Epilogue #2
“Can you check my hair again?” she asked, turning her back on me so I could make sure her stitches—and the bald spot around the wound—were hidden in the carefully pulled back style she’d worked on for over an hour.
“All hidden.”
“Okay. Good. I’m ready to go then.”
“Nope. You’re forgetting something?”
“What?” she asked as she smoothed her hands down her dress.
“This,” I said, producing a set of colorful permanent markers. “You’re going to have a lot of people asking to sign your cast.”
She beamed at that, tucking the markers into her purse then following me out of the apartment.
“Alright. If I remember correctly, Lorenzo is the capo dei capi, right?”
“Right.”
“And Giana is his wife.”
“Yep.”
“Do you always have family dinner at their house?”
“No. Most family dinners are just immediate family. But everyone wants to meet you. So we’re going to Enz’s townhouse, which is the biggest house, so everyone can fit. Sorry, am I stressing you out?”
“Nope. We already established that I don’t have the social anxiety thing. I’m excited. So long as no one impales themself on a steak knife or goes missing under mysterious circumstances, I think I’ll be good.”
By the time we reached the brownstone, it was already nearly bursting at the seams.
The noise hit me as soon as the doors opened, making my spine stiffen.
Maybe Caitlin sensed it. Or maybe she just wanted to project a united front. But she reached for my hand and entwined our fingers.
“Nugget!” Zeno called as soon as we stepped inside.
He was wearing a pair of pinstripe slacks that he’d cut off at the knees, black boots, a T-shirt, and a tie.
“Nice outfit,” Caitlin said, sounding genuine as she accepted the one-armed hug from him.
“Nice cast. You got room on it for me?”
“I even have a selection of colors!” Caitlin said, digging around for the markers.
We walked from room to room after that, me introducing Caitlin to everyone until, at some point, she was whisked away by one of the women, and I completely lost track of her.
And little by little, the sounds seemed to get louder, the lights got brighter, everything pinched and chafed.
Then, above the half-dozen of conversations going on, I heard it: Caitlin’s laugh—high and tinkling. And it was like the tightness in my chest loosened.
As if sensing me, Caitlin looked over and gave me a soft smile before excusing herself and walking over.
Her arm slid around my back, and she leaned into my arm. “You okay?” she asked.
“Better now.” The crazy part was, I was. Better. With her close. Like a fucking human security blanket. “You’re running out of room,” I said, reaching for her casted arm and checking out the signatures. “What’s this?” I asked, running a finger across a series of dots.
“The baby,” she said, gesturing over toward where someone was holding their one-year-old. “And the book is from that amazing girl, Charlotte. She gave me ten book recommendations. She even wrote them down for me,” she said, producing a note from her pocket.
“I ran into her in a bookstore right before you held me captive. I liked the book she recommended.”
“Who does she belong to again?”
“She’s technically the niece of my cousin, Christopher.
But he’s her guardian now. Along with Liam,” I said, nodding toward where the teen in question was schmoozing up to the more senior members of the Family.
Couldn’t even legally drink yet, but he was making sure he was securing his future place in the Family.
“That’s sweet. There are so many kids. I thought you were exaggerating.”
“Nope. They all breed like rabbits.”
“Do you not like kids?”
“I like kids. I think I’m just better when it’s not twenty of them all at once.”
“I get that. They’re a whole different sort of sensory overwhelm. I’ve never really been around kids much. I never held a baby before tonight.”
I was strangely sorry I’d missed that.
“How’d that go?”
“How are babies so big? He’s only a year, but he was enormous. And heavy.”
“Well, you’re down one arm.”
“True. I have my eye on that little one,” she said, pointing toward where a baby of no more than three months was being passed from one person to another.
I wanted to be there for that.
“Do you ever think about them?”
“Babies?”
“Yeah.”
“I wouldn’t mind one. Maybe two.”
“You wouldn’t need more than that with how many friends they would have in this family. They would never feel lonely.”
“It’s almost impossible to be lonely in this family. If you ever need someone to grab a coffee with, you can find someone at basically any time of the day or night.”
“I like that. I love your family. Everyone has been so warm and welcoming. And no one is mad at me for holding you captive. Actually, that woman asked me about fifty million questions. Like she’s writing a book about it,” she said, nodding toward the woman in question.
“That’s Alara. Christopher’s partner. Charlotte and Liam’s stand-in mother figure. She has always had a weird obsession with the Family.”
“Why?”
“Because before she got with Chris, she was just the sister-in-law of Brio. So she was kind of on the outskirts of the Family and was very intrigued by the inner workings.”
“I get that. The more I know, the more I want to know. Except maybe not all of Brio’s colorful stories.”
“Dinner!” Gigi’s voice rose above the noise of the crowd.
“I’ve got you,” I said, reaching into my pocket to product the mini bottle of antacids I’d stashed in there before we left.
And it was worth tracking down the travel-size bottle for the dazzling fucking smile she shot me.
Seeing it, I’d swear my heart swelled to twice its size.
Caitlin - 11 months
“I know. I’m a little sad, too,” I told Plot Twist as I boxed up the last of Gav’s books in the library.
He was perched on one of the empty shelves, his little leg hanging down.
Gav’s apartment felt perfectly sized. Until I moved my stuff in. Since then, it had been pinching enough around the edges to start irritating both of us.
It was painfully clear we needed a bigger place. One with a larger library. And lots of closets for all my various holiday-themed decorations, blankets, and mugs.
Plus, I mean, we were thinking about things further in the future. Like kids. Like being in our ‘forever’ home.
And since his and Leo’s scheme to buy Ira’s business had just gotten up off the ground, bringing in even more income, Gav decided it was time for him to finally bite the bullet and buy a condo.
That was where he was—doing the final walk-through and signing the papers with the lawyers.
When it came to the home-buying process, I’d started to have silly little anxiety attacks over making the wrong decision until I ultimately begged Gav to just… do it himself and keep me out of it.
So I would be seeing it for the first time right before the movers came to bring all our things over.
“But I hear the new place has giant windows for you to sunbathe in,” I told PT as he let out another meow.
He was a very vocal cat. And I always found myself talking back to him—something Gav found endlessly absurd.
“Exactly. You get the perfect perch to watch the pigeons. Maybe they will nest on the sill like they did this spring.”
I’d been emotionally invested in the pigeon mom and dad’s romance, encouraged them as they built their hilariously terrible nest, anxiously watched the eggs, then felt my heart melt when I first saw the babies.
It’d been so sweet to watch them grow up.
Then mildly heartbreaking when they finally flew off.
Gav rolled his eyes but held me as I had a little cry about it.
“I hope the next people who live here love the pigeons as much as we did if they come back again,” I told Plot Twist, pretending my eyes weren’t getting misty at the thought that they wouldn’t be as loved.
“Oh, is it Dad?” I asked as PT jumped off the shelf and rushed out of the room.
I taped the top of the box then made my way out into the common area to find Gav, but several of his guys as well.
“They’re here to finish the library so you can come see the new place.”
I sucked in a deep breath.
“We need to put PT in his carrier.”
Gav winced. “I’ll get the gloves.”
The gloves in question were actual falconry gloves that went all the way up to the elbow and saved whoever was pushing PT in the carrier from getting sliced to ribbons.
He was, otherwise, a perfect cat. So long as he didn’t need to be pushed into the little travel carrier. The irony of him never meeting a box he didn’t love to squeeze his fat butt inside wasn’t lost on me.
Twenty tense minutes later, we had a yowling cat in a carrier as we rode the private elevator up to the penthouse.
Gav bought a penthouse for us.
When I’d shot him a wide-eyed look as he unlocked the elevator, he’d shrugged and told me I would understand when I saw it.
I was dubious about that.
Until we stepped off the elevator into the apartment and I saw the longest wall that ran nearly the whole length of the building—covered in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
“Oh my God,” I groaned.
“More than enough room for all our books. Future books. And future children’s books. Since we will obviously be raising a reader.”
Plot Twist had the floor-to-ceiling windows I promised. We had a giant kitchen that would likely sit mostly unused, save for coffee making and takeout-plating. But it was pretty nonetheless.
“It’s a little white,” Gav said.
“A little?” The entire penthouse was washed in white. “But that’s kind of part of the fun. Making it ours. And we can hire Anthony’s company to do the work.”
Gav shot me a smile, like he did anytime I included his family in our lives.
As if I could help it.
They were my family now too.
In all the ways I had hoped. Yet infinitely more.
When Gav and I caught the flu the winter before, it had been a revolving door of aunts and cousins who came not only to fill our fridge with ready-to-heat soups, stews, and pasta dishes, but cleaned our apartment, washed our laundry, and brought us endless tea.