Epilogue
EVIE
Five years later…
It’s Friday night, and I’m in the kitchen plating up some garlic chicken.
Not just any garlic chicken, either. Dawson’s mom’s famous recipe. The one he made for me on our first real date, back when my hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold a fork.
I’ve gone on and tweaked it just enough so the seasoning is just mine, which Dawson of course says is better than the original. I’m sure he tells his mother the opposite, of course. He’s a smart man.
Through the window over the sink, I watch his truck pull into the driveway, and just like that, my body responds. A warm flush creeps up my neck, my pulse ignites, and I press my legs together out of pure instinct.
Five years. Five whole years, and my body still reacts to this man like it’s the first time he showed up at my door in that Henley.
The engine cuts, and I hear his boots hit the gravel. I wipe my hands on my apron—an apron that says Kiss the Designer, a birthday gift from Reese—and wait for the sound that still makes my stomach flip.
The front door opening. His heavy footsteps crossing the hardwood. And then his voice. Deep and warm, filling every corner of the house he built for us.
“Something smells incredible.”
“That would be me,” I reply without turning. “The chicken smells pretty good too.”
His laugh rumbles through me as his arms wrap around me from behind. I cave into his strength. He smells like sawdust, and even after all this time, his scent still makes my legs go weak.
“How was your day?” he asks, his thumb tracing a circle on my hip. The same slow circle he drew on my knee back at Vincenzo’s on our first date. I don’t even think he realizes he’s doing it anymore—it’s just muscle memory.
“Good. I finished that rebrand for that restaurant chain, and they said they loved it.” I lean back into his broad chest. “How was yours?”
“Long. We broke ground on the Graham project.” He kisses the top of my head. “Would have been a lot shorter if I wasn’t thinking about you the entire time.”
I giggle and scoff. “You say that every day.”
“And I mean it.”
Finally, I turn and look up at him. Dawson is thirty-eight now, with tiny hints of gray showing at his temples. Salt and pepper, they call it. He has tiny lines beneath his eyes when he smiles, yet somehow, he’s managed to get more handsome over time.
His construction company has tripled in size since we first met, and he runs it the same way he runs everything in his life: with quiet authority and no tolerance for bullshit.
And me? I’ve changed too. I’m a wife, a cook, a partner, but most of all, I’m not the girl who used to lock herself in her bedroom and reach for a drawer anymore.
My freelance design business turned into an actual company two years ago. Dawson added a home studio wing onto the house that holds a drafting table and three monitors. My client list now would have made twenty-one-year-old me pass out just looking at it.
Last year, we merged our businesses. He builds, and I design.
Clark Construction & Design. Our name is on the same door, our desks in the same office.
Which means he watches me chew my lip as I stare at the screen, and I try not to focus on him rolling up his sleeves, which is honestly painfully distracting.
We got married four years ago in a small ceremony by the water.
Reese was my maid of honor, and Trevor was his best man.
She cried harder than my parents but still denies it.
Dawson’s vows were short and sweet and had everyone in tears.
Mine were longer, but I was already sobbing and barely managed to get through them.
I’ve grown. I’ve changed.
I haven’t touched a vibrator in five years. I haven’t even thought about it. Why would I? I have Dawson.
Although I do occasionally think about how we buried Charles back at our old place and smile.
“Dinner is almost ready,” I tell my husband, ushering him gently toward the table. “Sit.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and by the way his eyes narrow when I give him an order, I already know he’s thinking about what he’s going to do to me after dinner.
Good. I can’t wait.
The doorbell rings at exactly seven, which always makes me laugh, because Reese is never on time for anything except our Friday dinner.
“I brought the fancy stuff!” she calls out, breezing in with a bottle of red wine above her head. She kisses me on the cheek and looks at Dawson. “Your garlic chicken better not disappoint tonight. I had a rough week.”
“My garlic chicken?” he asks. “Evie cooked tonight.”
Reese’s jaw drops. She looks at me. “Well, maybe I should get a Doordash…?”
I smack her on the arm, and she cracks up laughing.
Friday dinner at our house has become a tradition. It started after the wedding, and we’ve only missed a handful. Dawson usually cooks, Reese brings wine, and we all enjoy our company. We’re a family. Reese is family.
Dawson and I wouldn’t be together if it weren’t for her.
She’s the one who brought me to that party when I didn’t want to go.
She gave him my number because she knew he’d be brave enough to break down my walls.
And she sat me down and gave me the hard truth I needed to hear when it would have been easier to not say anything.
I owe her a lot, and I’ve told her that. She always says I don’t owe her anything—other than first dibs on naming my future children.
As we eat, she tells us about the new guy she’s seeing. “He’s a dentist, can you believe that? Very stable, but a little boring.”
“I give it three weeks,” Dawson snorts, sipping his beer. I kick him under the table as Reese frowns.
“Okay, perfect couple,” she replies. “What’s with you two? You’re acting…weird tonight.”
“Weird?” I ask quickly. A little too quickly. “We’re not being weird.”
Reese’s eyes narrow. She looks at me, at Dawson, then down at my wine glass, which is full of sparkling water, not the wine she brought.
“Oh…my…God…” she says, jaw agape. “Evie!”
“What?”
“You’re not drinking!”
I glance at Dawson. “I’m not in the mood.”
“It’s Friday! It’s literally the one day out of the week that you—” Her eyes widen as she looks back and forth between me and my husband. I wait, tense, until I see the exact moment the pieces click into place. She drops her fork and stares. “No way!”
“Reese—”
“You’re pregnant!” she exclaims, leaping to her feet, eyes filled with tears as she wraps her arms around me. I glance at Dawson, who is smiling quietly. We’d planned to tell her sometime soon. We both should have known she’d figure it out on her own. Reese figures out everything.
“Eight weeks,” I say softly. It’s like this wonderful admission that feels even better to reveal than I’d anticipated.
“I knew it! Oh my God, Evie!” she pulls me back, her mascara running. “I’m going to be the greatest aunt ever! You’re going to have to stop me from spoiling this kid, you have no idea.”
“Oh, I think we do,” Dawson chuckles. She frowns but still leaps onto him and gives him a big hug.
“You’ll be the first person we call when it’s time,” he tells her.
“Damn right I will.” She sniffles, stands, and fans her face. Then, like she just remembered something, she spins back to me. “So now that you’re official—”
“We weren’t official before?” Dawson asks, pretending to be insulted. “We’re married.”
“Well, fine, but now she’s pregnant, that takes it to a whole new level.”
Dawson nods. “Fair enough.”
“Now that you’re this kind of official, I guess that means your old boyfriend has been completely replaced?”
Dawson doesn’t miss a beat. “Old boyfriend? You mean Charles?”
“That’s right.” Reese smirks, playing along. “The tiny, stiff, one-dimensional guy?”
“No, I don’t remember him,” he replies, shaking his head. “But he sounds like a real buzzkill.”
I laugh, nearly spitting out my water.
Once Reese leaves, taking a boatload of leftovers with her, Dawson pulls me into his arms and carries me to the couch. His arms around me, I lean my head against his chest, feeling his strong heartbeat against my ear.
“I’ll build the nursery myself,” he says. “The room next to ours. I’ve already got ideas.”
“I know you do.” I smile, tracing a line down the center of his chest. “But I can hear them tomorrow. Right now I just want you.”
He tugs at my shirt, sliding a hand up across my belly. “You have me.”
Taking his time, he explores every corner of my body. Every spot he knows that makes me gasp and remind me that I am his.
As my pants come down and I feel his hard cock against my pussy, my whole body shudders. “Yes, Daddy,” I whisper as he slides inside. I still feel the same stretch as the first time, and I always think I’m never going to be able to take it.
But I do. I take it like the good girl I am for him and wrap my legs around his waist and pull him deeper. He groans a feral, primal groan and presses his forehead against mine.
“You take it so good.”
I rock back against him as he thrusts, holding my breasts with his rough hands. Then he moves down to my belly, and I see something new in his eyes. Wonder. A deeper commitment. The knowledge that we made something together that goes beyond just us.
It doesn’t take long for me to come, and when I do, it’s not like those frantic, howling orgasms I had back in our early days. It’s a long, slow rolling wave that starts deep down in my center and spreads out, causing me to gasp for what feels like an eternity.
He goes off with me, his face buried in my neck, kissing me gently as he whispers my name like a prayer.
Panting, I stare up at the ceiling, just like I used to do. Just like I did that Friday night, five years ago in my old apartment. Similar view, but everything else has changed.
No more hollow feeling. No mechanical boyfriend in the drawer.
Now it’s me and my husband, his arms wrapped around me, his thumb making lazy circles on my belly where our baby is growing.
How far I’ve come from the girl I used to be. Alone in a big bed, aching with need, wondering if I would always be alone.
I smile and close my eyes.
I thought I was broken, but I was wrong. I was just waiting. Waiting for him.
And on one spectacular Friday night, he found me.
THE END
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