Epilogue | Serena
“Aren’t gay weddings supposed to be tasteful?”
I whack Ryan on the back of the head with my sunglasses and give him a faux glare. “First, that’s offensive, I think. And second, this wedding is tasteful.”
Tasteful isn’t the word I’d use, actually, but Sid and Grayson have worked hard to put this together, and we’re not going to make fun of it.
“She’s right,” Graham laughs, bounding past us, his steps practically shaking the ground. “Wedding at a water park. Someone should contact The Knot and nominate this place for venue of the year.”
I lift my sunglasses in warning, but Graham’s already too far away, running back toward the stairs that will take him to the top of another tall, winding water slide.
Around us, the water park that would normally be bustling with sticky children and tired parents is mercifully empty, save for the wedding guests from both sides.
Grayson’s parents float together down the lazy river, while a punk-rock uncle who must belong to Sid is applying gobs and gobs of sunscreen.
The ceremony was silly and fun, just like Grayson and Sid.
They stood together at the top of a tall water slide, holding hands and listening to the officiant.
When he pronounced them married, the guys launched themselves down the slide, laughed the whole way down, and surfaced, dripping wet in their tuxes, to kiss in the pool below.
I’m not photographing this one, but I’ve felt the itch of wishing I had a camera in my hand more than once.
That scene—the two of them standing in the water with sopping wet bow ties—made me want to line up a shot, catching each water droplet on their eyelashes, the bright summer sun seeming to bless the union overhead.
“Do you think Travis is having a good time?” Ryan asks, drawing me out of my thoughts and laughing at his own joke. We both turn to find Travis sitting on a sun lounger, aviator sunglasses on, black swim trunks decidedly dry.
“Well, it’s not about Travis, it’s about the grooms,” I argue, just as Sid and Grayson let out a collective whoop of joy behind us, followed by a loud splash and Lillie screaming about her hair. “And, yes, they’re having a great time.”
“I’m also having a great time,” Travis deadpans, before lowering his sunglasses and staring at us. “Have you talked to them about their gift yet?”
My heart leaps, and I turn to look in the direction of Sid and Grayson, who have super-soakers and are trying now, very purposefully, to get Lillie’s hair wet.
In the two years since I officially started publicly dating the guys and moved out of our house, a lot has changed.
Grayson and Sid moved out, too, getting their own place in a nearby neighborhood.
Lillie and Georgia still live in the house, but with two new roommates—one a cooking influencer who makes videos with Lillie, and the other a fellow med student, who’s often found sitting on the couch with Georgia, so they can quiz each other on medical terms.
Or, at least, they were. Last month, Georgia graduated and officially started her surgical internship, which the guys helped her celebrate with a weekend on a yacht. Just me, Georgia, Lillie, and a whole slew of staff my friends didn’t quite know what to do with.
“It’s weird to have someone cook for me,” Lillie said, at least four times a day. She’s up to 20,000 followers on her recipe TikTok, and the number keeps climbing every day.
Ryan has been teasing the idea of hiring her to work on his new show, which he’s still in the ideation phase for—something to do with trying viral recipes, and adjusting them according to various challenges.
“Hello? Serena?”
I blink at Travis and Ryan, remember Travis’s question, and feel another surge of anxiety.
“No,” I whisper-hiss at him. “I haven’t. I have to wait for when the time feels right.”
Travis gives Ryan a look, and I frown, alternating my glare between the two of them. “I don’t like it when you share little looks.”
Ryan hooks an arm around my shoulder. “Remember, darling, Travis was mine first.”
And, with that, he yanks me forward and sends us both plunging into a cold pool. When I surface, sputtering and trying to find Ryan so I can drown him, my only consolation is finding Travis’s legs soaked from the splash Ryan and I created.
“Wonderful…” he intones, but there’s a smile on his face.
“You thought that was bad?” Ryan jokes, just in time for Graham to come flying into the pool, yelling, “Cannonball.” This time, the splash soaks Travis’s whole body.
“What did you want to talk to us about?”
I stand nervously in front of Sid and Grayson, my stomach turning. They both look flushed, happy, and exhausted from a day of celebrating. The sun sets over the horizon, casting the colorful waterpark tubes and slides in muted, warm colors.
“This is your wedding gift,” I say, thrusting a carefully wrapped package into Grayson’s hands. He looks at me, then at Sid, and starts to peel away the paper.
It’s a framed photo of the day I found out about them, down by the willow tree.
“Here’s the thing,” I start speaking fast, trying to get everything out as they both stand there, quietly looking at the framed photo.
“I know this might be, like, an invasion of privacy. But it was beautiful, and I didn’t even realize I was shooting…
basically, what I wanted to tell you was that nobody else has seen them.
And if you want, I can delete them right now, no questions asked?—”
I’m interrupted by the thump of each guy throwing an arm around me, pulling me in close.
“This is amazing, Serena,” Sid says, quickly wiping the back of his hand over his cheek. Grayson smiles a lopsided smile at him, and my heart tugs like it did two years ago, when I first took the pictures. “You’d make an amazing spy.”
“Speaking of spies.”
I jerk and look up as a group of four or five guys wanders over by the gift table. Grayson quickly takes the framed photo from Sid and covers it with the paper again, nestling it in among the other gifts as Sid laughs and starts giving the newcomers those back-thumping, happy sort of hugs.
“Hey!” Sid says, his lip piercing glinting as he smiles. “I didn’t think you were going to make it!”
“And miss out on the wedding of our best operative?” The guy with the booming voice laughs and thrusts a gift toward Sid. “Here—from Cindy, too. She couldn’t make it. On a case.”
The guy seems to notice me for the first time, his eyes sliding in my direction. “I mean, she’s working.”
“It’s fine,” Sid laughs, waving his hand at me nonchalantly. “Serena knows.”
“…knows what?” I ask, laughing nervously when all pairs of eyes reorient toward me.
Sid’s brow pulls together. “About… my line of work?”
Blinking, I look between him and the group of rugged men beside us. “I, uh, don’t. Actually.”
“What are you talking about?” Grayson asks, pushing me lightly on the shoulder. “Remember? That night he told us?”
I shake my head, and Sid and Grayson look at each other for a moment before realization seems to dawn. “She wasn’t there,” Grayson says, at the same time Sid says to me, “Oh, shit, you were gone.”
“Well, are you going to tell me now?” I ask, a little shrilly, as Sid’s friends start tugging him toward the water volleyball area.
“Later!” he calls back, and I look frantically to Grayson, who just laughs and shrugs.
“Sorry, Serena.” He mimes passing a pen in front of my eyes. “Maybe he did tell you, but had to erase your memory after.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, but Grayson is already heading in the other direction, toward Georgia and Lillie, who are relaxing and chatting with some of Grayson’s brothers.
“He’s in the FBI.”
I jump and turn, finding Graham, Ryan, and Travis dressed and waiting for me. Crossing my arms, I ask, “What are you talking about? How do you know?”
Graham laughs and holds my bag out to me. “I used my eyes.”
“Oh, shut up.” I take the bag, say a quick goodbye to everyone, and let the guys corral me into getting changed and heading for the airfield.
We’ve been back in the city for nearly a month, stretching from Georgia’s graduation to the wedding, and the plan was to leave earlier today. But I had to work up the courage to talk to the grooms about their gift before we could go.
Now, we climb onto the jet, and I feel warm and loose in the way a person always does after swimming for most of the day under the hot sun. Graham tucks himself in next to me, Travis and Ryan across from me.
“We’ve been thinking,” Travis says, just as I’m about to drift off. I blink awake and glance at them, realizing they have the same amount of nervous energy I had earlier.
Sitting up, I force myself awake, force myself to pay attention. “Is everything okay?”
“We want you to marry us.” The moment Ryan says it, the other two men glare at him, like he’s gone off script, then turn to look at me.
“What—?” I sputter, shaking my head, “I—I don’t think we can do that…?”
“Not married, in the traditional sense,” Travis explains, darting another angry look at Ryan.
“Something that includes all four of us. It would be a modified contract that binds us together in other civil matters. It would make you a part-owner of Onyx, of Ryan’s holdings. Of everything we share together.”
A lump starts to grow in my throat. “Are you—are you sure that’s something you want to do?”
“Of course we are,” Graham says, reaching over and taking my hand. “Hell, we would have asked two years ago, but we thought it might have been too soon.”
For a flicker of a second, I almost expect that angry, terrified voice in my head to crop up, to send me into a fear spiral over such a commitment.
But after everything that happened early on with us, I got back into therapy.
Through working on myself, and seeing what a real, healthy relationship could look like, I’ve managed to all but evict that voice from my head.
Of course, it comes back from time to time, but I always know what to do when it does.
“So?” Travis asks, and to anyone else, his golden eyes might hold the practiced indifference of a seasoned negotiator, but I can see the nerves hidden beneath them.
A grin steals over my face, and I lean back in my seat, giving them one of Ryan’s signature shrugs. “Oh—sure. Sounds fine.”
Growling out a laugh, Graham reaches over, pulling me into his lap and tickling me ruthlessly.
I cry out, breathless, “Oh, please, isn’t there a strong husband out there to help me? To save me?”
But neither Ryan nor Travis takes the bait.
“You’re right where you want to be,” Ryan says, dropping a kiss on my head on his way to the drink cart. “Champagne, anyone?”
“I’ll take a glass!” Graham calls, and this time, when his hands rest on my hips, it’s just to tug me in closer to him, bring our bodies flush with one another.
Ryan brings back the drinks, and I marvel at how comfortable we are together. How easy this thing is between us.
“Cheers,” he says, and we raise our glasses.
“To us,” Travis says.
“To the marriage,” Graham adds.
“To having the best fucking croissants when we land!” Ryan practically shouts.
I laugh, raising my glass, clinking it against theirs. Then, I say the last thing they were probably expecting. But, in a weird way, I really do have him to thank for all this.
“Cheers to Alex Oakley,” I say, smiling when each of them looks at me like I’m crazy. “Because without his blunder, I wouldn’t be here with the men I love today.”
Their faces soften, and together, suspended above the Atlantic and in the arms of the ones we love, we drink champagne that, somehow, tastes sweeter each time we have something to celebrate together.
If you loved Filthy Rich Ex’s Brothers, you also love the Sterling House series. Turn the page for a sneak preview of the first book in the series, At His Command.