Epilogue
AMARA
The Summer After
The water crashes against the beach as I dip the roller back into the bright lavender paint.
“It looks good,” Cooper says with a smile, coming up behind me. He places his hands on my hips, pulling me back to kiss my head. I lean back into him, savoring the feeling.
And we step back.
The beach house is coming along, and with this fresh coat of heavy-duty paint on the exterior, it’ll be complete for our friends to get here tonight.
“The flowers are thriving again,” I tell him, gesturing to the large hydrangea bushes outside the home. We were worried about them for a few months, but I’ve been coming here nearly every week to nurse them back to health.
“Mhm,” Cooper says, his attention more on kissing up my cheek than anything I’m trying to show him.
“Cooper!” I chuckle, trying to get him focused.”
He rolls his eyes, about to argue with me, but he’s interrupted by Leo’s truck rolling into the driveway.
I lift my arm to wave, paint falling on me in the process.
Cooper huffs. “Fine. But the second I get you alone tonight, you’re mine, got it? I need to put a baby in you.”
I shake my head with a smile. I’m ready for it. I want it. I wasn’t ever sure… not until after our ceremony.
I was the first one to bring it up. The second I did, I learned that he’s apparently been bursting at the seams. He’s wanted it so badly he could hardly function. He just didn’t want to pressure me.
“I’d be fine with whatever you wanted for us,” he had told me as he kissed my stomach. “But I’ve been picturing you pregnant for months.”
We had a long talk about what it would look like after that. I wasn’t going to give up my career, and although he loves football, we had to be honest with ourselves.
I needed him to promise that he would quit while he was ahead. Before his body broke down. I know he loves the game more than anything, but at some point, your family has to mean more.
He agreed without question.
Whether it be next year or five years down the line, Cooper said that whenever we decided it was best, he would retire.
“The second we get alone time, you can have me,” I tell him with a smile and a kiss to the lips.
Elara and Juniper are the first two to jump out of the car, immediately making a beeline for the beach, and when Briar’s head pops over the car door, she smiles.
“Heidi and Emmett were right behind us, I swear! They wanted to take one of Emmett’s new classic cars, and the girls wanted to ride together. ”
I shrug. “Fine by me!”
I watch as Cooper continues to set the table in the garden with brown paper, the wind whipping the sunshade. A couple of yards to the right, a large pot of blue crabs is being cooked, the smell of Old Bay Seasoning and vinegar wafting around us.
The look of disgust on Briar’s face sends me into hysterical laughter.
“Can you slow down?” She asks.
Leo cracks another crab leg. “I’ve gotta beat Dirwin,” he says, eyeing him across the table.
“You do not.”
Isla leans into me. “See what I mean?”
I nearly spit out my Coke.
The sun is setting over the ocean, and I sit back, watching as our friends crowd our table, the shells of crab clamoring onto the table every few seconds as they’re discarded.
Cooper and Natalia officially decided to keep Grandpa’s house for good. Instead of selling it, we have fixed it up, furnished it, and turned it into our summer home.
A place for us to bring our kids so they could grow up like us. At the ocean, wild and free.
It’s also a place we can bring our friends. A place to share a little part of ourselves.
We kept a lot of Grandpa’s stuff. Went through Natalia’s storage unit, finding a ton of photos and knick-knacks we wanted in the home.
On the mantle sits a vase of hydrangeas, big and beautiful, while a photo of Cooper and I from our ceremony sits right next to it. Beside it is a photo of Grandpa Kenny with Cooper’s grandma at their wedding, the photo dark and withered with age.
If we’re lucky, that’s how our photo will look one day, too.
Cooper found a few photos of his mom, and one sits tucked into his grandpa’s picture frame.
I find him looking at me from across the table hungrily, and I grin. He fights a smile, leaning back in his chair and placing his hands behind his head.
God, he’s so fucking hot.
I feel like a teenager again. Hot and bothered by the jock who happened to pay me even an ounce of attention.
We may have lost some of our story to grief. To time. To a whole list of things we didn’t deal with well. But we had each other once, and we have each other again.
And I vow to wake up every single day, never letting either of us forget that life has a funny way of bringing us back home.
Till death do us part.