Chapter 39 – Epilogue Alessia
"Pass me the buns please, sweetheart."
I hand them over without looking up, mostly because I already know what's going to happen if I look up, and I have a very limited ability to behave myself around this man when he's standing in front of a grill in the summer heat looking like that.
I look up anyway.
He's flipping burgers with one hand, and when he lifts the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead, he reveals those abs I had my mouth on approximately an hour ago, and my body responds with an enthusiasm that I'm going to blame entirely on the first trimester hormones currently running my life.
God, he’s so sexy.
I’ll never get sick of this view and my obsession with him has become even worse with the pregnancy hormones kicking in. I can’t keep my hands off him every day. Not that he’s seemed to mind.
Wordlessly, I hand him the unopened pack of buns. He bends down to press a quick kiss to the top of my head.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
I press my lips together to keep from smiling too wide.
Five months ago, I sat in a bar in Manhattan thinking this man was someone else entirely, and somehow that miscalculation led me here.
To his backyard. To this life. To a Tuesday afternoon cookout in July where I know every person's name and they know mine and nobody's leaving early because there's nowhere else that they'd rather be but together.
I spent so long being convinced that this would never be available to me. Not the family, not the belonging, not the man who makes me feel so safe. I was wrong about a lot of things.
“You two make me sick,” Rhiannon teases, stepping up beside me with a squeeze and her youngest cradled in her arms. Her tone is playful, but her eyes are soft, filled with something warm like she’s happy to see her brother and I together.
“Want to hold him?” she asks, lifting her newest addition to their family, Abel Gabriel Prescott.
I take him without hesitation, settling him against my chest, his small warm weight fitting there like it was designed to. He doesn't stir. Just tucks in, lets out one of those little baby yawns, and goes back to whatever very serious dream he's having.
Something moves through me, slow and full, like warm water filling a glass.
I grew up an only child. No siblings, no cousins close by, no built-in village.
It was me and my grandmother and a mother who lived her life in a different direction, and I made my peace with that a long time ago.
But I didn't know what I was missing until I walked through Rhiannon's purple front door one winter evening with a margarita in my hand and a lot of walls up and somehow ended up with all of this.
Aunt to Piper, who is currently trying to teach Cain's dog a trick that the dog has no interest in learning.
Aunt to Abel, who is asleep on my chest smelling like everything good in the world.
Sister to Eden, who texts me photos of her design work daily.
Sister to Rhiannon, who saw straight through me from the first night and loved me anyway.
We haven't told anyone outside of our immediate family that we’re pregnant yet.
It's early. We're being careful with it, holding it close before we let the rest of the world know.
But I know. And he knows. And when I look up from Abel's sleeping face and find Gabriel watching me from across the grill with that expression he gets, steady and warm and like I'm the only fixed point in his whole field of vision, I think he's thinking the same thing I am.
We're going to be okay. More than okay.
“He’s so precious,” I murmur, adjusting the baby in my arms.
Rhiannon smiles knowingly. “That’ll be you two soon.”
I swallow against the lump in my throat, nodding, but before I can say anything, a voice cuts through the air.
“Hey, guys.”
Boone Tremblay strides up, his arm wrapped protectively around his wife Rosie, Rhiannon’s sister-in-law, who’s tucked to his side.
I’ve only met Boone a few times, but his towering frame and easygoing presence match the stories I’ve heard about him.
He’s a playful hockey player with a wild past who somehow found himself in a marriage contract with Rosie, the no-nonsense entertainment lawyer and his fake wife, only to rapidly fall madly in love with her along the way.
They live on the other side of the lake in Brookhaven, and though I’ve run into Rosie a few times during cookouts and dinners at Brookhaven Brews, Boone’s been splitting his professional hockey career retirement between here and his hometown in Canada where his mom still lives.
“How’s it going, Boone?” Gabriel asks as he loads the cooked burgers onto a large serving plate.
“Ah, not too bad,” Boone replies, clapping a hand on the shoulder of the guy standing behind him who I hadn’t noticed at first though I’m not sure how I missed him. “I hope it’s okay, I had my little brother tag along with me for today’s cookout. Everyone, this is my brother Seth.”
I blink at the word little.
Seth Tremblay is anything but little. He’s huge.
Where Boone has dark hair, Seth’s is sandy brown and always a little messy, like he’s just come off the ice.
But the resemblance is still there. The same sharp, chiseled features.
The same strong jaw. And the man is massive.
Broad shoulders, thick through the chest, built like he could go ten rounds in a hockey fight and still come out smiling. Total Canadian hockey player energy.
“Hey,” Seth says, giving our group an awkward wave that tells me he isn’t a big fan of socializing.
Boone grins. “Guess who just got signed to the Manhattan Mayhem as their newest goaltender?”
“No fucking way,” Rhiannon gasps. “Wow, congratulations, Seth!” She throws her arms around the big man’s waist, or as far as she can reach.
The Manhattan Mayhem is New York City’s professional, NHL hockey team that’s been top in the nation for the last six years in a row with Boone at the helm as their forward.
Boone nods. “Well, it’s not official, but it looks like it will be soon. Likely by this fall. Figured since my career’s winding down, they wanted to bring in another Tremblay to keep the hype going. Also works out so that Sawyer can be closer to family.”
I glance between them. “Who’s Sawyer?”
Seth exhales, running a hand through his hair. “That would be my twelve-year-old daughter. The one tearing up your backyard.” He points and I see an adorable girl wearing a dress and converse sneakers, running around in the backyard giggling loudly.
“Seth’s raising her on his own,” Boone says but doesn’t elaborate.
Gabriel lifts a brow. “You’re moving to Brookhaven if you get picked up by the team?”
Seth nods. “Yes. That’s the goal. It’ll be easier to have her living here than in New York City.” His jaw tightens, his voice is flat, and I can tell that this has been hard on him.
Boone claps a hand on his brother’s shoulder, a silent reassurance before adding, “It’s going to be good.
The San Diego Suns never appreciated him the way that the Mayhem will, and he’ll be closer to family.
Sawyer’s adjusting to all the changes in her life, and I think she’ll love living in Brookhaven. ”
Seth doesn’t look so sure.
“If there’s anything we can do to help…” Rhiannon offers. “We’re all willing to chip in time with Sawyer.”
Seth hesitates, then sighs, rubbing a hand along his jaw.
“You wouldn’t happen to know any good nannies, would you?
School starts in a month, and we’ll be moved here for good then, but the evenings and weeknights…
that’s where I’m gonna struggle. With the Mayhem’s training and traveling schedule, I’m not sure how I’m going to manage it all…
” He trails off, and I can see the weight of his new responsibilities pressing down on him.
“I’m a teacher at the elementary school,” I jump in.
“I can fill in any gaps where needed. After-school care, weekends, whatever. The middle school is right next door to the elementary school. She can come to my office while I do lesson planning, and we can hang out until you get home or I can take her back to our place.”
Something shifts in his expression, like he wasn’t expecting an offer like that. “That’s… really nice of you.”
“We can all help,” Gabriel asserts, stacking burgers onto the buns now laid out on the folding table. His voice is firm, unwavering. “That’s what we do here. We’re family. You’ve got a whole support system now. We’ll rally together and make sure you have what you need.”
“And I’ll keep an ear out for any nannies looking for work,” Eden adds, slipping into the group with an easy smile, her boyfriend’s hands on her hips.
Seth flushes slightly, nodding, and even though he’s built like a tank, I can tell that he’s not used to this.
Not used to people like this. A family that steps in with no questions asked.
A net to catch him before he even realizes he’s falling.
I get it. I wasn’t used to it either when I first met the Carpenters.
But now I can’t imagine a life without these friendships.
Everyone needs a village. He’ll see. We’re nothing without community.
“Thank you, guys. Seriously,” he says, his voice rough. Then, forcing some lightness back in, he adds, “On that note, I’m gonna have a burger and a beer since Sawyer’s currently occupied.”
We all laugh as he swipes some food off the plate, and the group naturally starts to fan out around our backyard by the lake.
I move to grab one for myself, but before I can, Gabriel intercepts me—pulling me flush against his chest, his body heat wrapping around me. His nose dips to my neck, inhaling slowly before pressing a warm, lingering kiss there. A shiver rolls down my spine.
“That was really nice of you to offer to help Seth with his daughter,” he murmurs in my ear.
I exhale, tilting my head to give him better access to kiss me. He moves his lips upward until they’re pressed against mine.
“He looked like he needed it.”
Gabriel pulls back just enough to look at me, and his eyes do that thing, moving over my face like he's checking in, like making sure I'm okay is something he does so automatically he doesn't even realize he's doing it anymore.
"You know what I keep thinking about?" he says.
"What?"
"Our kid." His voice drops, and there's something in it that gets me every time, this softness he only uses when it's just us. "How lucky they are. Getting to grow up with you for a mother."
My throat tightens.
I think about the years I spent believing it wasn't going to happen for me.
The treatments and the grief and the quiet devastation of watching my body refuse to do the one thing I wanted it to do most. The way I eventually stopped letting myself want it because wanting it hurt too much.
The way I built walls around that hope so high I couldn't see over them anymore.
And then I think about a February night in a Manhattan bar when I kissed a stranger under a dusty sprig of mistletoe and ran away, certain it meant nothing.
"I love you," I tell him. Then, because I can't help myself, I drop my voice and add, "Daddy."
He closes his eyes. "Alessia."
I giggle. "I'm hungry. The baby is hungry."
"I’m also hungry," he says, and the look on his face makes it very clear he is not talking about the burger.
He swipes a plate from the table, loads it up without breaking eye contact, and hands it to me.
"Eat," he says. "Both of you."
Then he picks me up, and I laugh into his shoulder as he carries me toward the house with the ease of a man who has decided exactly where he's going and is very pleased about it, and behind us the cookout continues, warm voices and lake light and the sound of Piper and Sawyer finally getting the dog to shake.
I eat my burger over his shoulder. When we get inside, he gets what he wants too.
Some things, it turns out, do work out.
The End.