Epilogue
ASH, FIVE YEARS LATER
“The fuck?” I say before I can stop myself. But there aren’t any kids around right now, so I’ll let myself slide. “Whose binky is this?”
Cowboy, JD and Katrina’s eight-month-old chocolate lab puppy, has some kid’s pacifier in his mouth like it’s his. Whose kid does it belong to? Don’t know.
Cowboy wags his tail, his whole butt going back and forth with it. Like he’s thrilled he’s committed a little crime.
“Who’d you steal this from, Cowboy?” I ask, snapping a picture before gently taking the pacifier. “Let’s go find them.”
We go out into the hallway of the hotel, where Jada and I are having our anniversary party.
Everything is a little more chaotic than usual, with a mix of our families and the hotel’s guests.
Even though our anniversary is technically in May, we chose late September because the hotel is a little slower.
Plus, we became actually official in September, though no one else needs to know that but us.
We somehow didn’t account for the chaos that’s unleashed when all of our nieces and nephews get together.
Mom went from zero to eight grandchildren in the span of five years among all of us, including our two-year-old twin daughters, June and Winnie.
With so many kids so close in age, there’s no way that things could be calm.
It’s nice, though. Better than some party where I hardly know anyone and have to pretend to give a shit about what everyone is saying.
The more time that passes since I’ve left the music industry, the happier I am with my decision.
I can write whatever songs I want, about whatever I want.
Sometimes I upload recordings to Youtube or perform them at the Copper Moon if they have an open mic and they go slightly viral, but that’s it.
It’s more than enough for me.
I step out onto the back lawn of the hotel.
The space has only grown over the years.
Jada bought the lot behind it and expanded the space to include more amenities, including a wedding gazebo.
There’s plenty of space for events, many of which spill from the bar area to the patio that she had built, as well.
Today, we decorated the space with a few standing-height tables, balloons, and flower arrangements. Mom planned it all, because she’s incapable of holding back. Jada and I let her have free rein after we gave her a few ideas.
Years ago, having a party with all our family and friends would have been stressful. But now, I feel a familiar sense of calm.
Bubba trots up to me, a stick in his mouth. His face has gone completely white in his old age, but all the younger dogs in the family are keeping him energetic and healthy. Cowboy runs a circle around him before chomping onto the other end of the stick.
“Whose binky is that?” Jada asks, coming up to me.
She’s put her long locs up in a bun and gone light on the makeup in a way that highlights her beautiful eyes. I wake up next to her every morning, watch her when she sleeps (for a moment or two), and still discover new ways to find her beautiful.
She’s wearing a jumpsuit like she did when we got married at the courthouse, but this time it’s cream rather than peachy pink. It hugs her curves and plunges to reveal a tempting amount of cleavage. Then again, any bit of cleavage makes me want to bury my face in her tits.
Five years and I still want her just as much as I did when we first got married.
“Don’t know. It was in Cowboy’s mouth. Look.” I show her the picture I took.
“Oh my god. So cute.” She gasps and grabs my phone. “I don’t know whose baby this belongs to. God knows it could be any of them. I swear there’s a new Stryker baby every few months. Let’s look from the gazebo.”
“Is this an excuse to get me in the gazebo?” I ask, putting my hand on her lower back. There’s a tiny little cutout there so I can touch her skin.
“I don’t need an excuse to do that.”
I feel like that random gazebo at the resort where I “proposed” was meant to be there. But we built another one here so other people could have their moments too.
We go up the three steps into the gazebo. We can see all of our family and friends gathered for us. It’s a little surreal seeing so many of us here, even though we’ve been to a lot of family gatherings together.
“Daddy!” June, one of our twins, comes running up to the gazebo. Mom rushes after her, a harried look on her face. She got her wish of a ton of grandkids, but I think she forgot how they can cause an alarming amount of chaos fueled by three bites of cheese.
“Oh, sweetheart, careful!” Mom says as June nearly faceplants up the stairs.
“It ok,” June says, using my leg to make sure she gets up the last step. “Look!”
She shows me a toddler-sized guitar, beaming. Her little dimples are so painfully cute, a perfect mirror of her mom’s. My heart grows every single time I look at her or her sister, who takes more after me.
“Wow, where’d you get this?” I ask, squatting down.
“JD!” She steps back and strums it. It’s loud as hell for a toy.
I glance around and spot JD and Katrina on a blanket, along with their kids – three year old Alia and six month old Elle. Winnie is with them too, spinning a black and white toy in front of the baby.
“Did you say thank you?” Jada asks, resting a hand on her head.
“Yes!” She strums it again. She’s seen me do it so many times that she does a pretty good job.
“Let’s go thank them again.” I scoop her up and head over to them.
“Daddy, Mommy, look!” Winnie says, holding up the toy and giving it a spin.
“Wow!” Jada sits down next to her, then looks at the baby. She has a pink pacifier in her mouth. “Wait, are y’all missing a pacifier?”
“Yes!” Katrina brightens. “Did you find it?”
“Cowboy did.” I pull it out of my pocket.
“Of course he did,” JD says with a sigh, tucking the pacifier into a pocket of their diaper bag. “He’s addicted to them. Thanks for bringing it back.”
“No problem. And thanks for the guitar,” I say, sitting down next to JD. June strums it again, her brows furrowed. “It’s…loud.”
JD smirks. “I know.”
“Is it payback for the drums?” I ask.
We got Alia a toddler drum kit for her second birthday, which in retrospect was a dick move. She can create enough noise without literal instruments. But she loves them, and who knows – she might love music as much as I did when I was a kid.
“No. I just assumed you’re playing the long game in creating a family super band, so I introduced a guitar to the mix,” he says.
“Don’t give them ideas.” It does sound like it could be fun, though.
As long as they want to. I’m not going to suck the joy out of music by pressuring them into making it a job. Especially when they’re kids. I’ve gotten just as much out of playing silly songs for the girls on a Saturday morning than I did writing songs that I still get royalties for.
When I thought about what a happy life would be like when I was a teenager, it was the opposite of this. The idea of being married with kids, living in Jepsen, would have sent me into a depression spiral.
But I’m exactly where I want to be. No amount of offers to write songs or be famous would ever pull me away from here.
— THE END —
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