Epilogue
EZRA
For someone that’s moved around as much as I have in my life, you’d think I wouldn’t find living on a tour bus as strange as I do. None of the places I stayed moved while I slept, though.
Maverick offered me his place in the band once life started to return to normal, but I didn’t want it.
That spot was his and from the way he played, the passion that came with every note he strummed from the bass, it always should have been his.
I still play with them occasionally. Not on the stage, just in Cal’s studio or around the fire pit at the cliff house.
We spent months there together while Maverick renovated the bathroom and the band figured out whether it was the end for Shattered Halo or not.
It wasn’t, at least not yet. Although Cal did point out that bands go on farewell tours all the time just to have a reunion tour and then another farewell tour. I can’t tell if that’s good marketing or just a scam.
“How’s the editing going?” Maverick asks, coming into our bedroom on the bus and plopping himself beside me.
I decided that I wanted to really pursue a career in photography.
I kept the name Ben Miller for that as a cover.
I didn’t want anyone buying my photographs because I’m Ezra Irons, that guy who’s back from the dead and has multiple partners.
The three of us are constantly on entertainment gossip sites, but it doesn’t bother us.
We know how solid our relationship is. We wear each other’s rings on our left hands and swore in front of our friends and family that we commit to a life of love together.
We couldn’t do it legally, but that was enough for us.
“Someday someone will figure out that the pictures I’m taking line up with every stop on Shattered Halo tours.
” I lean over and kiss him. I meant for it to be quick, just a greeting, but it soon turns heated.
I let Maverick pull my laptop from my lap and place it on the table next to the bed.
In no time, we’re naked and writhing against each other.
“Fuck, baby. Let me be inside you. Please, I need it,” Maverick whines. Quickly grabbing the lube, I’m on all fours and prepping myself as quickly as I can while Maverick showers my back and ass with kisses.
“Is this what you want, sweetheart?” I ask as I add a third finger and moan around the stretch.
“Please,” Maverick begs, smoothing his hands over my thighs and then spreading my cheeks so he can get a better view of my hole stretched around my fingers.
I know the view must be obscene with the way he groans.
I slide my fingers out slowly, knowing the longer I make him wait, the harder he’ll fuck me.
“Fuck me, sweetheart. Get that big cock inside me.”
Maverick doesn’t have to be told twice. In no time, he’s behind me, slathering his cock and my hole with more lube and then notching his tip at my entrance. He pushes in slowly, too slowly. I slam myself back onto him, making us both moan loudly.
“Oh, fuck!” I scream when he pulls out and slams into me so hard I have to brace myself so I don’t hit my head on the headboard.
I love when we’re like this, absolutely feral for each other.
He grabs my hips and pulls me higher. The new angle helps him peg my prostate with every thrust. “Right there, Mav. Don’t stop,” I beg, but he not only stops, but he also holds me so tight I can’t fuck myself on him.
I turn to complain, but see what made him freeze. Jo is standing in the doorway, smiling, the love for both of us shining in her beautiful green eyes.
“Don’t let me stop you. I was enjoying the show.”
“How about you join us, angel? You can crawl right under Ezra and I’ll fuck you both.” Jo licks her lips at Maverick’s words and looks at me.
“Get over here, Bambi,” I growl, wanting to be inside her.
She strips slowly, keeping her eyes on me, but letting Maverick touch her anywhere he can reach.
I can feel him grow even harder inside me.
The moment she’s naked and within reach, I pull her to me, crashing my lips to hers and helping her get situated.
We’ve done this so many times over the past two years that Maverick doesn’t even have to pull out to get us all in the right spot.
“Always so fucking wet for us,” I groan, slipping my fingers into her tight entrance.
“Need you,” she begs, making me wonder how long she was standing there if she’s this worked up.
Normally, I’d make her wait, but it’s the middle of the day, and I know at least one of us probably has somewhere to be soon.
I line up and slide home. Being like this with both of them is my favorite place to be.
I never feel quite as complete as I do when I’m inside Jo and Maverick is inside me.
“Hold on tight, my loves.” That’s the only warning we get before Maverick fucks me into our girl with such a single-minded focus that he hits my prostate and forces me to hit her g-spot at the same time.
“Holy fuck,” Jo gasps, holding on to me because there’s nothing else she can do when he fucks us like this. “I’m going to come already.”
“Me too,” I moan, bending to take her mouth and swallowing her gasp as I shoot inside her. She follows me a moment later, her walls clenching around me.
“That’s it,” Maverick rasps, his thrusts becoming frantic before he moans our names and stills.
We’re all in a sweaty heap, snuggled into each other and not caring about the mess we made of the bed. We probably should because we’re traveling soon and don’t have time for laundry.
Eventually we get cleaned up and sit together on the couch, Maverick laying on Jo’s lap as she runs her fingers through his hair.
“We have to get to family dinner soon,” Jo says, turning her perfect smile on me.
Cal started the family dinner thing the moment we were all back living in our houses on the same street again.
As much as he enjoyed the alone time with Harlow and Cora, he loves being in the middle of our crazy bunch.
I can’t say I hate it either. After being separated from everyone for eight years, I need all the time with them I can get.
“Uncle Ezzy, guess what!” Cora says, bouncing on her toes the moment she sees me walk into the restaurant. She heard Jasper call me that once, and that’s been my name ever since. I kind of love it even though I’ll pretend to be annoyed just to make her giggle.
“What?” I ask, swinging her up into my arms and kissing her cheek before handing her over to Maverick, who does the same.
“My tooth fell out!” she says, grinning at me from Maverick’s arms. Sure enough, there’s a gap where one of her front teeth used to be. “It fell out before bedtime last night and the tooth fairy came!”
“What did she bring you?” Jo asks, oohing and aahing appropriately to the milestone.
The three of us all agreed that kids weren’t what we wanted, but being an aunt and uncles is the absolute best. Maverick and I even went and got vasectomies together to let Jo’s body take a break from birth control.
There was no need for her to deal with the side effects when we could fix the problem permanently over a weekend.
“Fifty dollars and a dinosaur sticker!” Cora says, wiggling out of Maverick’s grip to run over to the table and grab the sparkly pink dinosaur sticker.
“Milo keeps trying to eat it,” she says with a frown directed at her little brother.
He’s just shy of two and firmly in the putting everything in his mouth stage.
“Fifty dollars?” I ask Cal, leaving Maverick and Jo, both only children, to sympathize over sibling problems.
“The tooth fairy got a little drunk and had a good cry when he realized his baby was growing up and grabbed the wrong bill with a five on it,” Harlow supplies, giving Cal that loving but annoyed look that all spouses seem to come pre-programmed with the moment the commitment it made.
Kai snorts from behind me. I turn and give him and Belle a quick hug.
I love them, but they’ve got nothing on the twin girls in the stroller Belle is pushing.
Kai proposed during the first family dinner and then Belle found out she was pregnant the same night.
Eight months later, two tiny identical miracles were born.
They were preemies and spent two months in the NICU, but now they’re perfect.
“Hi Nora,” I say, kissing her on her chubby red cheek.
“Hello Jane,” I say to her twin, giving her cheek a kiss too.
They have the same blue eyes as me and Kai, but Belle’s curly brown hair.
They might be the cutest babies to ever exist. I could also be biased.
They hold out their tiny hands to me and make grabby hands at me.
“I can’t believe they’re already one,” Maverick says, sliding his hand around my waist. Time is flying, but in the best way possible.
My photography career took off when I started a series of strangers on the street in new towns and cities every week.
Jo and Harlow’s podcast skyrocketed to be the number one listened to in the world after I came back from the dead and gave them a tell-all interview.
And Maverick is thriving on the stage in a way he didn’t before.
Sure, he’s always been a talented musician, but now the talent is combined with the happiness that radiates from him.
The band is doing so well that they had to hire an assistant for Jo.
She thought it was ridiculous to be an assistant with an assistant, but when we pointed out she could quit and just do the podcast, she huffed and agreed to do interviews.
She calls us possessive, but I secretly think she hates the idea of someone else being in charge of Maverick’s schedule.
“Anyone seen Willa and Dec?” Cal asks, looking longingly at the menu.
He won’t order until we’re all here, but he will complain.
Willa storms in less than a minute later and plops down next to Harlow at the table, arms crossed and looking murderous.
Declan follows, looking awfully pleased with himself for someone who looks to be risking death.
“Are you okay, Willa?” Jo asks, taking her usual seat between me and Maverick.
Willa goes from angry to crying so fast it has Jo leaping up and running to the other side of the table to get to her. Harlow already has her arms around Willa, and everyone is silent. Declan is still smiling, but it’s mixed with confusion now.
“He put his giant athlete baby in me!” Willa sobs. “My vagina will never be the same!”
Once Declan realizes his wife is okay, he’s back to grinning like a fool.
“Congrats?” Maverick says, but it sounds like a question.
“You were trying to have a baby, weren’t you?” Belle asks, Nora in her arms as she stares with concern at her best friend.
“Yes!” Willa wails.
“Cal, why are you smiling like that?” I ask him when I notice the smug look on his face.
“It’s Dec’s turn now,” Cal says, still smiling in a way that borders on creepy.
Kai starts laughing so hard he chokes and has to hand Jane over to Maverick.
“Pregnancy hormones,” Maverick whispers to me like it’s a secret and I didn’t hear about Belle rage-cleaning through her whole pregnancy or Harlow snapping at Cal the moment he was breathing too close to her. It seems Willa is taking the crying route. Jo meets my eye and winks.
I watch everyone around the table congratulate Declan and Willa and then immediately move to discuss what to order for food and what’s fun for the kids to do before the show tomorrow night. We’re going to visit Jasper and his partner while everyone else is off with the kids.
Noelle is even meeting us at the show. It’s taken a while for her to open up, but we’ve become friends since being locked in that bunker together.
Jo and Harlow used their podcast platform to lead a search for Gianna’s body with Noelle’s and Anderson’s permission.
Anderson wasn’t having any luck and begrudgingly agreed.
Noelle said the two of them talk a lot now.
He really wants to get to know his sister in any way he can, and Noelle is the only link he has.
I think it was hard for her at first to talk about Gianna to anyone, but with therapy, she’s made great progress.
Gianna’s body was eventually found. Anderson’s DNA was tested against hundreds of Jane Does until she was found in Ohio.
Patrick and Eva aren’t alive to explain how her body got there, but Anderson now has his sister buried in their family plot, and Noelle visits whenever she wants.
They later confirmed the two bodies that were mistakenly identified as Gianna and Noelle to be stolen cadavers from a lab that Eva paid the medical examiner to falsify as the two women.
The fallout from all the damage caused by James and Eva Wolfe is still unraveling, but we’re all hoping to heal and move on.
Jo is back in her seat, laughing at a story Harlow is telling about Milo trying to ride their pocket-size dog. Maverick sits next to her, refusing to give Kai his daughter back. My brother looks put out, but I see the way the corners of his mouth twitch. He loves every minute of this chaos.
It’s nights like this that I’m reminded of how lucky I am. Not only to be alive, but to have the two most amazing partners by my side and my found family surrounding me. I lost eight years of my life running, and now I get to stay still and enjoy every moment.