re still calling them tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, tomorrow night. Hopefully they’ll all be awake.”
“If not, we’ll figure it out.”
Given the time difference between us in Australia and Heather Bay, we basically had to do evenings to their mornings or vice versa for video calls, but we made it work.
Mostly we stuck to voice notes, text messages, and endless photos, but sometimes it was nice to see everyone, especially my dad and my niblings.
We hadn’t originally been planning to come back to Australia this year, but some friends of mine I’d known for a long time—who I’d introduced Darcy to our first winter away from Heather Bay—had recently moved to the Gold Coast and had invited us to come and visit.
So, we’d decided to add three weeks in Australia to our itinerary, seeing them and driving along the coast, before we headed to Singapore for a week over New Year, then Thailand for another month, until the end of January, before heading to Vietnam for the last part of our trip.
We’d head back to England at the end of February, ready to ease back into getting the shop ready for the spring and testing new recipes.
It was our most extensive trip to date, but we’d budgeted carefully and it was the break we’d both sorely needed
Lick It! had gone from strength to strength over the past few years, with queues out the door every day throughout the summer.
The four of us worked around the clock, with the help of a couple of seasonal staff to stop us from completely burning out, and by the time we got to the end of October, all of us were exhausted. But it was worth it.
Not only did the busy summers mean we could afford to take trips like this, but they showed the strength of Darcy’s dream and how bloody good we were at what we did. The ice cream we made was fucking delicious and whenever customers returned or raved about us online then it just reiterated that.
We’d also scooped up a handful of awards for our ice cream this year, and every time we did, Darcy always reacted the same way: with this ridiculously endearing surprise at the thought of being recognised for our work.
But he deserved it. And I reminded him of that every single time, pressing praise into his skin with my mouth until he believed me.
“You know, I realised there’s one flavour we really haven’t done as much with as we should. Two actually,” Darcy said as he sat up slightly and stretched, wiggling his toes and making the sand shift and wobble.
“Coconut?” I asked, putting my hands down behind me so I could lean back on them. I’d been thinking about that too ever since we’d had some amazing toasted-coconut ice cream a couple of weeks ago.
“Yes! And cherry. They don’t have to go together, but they’re both flavours we haven’t done enough with.
” He wiggled his toes again, and when I looked over at him, I recognised the look on his face.
The one he always wore when he was thinking about flavour combinations and how best to pair things together.
Part of me wanted to tell him that he didn’t need to do this now, but I also knew this part of the process was fun for him.
It wasn’t really work, at least not in his eyes.
And I loved having these conversations, bouncing ideas around until we had a hundred new ones to try as soon as we got back to our kitchen.
“We could do toasted coconut,” I said. “That one we had was fucking delicious.”
“It was. We could also do something more tropical… or cocktail based. Ooh, like a pina colada!”
“Would you wanna put the rum in it?”
“I think so. And we could even put candied pineapple on the top… that would be nice.”
“Add some toasted coconut flakes too, just to vary the textures.”
“Yeah, that would work.” He grinned, pulling his phone out of the pocket of his shorts to start making notes.
By the time we returned to Heather Bay in the spring, we’d have a whole cookbook of flavours to play around with.
We’d spend some of March testing them out and refining them, seeing if we could make them work in the way we wanted.
Some never made it past that stage, but for the ones that did, we’d offer them up to our expert panel of taste testers to see what they thought.
These days our testing panel included Alfie, Jonathan, Milo, and Rupert. Then if we needed any more opinions, we’d send a couple of small tubs to Theo, Laurie, the local vicar, Fred, Norman, who worked with Rupert, and my dad, who were always very happy to supply us with their thoughts.
Dad had insisted on going back to work at the castle after he’d fully recovered from his hip replacement, but after a couple of weeks he had quietly admitted it was more difficult than he remembered, especially once winter arrived.
He hadn’t fully retired—I wasn’t sure that was ever going to happen—but he’d slowed down and switched to part-time hours.
He was very happy to keep looking after his beloved rose garden and spent the rest of his time scrutinising every single thing the other gardeners did.
He’d started getting my niblings into gardening too, despite their young age, and this summer they’d grown giant sunflowers which had reached the roof of his cottage.
It had almost made me want a garden of my own, despite the fact Darcy and I had both said we didn’t have the time, or interest, to maintain one.
We worked so much over the summer that any garden we had would turn into a jungle within a month and then have to survive being abandoned for two or three months over the winter.
But Dad was always happy for us to visit and spend evenings sat out in his, the three of us chatting about whatever was going on in our lives at the time as bees and butterflies fluttered around the endless number of flowers.
Darcy and I were still living in the little flat he’d had when we’d started hooking up, because we really didn’t need any more space.
It was perfect for us. Over the past few years, we’d started adding more things to it, little trinkets we’d picked up on our travels, photos of the two of us eating ice cream on sunny beaches, and other random bits and bobs.
Hallmarks of our life together.
Being with Darcy was everything I could have ever wanted and more. He didn’t just complete my heart but my soul as well. The life we’d built together still blew me away because at one point, I’d never imagined I’d get to have anything like this. I’d even started to believe I didn’t want it.
But that had been a lie I’d believed to protect myself from ever being hurt.
My initial desire to make Darcy happy, to see him smile and reduce his stress levels, had changed everything and I’d forever be glad I’d convinced him to take me up on my offer. Not that he’d really needed much persuading.
I still remembered the way he’d looked at me the first few times he’d seen me on the beach. The desperate desire in his eyes he’d tried to pretend wasn’t there.
It was a look he still gave me, especially when I was just in swim shorts and wading out of the sea with water dripping down my chest. Only these days he was very open with his hunger, and the last few weeks I’d often found myself being dragged straight back to our hotel room so he could get his hands on me.
I loved how relaxed he was when we travelled. How carefree. And I hoped I could help him keep hold of those feelings, even during our busy, stressful days.
He was my beautiful angel. The love of my fucking life.
And maybe, if I was lucky, tomorrow he’d be my future husband.
I had a ring burning a hole in the inside zip pocket of my bag.
I simply had to ask the question. I wasn’t nervous though, because this time around I was asking the right person for the right reason.
I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Darcy, waking up every single day with him beside me and continuing this incredible adventure.
“Ooh, I had two thoughts for cherry,” Darcy said, looking at me with pure excitement. “Either something like a dark chocolate, sea salt, and cherry. Or something a little different, like a cherry Bakewell! I think that could be super fun.”
“We can try both,” I said. Fuck, he looked so beautiful like this. How had I gotten so lucky?
“Awesome!” He tapped both into his phone then smiled at me, tilting his head slightly. “What?”
“Nothing. Just looking at you.”
“Why? Do I have something on my face?”
“No.” I shifted slightly and lifted my hand off the sand, reaching out to gently cup his face. “You’re just so beautiful, angel. I love you so much.”
“I love you too.”
We kissed softly, both of us smiling.
Both of us breathtakingly happy.
Both of us more in love than I’d ever thought possible.
If this was going to be the rest of my life, then it was going to be fucking awesome.
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