Epilogue #2
And he opened the sliding glass door to a chorus of surprised yells.
Luca chuckled into his cocktail glass.
He realized with a shock that he hadn’t even considered what else he’d gained beyond the miracle of finding Olivia. As Annabelle fit right in with their motley crew, he realized they maybe just got a much bigger family than they’d ever hoped for.
* * *
OLIVIA
“Hey, you,” Olivia said, hugging her brother in surprise. “I thought you had to be in Philly tomorrow morning. A heads-up would have been nice.”
So I could send Allison one county away.
He squeezed her into a gentle headlock. “I’m not welcome at Thanksgiving anymore, pipsqueak?”
Olivia poked his side. “Not fair, you’re nine feet tall.”
His mom waved them in to sit down. “All right, kids. Pop’s finally got everything out of the oven!”
Olivia stuck her head out and waved Luca in. They walked by her favorite sight—the front entrance piled high with shoes. All her favorite people were safe and snug inside.
The extended dining table was comprised of her mother’s dining table for three, two card tables, and a large sheet of plywood on sawhorses, all draped creatively with tablecloths and décor so no one was any the wiser.
Violet and Rose were making themselves at home in her mom’s kitchen like they had since Olivia was a kid, getting extra spoons for serving.
This was home, and these were her people.
Food started being passed back and forth. She grabbed potatoes from Violet’s husband, Jack, plopped some on her plate and Annabelle’s, and handed them to Luca as she talked to Rose beside her.
But through very unfortunate luck, her brother and Allison sat across from each other at the end of the table.
“What are you doing here?” Wells said, taken aback.
Allison sat up straighter. “My parents are on a cruise, and when your angel of a mother—who you’re somehow related to—heard I’d be spending Thanksgiving alone, she insisted I come because you wouldn’t be here.”
“You mucked it all up, darling,” her mom said, patting Wells’s head as she kissed his cheek. “But it’s fine. Should make for a good story.” She winked at Olivia.
“Oh god,” Rose murmured to Olivia. “Maybe I should trade spots with Annabelle,” she said, looking concerned. “It’s not fair for a six-year-old to get caught in their cross-fire.”
“They’re adults,” Lily said with an eye roll.
“Well. She’s an adult,” Olivia said, looking at her brother skeptically.
Allison simmered across from Olivia’s brother for most of the dinner. Luckily, Violet’s husband held an easy conversation with her. AB was also very curious about Allison’s pink hair, which was a happy distraction for a solid ten minutes.
Olivia grabbed the bowl of green beans from Luca and spooned some onto Annabelle’s plate. A sappy, love-drunk look was in his eyes as he met her gaze. He winked, and she smiled, trying to memorize the moment in the middle of all the chaos and conversation around them.
Maybe the rest of her Thanksgivings would look exactly like this.
Her and Luca, Pearl and Reed, the Parker sisters, her idiot brother, and all of their spouses, their babies. All sitting at this table that was supposed to hold three and had expanded to hold so much more—into a world so much bigger than she’d ever thought possible for herself.
She was pulled out of her dreams by Allison’s heated voice.
“Not all of us can make a fortune out of the misfortune of others,” Allison said. She tore one of Pop’s wheat-free rolls in half fiercely.
“As I recall,” Wells started in.
Ah shit—that was his lawyer voice. Condescension mixed with a highbrow sneer. As if he didn’t grow up washing the inside of his Ziploc bags like the rest of us.
Wells leaned toward Allison and grabbed a deviled egg from between them. “You were just as excited to sign the dotted line as he was. Doesn’t sound like misfortune to me. I did the world a service by setting you free.” He popped a second deviled egg in his mouth.
“The only thing that’s free,” Allison said, her cheeks burning pink, “is the money that was in my bank account that my ex-husband now has.”
Wells popped another half of a deviled egg into his mouth. “Should’ve had a better lawyer.”
Allison yanked the deviled egg plate away from him, and Wells flinched. “I’m not going to throw it at you,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Then why’d you move it?” he asked through a mouthful.
“Because I don’t want your fingers in my eggs!” she said, throwing down the other half of her roll and storming to the kitchen.
Chatter died down at the table as everybody stopped to stare.
“Would you like to share with the class?” their mother said with a pointed look at Wells.
Wells stretched his arms out with his hands behind his head, confident and cool.
“We had an unfortunate run-in a few years ago at…” He stretched, cracking his neck.
“Divorce court. I represented her ex-husband. Unfortunately for her, I was the better lawyer. Per usual,” he said with a smirk as he reached across the table with his long arms for another one of her deviled eggs and popped it in his mouth, glaring in the direction of the kitchen.
“Question for you, Wells,” Nash said with a smile at his old friend. “Can your big head fit in the sports car when you drive it, or does it poke out the sunroof?”
Wells rolled his eyes, smiling as everyone laughed at his expense.
“This is fun!” Annabelle said loudly, laughing with everyone.
Luca met Olivia’s eyes with a shared sparkle of “Isn’t our little human the best?” The tension was broken, and everyone went back to their conversations.
“You having fun?” Olivia asked Luca. He kissed her cheek.
“The most,” Luca said, winking at her and making her all fluttery.
As they finished up, Pearl and Reed walked in.
“Just in time for cocktails and charades,” her mom said, popping up. Olivia loved seeing her mom in her element with all her favorite people.
“What’s a charade? Is it chocolate?” Annabelle asked.
Olivia laughed. “It’s a game. It’s where you—”
A loud crash sounded from the kitchen. Olivia darted in, worried about Pop or her mom.
Instead, Allison stood covered head to toe in mashed potatoes, an empty catering pan rattling on the floor.
Wells looked horrified on the other side of the island, frozen in shock. Everyone gasped, holding their hands to their mouths in the two doorways of the kitchen.
“I swear—I swear it was an accident,” Wells said.
Olivia and Luca dove for the paper towels as Lily grabbed a tea towel and handed it to Allison.
Allison wiped one eye. “How… could that possibly have been an accident?”
“I would never waste the world’s best mashed potatoes on you,” he said, emphasis on the word you. “The world’s most miserable divorcée.”
“Okay—” Olivia said, needing to step in and put him in his place.
“I have literally”—Allison cut her off, wiping mashed potatoes out of her eyes—“never been happier than I am right now—except for being covered in…” She looked down. “Vegetables.”
“Is everything—” Olivia’s mother entered the kitchen, and her mouth fell open as she clocked the situation in one second.
“Wellesley Maroo. You will clean this all up, and everyone else will leave him to it.” Her mom took Allison’s hand.
“Come on, deary. I think I have a nightgown you can use as a mini-skirt with those gams of yours.”
“AP! AP!” Annabelle said as she ran into the kitchen, thankfully avoiding the mashed potatoes. Pearl caught her around the middle.
Luca handed Olivia her coat, looking overwhelmed. “Want to take a breather?”
Olivia smiled as he helped her into her coat. “I’d rather watch Wells on his hands and knees in the kitchen.” Wells stuck up his middle finger, wiping up globs of potato from the floor.
“Pearl—” Luca called.
“Go,” Pearl shooed them. “I need the play-by-play of the potato situation from our resident journalist here,” she said, pointing to Annabelle.
The quiet seemed to echo around Luca and Olivia as the front door shut.
The neighborhood had wasted no time on Thanksgiving evening in turning on their Christmas lights.
“How was your first Maroo holiday?” she said, looping her arm through Luca’s.
“Pretty fucking great,” he said with a loud laugh.
“Dinner and a show,” she said, squeezing his arm as they chuckled together.
They held hands, debriefing about the drama and talking about each other’s days, as they wound around the block. Hers—being Pop’s sous chef and nicking her thumb; his—fashion consultant for AB as she tried on literally eleven outfits for the gathering.
“Maybe next year, we swap responsibilities since I’m no good with color palettes,” Luca said, kissing her finger, which had a band-aid on it.
Next year.
What an amazing thought.
The simplicity of it thrilled her. That she’d have next year with him, and maybe the year after that. On and on.
They ended up at the town square, already covered in Christmas lights.
“The festival committee wasted no time,” Luca said with a smile, fixing a dangling red bow on the corner trash can.
Decorations were on every lamppost and door front.
The gazebo on the edge of the town square was covered with lights, glowing gently in the dark.
Clouds of their breath rolled out in front of them as they walked across the square.
“Oooh, I’ve always wanted to do this,” Olivia said, tugging him up the gazebo steps to the hanging mistletoe. Big, fat flakes started twirling down outside the gazebo.
She pointed up, and Luca smiled.
“I never need an excuse to kiss you,” he said but still bent down and swooped her up into his arms for a firm, happy kiss.
She pulled back, about to tease him, but he looked concerned.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
He gulped, holding her hands.
Maybe this is all too much. It was their first holiday together, and they’d only dated for weeks, technically. “If it was too intense back there, we don’t have to spend every holiday—”
“Will you move in with me? With us?” he said, finally meeting her eyes. “Whenever you’re ready—tomorrow or the next day or…” He shrugged, gulping. “Whenever.”
Her heart beat hard in her chest.
“What does Annabelle think?” she said quietly, worried for her favorite little girl.
He sighed out a relieved “I love you so much.” His hand cupped her cheek, and he kissed her slowly, a reassurance.
His eyes traced her face as he stroked her cheek. “She’s been campaigning since I told her we were dating. Before that, honestly,” he said with a laugh. “But now she understands you would share my room and not bunk beds in her room.”
A hard snort of laughter escaped her, which made Luca chuckle even harder. He pulled her against him, and her arms wrapped around his waist, snuggling in.
I practically live there now anyway. She cuddled into his chest. “Don’t the parenting books say to wait a year?”
He sighed, nuzzled her, and kissed her forehead slowly. “The books didn’t know about you, Olivia. You tuck Annabelle in half the time now, and sometimes you’re there again when she wakes up in the morning.”
She smiled wickedly, remembering why she was usually there before Annabelle woke up in the morning. Luca had turned into an early riser because, thankfully, the laundry room was far away from the bedrooms and the door locked, which meant they could spend some quick, sexy quality time together.
Everything. He was offering her everything on a silver platter that she’d ever really wanted—a home with people she loved, who made her happy.
“We might have our first fight if I live there,” she said, nervous she might mess it up.
“About what?” He smirked, as if she was adorable.
“I don’t know,” she said, exasperated. “How I load the dishwasher.” She threw it out as an example.
“Easy, there isn’t one. Next.”
“Okay.” She pointed, coming up with a good one. “How I leave water bottles and tea mugs everywhere.”
He laughed, kissing the tops of her cheeks dotted with freckles. “That’s not any different than now.”
“Well,” she said, “I’ll keep thinking.”
He smiled. “I look forward to it. Because then, we can make up in our bedroom.”
It all sounded amazing. Perfect.
Maybe too good?
“This is too easy,” she said to him, confiding her fear.
He nodded, looking as concerned as she was. “I know. Maybe… it’s supposed to be?”
She bit her lip, weighing her next words.
They felt scary, but she was brave.
“If I move in,” she whispered, finally looking up at him, “I might not move out.”
He sighed through a smile, hovering over her lips. “I’m kind of counting on that.”
Snowflakes blew onto their faces as he kissed her—the warm safety of his body against hers, the perfect taste of him. Her softest, strongest man.
She was so happy to have fallen right where she belonged.
THE END
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Thank you so much for reading Falling at the Barre!