Epilogue
EPILOGUE
Holly
Seven Years Later
We’re all sitting on the edge of our seats as Aaron cuts through the field, the ball under his arm and determination on his face.
I can hardly breathe as I watch the French team try everything in their power to stop him from making it across the try line.
“I swear to God, the stress is going to put me into early labour,” Cece says.
“What? Jesus, are you having pains? Where’s the hospital? Someone call an ambulance.” Spencer shoots up out of his seat and frantically looks around for someone to come to his rescue while he pats his pockets down for his phone.
Celine grabs his arm and yanks him back down into his seat. “I hope this kid doesn’t get the panic gene because there is enough of it from you two.” Rubbing her belly, she shoots a pointed look from Spencer to me. Yeah, we’re a little dramatic. But I do think she’s right. Spencer has been on another level since Celine got pregnant. You’d swear she was the only woman to ever get pregnant from the way he carries on.
“You said you were going into labour,” my brother argues.
Celine leans over and kisses him. “No, I said the stress is going to put me into labour.”
His face softens as he looks at her. I’ve never seen him happier than he is with my best friend. I guess we both found the safe space our parents never delivered. The night before Aaron went back we called my parents to tell them I wasn’t coming home. I didn’t want any drama during the time Spencer was with us because I didn’t know when I’d see my brother again and I wanted every moment to be stress free for him like it was for me. As expected they lost the plot, but I couldn’t live my life being their referee anymore. I needed my life to be mine, and as much as it hurt me, if they wanted to put each other in hospital then it was on them. I keep telling Celine it’s because of her. There was no way Spence could lecture us for falling in love when he was head over heels for her. Who could’ve known that it would take Celine going to America to give Spence the guts to tell her how he felt. I guess that’s another thing that we have in common. We both needed distance to make our hearts grow fonder.
My parents, on the other hand, were livid. They were defensive when I gave them the reason why I didn’t want to go back to South Africa and threatened to come over and haul me home. Luckily, I was nineteen and could make up my own mind.
The crowd goes crazy, and I snap my head back to the field. Aaron dived over the try line and put us into the lead with one point. Pride sours through me, and I wipe a tear from my eye. Celine puts an arm around me. “When are you going to tell him? I think the fact that you cry when an ant dies is going to give you away.”
I pat my pocket where the test is neatly wrapped up in a bow. Well, it was before I scrunched it into my pocket. “Tonight. I didn’t want to distract him before the game.”
It took a lot of hard work and sacrifice for Aaron to get his rugby game back to where it was. After we told Spencer we were together and that I was staying in Scotland, we sat down and worked out a schedule that would allow Aaron to train more and join a club. Since I could write just about anywhere, I enrolled in an online writing course and got up at five a.m. to write. I worked on the course material in the morning when the pub was quiet. The regulars were all stars, making sure to synchronise their orders, so I wasn’t being interrupted all the time. It also helped them cut down on their drinking. Mary teased that I was going to run them out of business, but Aaron and I had developed a plan to bring more people to the pub, and I’d started hosting book clubs and bookish events.
Celine and Spencer hit it off when she returned to South Africa, and the two of them are about as inseparable as Aaron and I am. When I’m not tending bar, I go with him to the training sessions at the gym or write at his practices. I believe it was meant to be, because everything fell into place.
Eventually, Spencer moved to Scotland with Celine, and she’s great at planning events for the inn—so much so that we could hire more staff which left Aaron and I free to work on our goals. And while Aaron isn’t playing for Scotland, he is playing for a premier team with an amazing fan base. It doesn’t have all the pressure that playing for the country would have.
We’ve both been so focused on our dreams as individuals and as a couple that starting a family wasn’t on the radar. We started trying a few months ago, though.
The crowd quiets as Aaron steps up to the mic for his interview as the man of the match. I can’t stop the grin or the tears as they fall from my face. Looking up to where we’re sitting, he digs into his pocket and pulls out his wedding ring. It takes him a while to find me in the crowd, but then Celine stands up with her giant belly and blue hair. Yes, she’s a blue hair girl now to support Spencer who started his own restaurant, The Blue House. You could’ve knocked me down with a feather when my brother’s turned out to be food and not rugby. I vowed to never be the kind of parent to stifle my kids the way our parents did. And I think Spencer is the same. The other day, I caught him talking to Celine’s belly and telling their baby that it could be an astronaut or a beekeeper or a postal worker.
Aaron’s voice comes through the mic, and my gaze lands on my beautifully beat-up husband with his messed-up hair, grass stains, busted lip, and grazes. “Mike, before we get going, there’s something personal I want to say to my beautiful wife, if I may?”
The reporter smiles at Aaron.
I’m transfixed on my husband, wondering what he’s going to say and if I’ll have to set Basil Junior on him. Sadly, Basil died, but one of his lambs looked just like him and has the same temperament, so we just had to name him after old Basil.
“Holly, you’re probably going to kill me for this, and maybe Celine as well, but we kind of did a thing.”
I glare at my best friend. “What did you do?”
“Just shut up and listen to your husband.”
I face the field again, and suddenly all the screens flash with a cover of my book Take Flight. My name is so huge on the screen, that I almost don’t notice the clipping of the New York Times. My book is at number one. I gasp and slap my hands to my mouth.
“Trouble, you’ve been sitting on this manuscript for seven years now because you were scared it wouldn’t be received the way you wanted it to be.” I look from the boards to Aaron to Celine and back again. The crowd roars, and the sound is deafening. “Celine sent it to a few publishing companies. Baby, you’ve published eighteen books in the last seven years but never published the first one. The one that taught me how to be brave like you. This book helped us, and I know it could help others. So don’t kill me, baby. I love you. And you made it to number one!” he roars.
The stadium goes ballistic, and everyone turns to me, shouting their congratulations. I am in total shock.
Celine reaches for my hands. “Are you mad? Please don’t be mad. He believes in you so much. You were scared because of how personal this one was to you both, but he’s right. The world deserves this story. Are you mad?” she repeats after her ramble.
Tears stream down my face. “I’m not mad. Thank you. Oh my god, thank you, Celine.”
Spencer leans over. “Just so you, know I’m not reading it.”
I look at him with absolute horror. “Yes, please, God, no, don’t read it.”
“Well, I have. I think we need to start our own list,” Celine tells Spencer.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Are you Mrs. Walker?”
“I am.”
“Your husband would like to see you in the locker room.”
I look at my small family, the people I can count on no matter what. “I’ll see you back at the pub. Drinks are on the house.”
“Damn it, and I can’t drink.” Celine pouts.
“If you can’t, I won’t, baby” Spencer says as he kisses her on the forehead.
I follow the security guard to the locker room. People continue to congratulate me the whole time I walk past them.
When we reach the locker room, Aaron is standing outside, biting his lip. I can tell he’s nervous of my reaction. The book is very personal, and I guess he doesn’t know how I’ll react. I run and leap into his arms, crushing my lips to his before I remember he has a cut. “Shit, sorry.”
“Are you going to plot my death when we go to sleep tonight? It won’t take much for you to take me out. I’m pretty beat up already.”
I slide down his body. “Is that why we’re chatting out here? You’re scared I’m going to whip you in front of your boys?”
“That, and that there’s a lot of naked men in there, and a whole lot of testosterone.”
I grin. “Fair enough. Although, I could probably make a lot of money selling pics of naked rugby players.”
“Baby, you just made the New York Times bestsellers’ list. I don’t think you need to worry about money ever again.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“I can. I always knew you could do it.”
“How did you keep this so quiet?”
He looks at me knowingly. “You’ve been on a deadline. We could’ve hired a skywriting plane and you never would’ve known.”
“You have me there.”
“I’m still in shock. I can’t believe the list got me on the list. See, I can’t language right now. If I put that crap in a book, my editor would definitely tell me to delete, delete, delete.”
“I reckon you need to send Monique away for a weekend at a spa or something. We basically gave her a week to edit your book.”
“A week! What kind of humans are you? That is cruel and unusual punishment.”
He shrugs, giving me that shit-eating grin I love so much. “Like I said, you better do something really nice for her.”
“I think I should buy her a spa for what you did to her.”
“Hey, you were on deadline, so we were on deadline.”
I narrow my eyes. “How did you know which changes to accept?”
“Don’t you always say that if Monique suggests the change, you accept because she’s that good?”
“I do say that.”
Laughing, he pulls me into his arms again. “I’m going to finish up in there, then I’m going to take you home and we’re making our baby.”
“About that.”
He looks at me suspiciously. “You haven’t made a new list of baby-making positions you found on the internet, did you? I’m a rugby player, Trouble, not a gymnast.”
I laugh. “We do need to make a new list, but it’s not for positions.”
He frowns. “What’s it for then?”
“Baby names.” I take the test out of my pocket and put it in his palm. He stares down at the two pink lines, then looks up at me with tears in his eyes.
“Holly?”
“Yes, that is what you’re looking at. We’re having a baby.”
He swoops me up and swings me in the air. We kiss, our tears mingling, and when we’re out of breath, he breaks the kiss.
“Come,” he says as he leads me away from the locker room.
“Didn’t you want to get your things?”
“All I want now is to show you what your gift means to me.”
“We did do it together,” I tease.
He waggles his eyebrows. “Then we can show each other.”