Epilogue
BIANCA
NEXT FALL
Life is good in Apple Ridge.
Life is different.
While the Nonnas were in Maine this past summer, we stripped the old wallpaper and gave the house a fresh coat of paint.
Giovanni, Theo, and Miles also made other much-needed improvements.
It looked so good that when the nonnas returned a few weeks ago, Nonna Rose thought Giovanni had convinced one of his acquaintances at HGTV to flip the house.
Come to think of it, he could have.
His show has remained insanely popular, helped along by the Good Day USA features he’s done with his nonna and his brothers (yes, multiple), which have made every woman in the country fall in love with the Cafiero boys.
Believe me when I say there were an insane number of emails I had to answer in a late-night fury.
Lucy, who is now Enzo’s wife, sighs over all the attention they’re getting, convinced it will give them even bigger egos, but she does it fondly.
Giovanni has been busy. He’s had a few Food Network appearances, a guest spot on a Netflix show about cake, and he recently sold a cookbook he’ll be writing with Nonna Francesca.
We’ve also been working on making The Rotten Apple, now officially rechristened The Good Apple, a place where people might actually want to live, by improving the food, beautifying the grounds, and hiring a program manager to plan day trips and entertainment.
And we’re working hard to establish the building next door as the Kitty Gallagher Community Center, with enrichment programs for senior citizens and children.
Giovanni is also deep into his campaign for mayor. Christopher at The Asheville Gazette gave his odds as 23 to 7.
On a related note, Rhett’s looking stressed out these days, and the circles under his eyes suggest he’s not sleeping too well.
I’m guessing it doesn’t help that the An Apple a Day merch store is offering all of its Sir Gala-Head merchandise at a steep discount and is selling out of its Shirtless Chef merch as soon as it’s stocked.
Now, on a slow Wednesday in October, just before the now-annual apple pie bake-off at Evergreens & Apples, Giovanni, Emily, Miles and I gather at The Good Apple for our monthly romance book club meeting.
Giovanni and I are sitting on the same loveseat we cuddled on nearly a year ago, when I read Janine the riot act. (She’s been parading her baby around on Instagram and trying to get a baby food-cooking show going, but no one seems interested.)
“Can I start?” Giovanni asks. “Let me have the Dong of Discussion.”
“Hear! Hear!” Helen says. “Let the man speak.”
Emily nods, then hands him the dong with great pomp and circumstance.
When Giovanni has it in his hand, the sight ridiculous but still very hot, he turns toward me. “What do you think about the proposal scene?”
“Uh, did you read the right book? There’s no proposal scene.”
Luanne reaches for the Dong of Discussion. “You’re not even thirty yet. You’ve got no reason to be losing your memory. It happens on page three hundred fourteen. Why don’t you read it for us, Bianca?”
“Yeah,” Emily says with a conspiratorial smile at Giovanni. “Giovanni loves it when you read to him.”
“You’re all being really weird,” I point out. “And since when do you remember the page number of a non-spicy scene, Luanne?”
But what the hell. I open the book he gave me…
Then I gasp, just as he gets onto one knee in front of me.
The book has been hollowed out, and there’s a box nestled inside.
Helen grabs the dong. “Open it.”
I do, heart pounding, and find a vintage-looking rose gold ring with a citrine stone.
“Bianca,” Giovanni says, pausing to accept the dong when Helen hands it to him. “I came to Apple Ridge a lost man, but I was only lost because I needed to find you again. Will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
Tears fill my eyes as I tug him up to me. “Yes, yes!”
“That’s exactly how it went in the book,” I hear Luanne say.
Someone else hushes her. “You don’t have the Dong of Discussion. You don’t get to speak.”
Truthfully, I can’t think of a better way to start our happily ever after than here with our friends, with a sex toy being passed around like a baton.
“I love you,” I tell Giovanni, who passes the toy off to Luanne. “But you’ve put me in a very uncomfortable situation. Because now I’m going to have to marry Mr. Mayor after all.”
He grins at me. “Or you can just tell everyone you’re engaged to Mr. October.”