Epilogue
December
“WE HAVE TO STOP MEETING like this.”
I grin, and turn—and keep turning, since he’s on my right—to find Ian filling our bathroom doorway. I recap my eyeliner with a click that echoes in the tiled space and toss it into my makeup bag. “I don’t know. Bathrooms seem to work for us.”
“Especially when you’re on the counter,” he says, and I shift, letting my feet dangle off the side of the surface as he steps between my knees. I hook my finger into his belt loops, pulling him closer. He grins. “Should I shut the door?”
“I was hoping you were coming in to free me from my banishment,” I say. “I’m losing my mind in here.”
“It’ll be another few minutes. Everything looks great,” he assures me. “I took care of the locker rooms, Heather and Mark are en route with the last of the small plates Diego had back at the Dawghouse. Barbara—”
We both flinch as the sharp shriek of feedback comes in from the open window in the bedroom.
“—is about to get fired from playing deejay. And Grant and Tom have the kids working on your surprise in the lobby.”
“I still can’t believe that Tom filled that position,” I say.
Tom’s not only come to the rescue on the accounting front, but is providing all childcare coverage now that Grant’s courseload has doubled, courtesy of his education classes.
He’s taken to it like a particularly curmudgeonly duck to water, and the kids adore him—especially Penny, which Grant is more than a little testy about.
“It boggles the mind. Speaking of, Alistair is dressed like an elf? Or, what he’s calling an elf, which does include a little hat, but is otherwise limited to shorts and suspenders.”
“No shirt?”
He scoffs. “Never. He’s not really contributing, but there a good chance he’s putting Helen at risk of preeclampsia. That poor woman swoons every time he walks by.”
“I hope she’s seated.”
“As a matter of fact, she may not be able to get out of the armchair. Her words. I think this last trimester is going to be rough.”
I stick out my lower lip in sympathy. The pregnancy had been a happy surprise, but Helen found out a few days after we’d spent a lunch detailing our respective medical histories.
She had been so delicate in telling me that she was expecting, it was practically an apology.
I appreciated her sensitivity, but at this point, whether my body is up to the task of reproducing is the last thing on my mind.
“So, rest easy about the success of the first annual Firehouse Fitness holiday party, and tell me.” He half smiles. “What are you doing up here?”
“My eyeliner. I have to angle the cabinet mirrors to see my right side, and it takes forever to get the wings symmetrical.” I frown. “I hate having to relearn it every relapse. You’d think I’d have the muscle memory by now.”
I grimace the moment the complaint is out of my mouth. Ian gives me a reassuring squeeze, but I sigh. “I’m an asshole.”
“You’re not an asshole.”
“I’m griping about eyeliner. There are people with this who can’t walk or see or live independently, and I’m bitching about nailing a cat eye.”
“Your MS is your MS. It isn’t a competition.”
He’s right, but I sigh again, anyway.
Dr. Hartman had gotten me in first thing that nightmare morning, and an MRI and spinal tap confirmed my condition.
Relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. I experience flare-ups, during which my immune system attacks the myelin protecting my nerve cells, as well as the nerve fibers within.
This interrupts signals from getting to the parts of my body where they need to go, my optic nerve evidently being the go-to, though new symptoms may pop up.
This can last days or weeks, which has been my experience so far, or longer, and then I go into remission, where, again, so far, the symptoms go away.
As with all things MS, this is simply a matter of luck; I could be symptomatic even outside of an attack. I just get to wait and see.
Ian takes my hands, squeezing them and running his thumbs from my knuckles to my wrists. “Are your hands behaving?”
I shrug. My eye might be my body’s preferred victim, but this relapse, a tingling has picked up in my hands.
It’s maddening, pins and needles dancing along my fingers and palms. I end up wiggling my fingers or curling and relaxing them to relieve the sensation.
Five days into this flare-up, and I don’t even notice I’m doing it. But Ian does.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I just didn’t do enough with them today.”
As ever, movement is my savior. Beyond the relief I get from simply keeping my hands active, the tingles are hard to focus on when I’m cursing workouts like Barbara, which, as per its namesake, really does suck.
For now, I’m going as hard as I reasonably can for as long as I reasonably can.
The only change is that the guys spot me during overhead movements, especially with this flare-up’s twitchy fingers, and I’m expressly forbidden from rope climbs without Ian and the crash pads below me, which, c’mon—don’t threaten me with a good time.
I curl my fingers around his. Unfiltered honesty has gotten a lot easier now that I have nothing to hide, but admitting weakness still grates my pride.
“I don’t like that there’s a new symptom.
It feels too soon for something new. And I feel guilty because…
I should be so lucky that it’s just something really, really, annoying and not debilitating.
And I’m scared. Because the next symptom might be. ”
Ian opens his mouth, doubtless to say something reassuring, but I shake my head.
“I know that it isn’t likely. Not now. But even with my medication, it is the eventuality.
” The vast majority of RRMS patients transition to a progressive form of the condition, where the relapses stop being relapses and become their life, the symptoms permanent.
In most cases, that takes time, ten to twenty-five years, and that’s not nothing.
One can fit a lot of living into that, and I’m going to.
“But whether it’s a decade before that happens, or two, or,” I emphasize, leaning on the still-tender hope I’ve been nurturing, “MS is miraculously cured in the meantime, now is all I can depend on anyway.” I smirk. “I could get hit by a truck tomorrow, regardless of my MS progression.”
“Let’s not do that though, okay? This is Texas. There are a lot of trucks.”
“Good point.” I slip my hands around his sides, squeezing his waist with my legs.
“It’s a crappy part of my life, but still only part of it.
It’s not all that I am. I can still apply eyeliner.
And walk. And run. And climb a rope. And move stupid heavy shit and have stimmy sex with you after—” I shrug, smiling as his hands slide up my back. “For now, that’s pretty damn good.”
“I agree,” he says, and leans down, brushing his lips to mine.
I nip at his lower lip. “And I can be helpful, too, if those brats will let me.”
“This is for you,” he reminds me.
I let out a huff, and Ian laughs, jostling me at every point of contact. The feeling revives Break Me, which was really just me, anyway, and I squeeze him between my thighs with a little more intention.
“We still have a few minutes?” I ask, and he nods, his smile growing lascivious. “Excellent.” I tiptoe my fingers down to his rear. “Let’s put these fingers to use.”
“Okay!” Diego’s excited voice comes from my left, accompanied by the faint tinkle of jingle bells.
I bite in my smile, imagining him in the little Santa hat he was wearing for the Built Box holiday video we recorded this morning.
It was the first kit he’d designed, courtesy of the nutrition training he’s taken on, and one of many kits and features of his extended contract with Built Box.
“We’ll count down, and then you can look! Guys, start from three!”
On his cue, a masculine chorus chants, “Three, two, one!”
I open my eyes and gasp, immediately blinking back tears.
Erected in the lobby between one of the boxy armchairs and the couch is a monstrous fir tree.
I’d smelled it the moment Ian guided me out of the stairwell, my eyes closed, as per request, but in no way was I prepared for the sight of it, even at 50 percent functionality.
It is, without a doubt, the most poorly decorated tree ever to have been adorned. It is a crime; it could be used to support an argument against ever cutting down a tree for Christmas consumption.
And I love it.
Before I can fully process the cacophony of contrasting elements the poor tree has been subjected to, Grant steps forward.
He gestures to the cluster of balls and paper chains that have been more or less thrown at the lower limbs.
“I let the kiddos do this part,” he says.
“They’ve been making ornaments during the childcare hours the past couple of weeks.
The chains, too,” he adds, begrudgingly. “It was Tom’s idea.”
I nod in a way that I hope is sympathetic.
“Anything that looked fragile was kept out of their reach,” Alistair adds. He is, indeed, wearing next to nothing, and I wonder how the med school panel he interviewed with the other day would react to him in his tiny elf hat and short shorts.
He points to the top half of the tree. “Check it out.”
I do, coming to stand beside Grant, letting my eye fall over the ornaments higher up.
I gasp again. The Gorgon’s head from Bath, the miniature Rose Window from my trip to Notre Dame, and the delicate palm tree that had miraculously made it back from the Keys without losing a glass frond.
They and all my other ornaments have been rescued from the underbed bin and finally put on display.
My first tree.
But not just mine. The childproofed section is full of unfamiliar ornaments from places I’ve never been but have seen in Hammond family photos.
It’s their mom’s collection. My heart swells.
I look at Ian, and I’m grateful for my deep aversion to the multicolored lights illuminating the tree, otherwise I’d be a mess. It’s our first tree.
“Christmas chaos.” He says the words with a sigh aching with memories. His arm comes around my waist, and I find myself softening to the profusion of color, if only to bask in the joy it brings him.
His joy, however, transitions to something closer to his fuck-with-you face. “Hey, Grant?” he asks. “Would you mind hitting the button on the cord? It’s close to the plug.”
Grant peers at the floor, nudging something below the tree with his foot. A moment later, the lights are a tasteful soft white.
“Oh, thank God,” I sigh, sagging in relief.
Ian laughs. “I thought you’d feel that way. This seems like a good compromise, yeah?”
“I love you,” I say, firmly. “This was very clever, and I love you for it. Do know that I love you anyway, and I love you for this.”
“I love you, too,” he says, and leans in, kissing my temple. While he’s close, he adds, quietly, “And we’ll take no offense to you moving around ornaments if you need to.”
“Thank you.” I kiss the corner of his mouth. “The ball distribution is killing me.” I look back at the tree. “But it’s kind of great as-is?” Facing the guys, I say, “Thank you, truly. It’s perfect. It feels—”
“Cozy?” Grant offers.
Fresh tears spring to my eyes, and I nod. “Yeah. Cozy is perfect.”
“We don’t want to keep you from the party for too long,” he says. “We just wanted to be sure you got to see it first. It’s our thank-you. To you. For… a lot.”
I wave this off, painfully aware of the ongoing threat of tears. “You guys were keeping the toilets pristine even before I moved out.”
“Not that! Well, not just that,” Diego says. I’d been right about the hat.
“You inspired us,” says Grant, and he smiles, holding a hand aloft. “To be more.”
“You believed that we could be,” Alistair adds, then shrugs. “I mean, I knew I’d get around to med school eventually, but, I dunno. You were that extra push—shit, you’re crying.”
“Mm-hmm,” I wipe under my eyes.
Alistair shakes his head. “You always do this now. You used to be so hard!”
“Not hard! More like…insulated.” I say, and sniffle. I don’t have to be anymore.
I smile. “I’m so proud of you, what you’re learning and doing, and it is humbling and really gratifying to have contributed to that in any way.
I love you to pieces.” I take in a long, shaky breath, and laugh.
“And none of you can hug me right now because I’ll fall apart and also, Alistair, honey, is that the shimmer again? ”
“It’s festive.”
“Fair. Just… keep it off Mushu? It can’t be good for his leaves.” I look at each of them in turn. “Thank you for letting me into the Dawghouse. And into Firehouse, and into your lives.”
My roommates smile back, and my whole body hums with gratitude for them.
Alistair, dazzling as always, literally so with his bronze shimmer; Diego, soft-faced and sweet, his cheeks encroaching on his eyes; and Grant, who opened the door between me and this weird, wonderful, empowering environment, his smile so much like his brother’s, and all the more endearing for the ways it’s his own.
His eyes widen, and his smile spreads to uniquely Grant proportions. “We should shotgun a beer! For old times’ sake!”
All eyes land on me, the onetime resident killjoy, who maybe never was all that bad. “Well,” I say. “Only if there’s cheese, too.”
Diego throws his arms up in victory. “I made miniature caprese! On toothpicks!”
The collegiate cave-pups whoop and jingle their way to the double doors.
As they file out, the sound of the gathering outside floats in, conversations between some of my favorite people, my community, my support, overlapping with “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” and a shriek from who I suspect is one of the other childcare kiddos fleeing from Penny, who has upgraded from capturing bugs to handling them.
It’s chaotic. And a little invasive at times.
But just like the truly bonkers tree beside me, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
There’s room to be scared, but surrounded by all of this, I can’t find it.
I’m not sad, either, and as the door closes on the din outside, I’m definitely not alone.
I look at Ian, who watches me with a mix of curiosity and adoration, and when I wiggle my brows, I find that I am coy.
His eyes smolder back, and it turns out, I’m also a little sexy.
“Thank you,” I say, and turn to face him fully, wrapping my arms around his neck. “For being strong enough for all of me.”
“Ellie Hayes,” he says, and kisses me. “You make it easy.”