Epilogue #2
his shirt up. He drew away long enough to yank his clothes off, and she only had a moment to admire his butt as he grabbed
a condom from the nightstand drawer.
He flowed over her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. One ankle hooked around his, and she had him on his back.
This was better. She did actually love being on top.
She ripped the foil wrapper of the condom open and rolled it down over his erection, taking advantage of the moment to stroke and tease him. He groaned, and grabbed her hips. She found it perfect that the calluses on his hands came from handling boxes and books, of all things.
Sejal lowered herself on top of him. She swallowed his groan and used her grip on the headboard to move on and over him. He
tilted his head back and breathed in unison with her. “Don’t stop,” she moaned against his lips, though she was the one in
control.
Krish grit his teeth and pressed her down on him, her hips jerking back and forth as she convulsed in his arms. His fingers
clenched hard on her buttocks, and he grunted as he came.
After they’d dealt with the condom, they lay side by side, and he pulled her into his arms. Sometimes, if someone talked about
marriage too much, Sejal got tetchy about physical affection, but she was too contented to do anything but melt against him.
With one finger, she traced the scar on his face, down to his lips.
He nipped her finger. “What are you thinking?”
“How was the talk with your brother?”
“As good as can be expected. He has to testify next week. He asked us to be in the courtroom. My mom already agreed. I told
him I’d check with you.”
“I think we should be there, sure, if you want to be there.”
“It would be good.” He pressed a kiss against her head. “Thanks. You’ve gotten really good at navigating our various tricky
family dynamics.”
“You’ve got a brother who nearly got me killed. I’ve got a sister we hope won’t become an oligarch. Life is what it is.” Sejal raised up on one elbow. “You’re okay with us not getting married, right? You’re not saying that but secretly harboring resentment against me?”
He rolled his eyes. “No. I never cared about it. If it was important to you, it would be important to me. It’s not, so it’s
not.”
“It’s that it—”
“Hey.” He squeezed her arm. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to justify it. If you don’t want it, we don’t do it. We get
to define what we look like. No one else.”
Her smile spread through her whole body. Sejal still had flashes of insecurity about being loved and loveable, but she was
doing the work to arm herself with tools to combat those. She lay back down next to him and cuddled closer. “When we have
our party, we could sneak off to the beach and exchange some private vows. No need for anyone to be there or have it made
legal. That way we can still experience the whole thing.”
“Vows? A chance to see you mushy? I’d love that.”
She narrowed her gaze at him. “Watch it, bud.”
“Oh, I am.” He slid his hand down her back, over her butt. “I’m watching very closely.”
Sejal rolled her eyes and slid away from him. “I’m going to get dressed.”
She went to the black duffel on the floor, rummaged around in it, and found one of his shirts.
“Can you also pull out my toothbrush while you’re over there?”
She opened the smaller pocket in the front and felt around. No toothbrush, but her fingers brushed cardstock. She frowned
and pulled out a $5 scratcher.
Holy crap. Krish had used this bag for a couple of trips since their wild ride, but as things often went, he must not have cleaned it out properly since they’d trekked across the country. She stood and turned. “Look at this.”
Krish squinted at it. “What’s that?”
“The scratcher I bought. Somewhere in Illinois. Or was it Indiana?”
“Oh, wow.” He didn’t sound as excited as her, but Sejal definitely played the lotto more than Krish did.
She pulled the thin pin out of her ever-trusty necklace, then bounded onto the bed. She scratched the winning numbers, then
went through the rest of the numbers one at a time to see if any of them matched.
“Why not scratch them all at once? Or just scratch the barcode at the bottom and scan it?”
She shot Krish a wounded look. “I love you, but sometimes you say the most foolish things.”
One dud after another, and then she got to the last row. “I fear this is going to be a losing card,” she remarked.
He picked up his phone, probably to set an alarm for the next day. The man did love his alarms. “Uh-huh.”
She got to the last number and scratched. Then she stared. And stared some more. “Krish.”
“Sejal?”
She handed him the card. “Does that say what I think it says?”
Krish did a double take. He grabbed his phone, turned on the flashlight, and they both peered down at the number.
“We were carrying this the whole time?” Sejal said, her voice scratchy. “When I busked on the street for bus money to get
us here?”
“I’ve used this bag like three times since then.
” Krish licked his lips. “Oh my God. So, listen, I’m thinking we need to reconsider this whole marriage thing—” He started laughing before she could work up a glare.
“I couldn’t even get it out with a straight face.
I kid, I kid. This is your ticket, do with it what you like. ” He handed it back to her.
“Technically, it was your money that I bought it with, so it’s our ticket.”
“What are we doing with our fortune now, then?”
She didn’t need to think twice about it. “I can put the rest of Rhea’s jewelry toward Ken’s care, and we can use this money
to buy a house.”
“No more shared walls?”
“No more Mrs. Wilson yelling at us to walk around more quietly.”
“What a dream.” His face softened. “A home of our own.”
She could see it now. Modest, but theirs. “What luck, Krish.”
He kissed her on top of her head. “You’re not kidding.”
They lay down together in the bed. Sejal didn’t worry about sleeping with Krish anymore. She loved it. Her PTSD did manifest
at otherwise inconvenient times, but the therapy she was in was giving her tools to deal with that, too.
She turned the scratcher around and around in her hands. “Don’t make it disappear,” he warned.
“I won’t.” She placed it on the nightstand, though, in case she was better at magic than she thought and did somehow actually
make it vanish. “Do you think your mom’s right? About us being meant for each other?”
“Possibly.”
“Just think, we were muddling along living our lives. And then one little mutually beneficial truce between enemies later, bam, we’re together.” And they had a weird, blended, big family. She wasn’t alone anymore, and sometimes that was frustrating, but mostly it was amazing.
“Yeah. It’s funny.” Krish resettled her against him, so she fit right against his big chest. “I know I did have a life before
you, but I don’t think I lived.”
Sejal often wished she had his way with words. But he seemed to understand when she could only pick up his hand and kiss it
in reply.
He was the best treasure she could have ever found.