Epilogue
OLLIE
Four Months Later
Heavy footsteps echo on the porch out front, the stomp an old habit all Darlings have to dislodge dirt and grime from the bottom of our shoes.
Snow, in the winter. And fresh grass clippings in the spring.
That family-ingrained quirk means I don’t bother heading to the door to greet our guests.
Instead, I spin on my heels and make my way into the kitchen, smiling as I cross the threshold and glimpse Rose perched at the counter on the stool she claimed her very first day here.
She hunches over her sketchbook, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth, her shoulders bowed, and her hair tucked behind her ear. She draws, sliding her pencil across the thick sketch paper and brushing eraser shavings aside when they get in her way.
Poopy stretches out on the floor at her feet, her rounded belly pointed toward the sky, her pretty eyes flickering across to mine when Rose’s don’t.
Because Poopy McStinkypants is a street thug with street smarts—sometimes—and she vowed long ago to be Rose’s guard dog for life.
Something about debts owed. Lives saved.
My front door opens, chatter rolling through my house. But Rose remains oblivious.
She’s not scared anymore. And that… fuck, that’s a miracle right there.
“I can hear you staring at me.” Releasing her bottom lip, she smirks. But she keeps her eyes on her work. “Do you need something, Doctor Darling?”
“Do you dare deprive a man of his God-given right to stare at the woman he loves whenever he wants? For as long as he wants?” Chuckling, I cross the kitchen and come around to stand on her right, careful not to step on Poopy’s tail.
Leaning closer, I press a gentle kiss to her cheek and peek at her sketch.
“Mm.” I grin as two men smile back at us.
Two sets of kind eyes. Brothers in arms. “Drawing from memory?”
She shakes her head and furiously scrubs away a section of Seth’s jawline, before setting the eraser to the side and picking up her pencil again.
She’s careful to draw his face exactly. His crooked nose and goofy grin.
His youthful energy—forever twenty-one—and his arm slung across Liam’s shoulders.
“Not memory. But Doctor Pratlin thinks it’s a good idea to continue sketching.
He sees it as a kind of subconscious instinct thing, where drawing allows me this place to go where memories and imagination meet and…
” Exhaling, she sets her pencil down and arches her spine until the bones crackle and pop.
“I dunno.” Finally, she brings her focus up, her beautiful kaleidoscope eyes bewitching me just as they did the first night I saw her.
“Doctor Pratlin’s pretty adamant I embrace my art, and since the old-me trusted him, I suppose the new-me should listen.
” Pulling a photograph from under her book—a photo of the two men standing side by side, Seth’s arm thrown over Liam’s shoulders—she places it beside her sketch and shrugs.
“He likes the progress we’ve made since the stuff with Darcy.
” Like the flip of a switch, her eyes widen and her smile grows large.
“Oh! Ask me to do something I don’t want to do! ”
“Er…” Stunned, I glance around the kitchen, then toward the hallway. Then down to the cat who bats at my loose shoelace. “Okay. Get rid of Poopy. I don’t want her here anymore.”
“No! Ha!” She vibrates, beaming with confidence. “Ask me where I was all day yesterday.”
“Where were you yesterday?”
“I was at work. But now ask me why it took eleven whole minutes to get home when the drive is only actually five minutes.”
Snickering, I cup her face and tug her higher, gently elongating her neck. “Who did you see in those extra five minutes, Rose? Why weren’t you at home?”
“None of your business!” She drapes her arms over my shoulders and smacks a kiss against my lips. “I mean, it is, and I was with no one. I just walked out slowly, but still! I don’t feel like I have to explain myself to you, and you’re not mad when I say no. Doctor Pratlin says he’s proud of me.”
“Not surprised. I’m proud of you, too.”
“I turned the tracker thingy off on my phone. And it doesn’t even make me sweat, like I’m expecting you to be mad. ‘Cos you’re not mad. You probably didn’t even notice, because that’s how little you want to track me.”
I mean. I noticed. But will I show her how I sweat when I don’t know where she is?
Absolutely not.
“I don’t need to track you. And I’m never mad.
But seriously.” I inch forward and nibble on her bottom lip.
“We really need to do something about the cat. She’s mean.
” And like she knows I’m talking about her, she digs her claws into my pants, scoring my calf muscle.
“She’s a menace. I didn’t agree to move a terrorist into my home. ”
Rose giggles, wriggling and dancing on her chair. “No.”
“Aw, ain’t this cute?” Eliza swaggers into the kitchen ahead of Billy.
Troopy. Hell, even Tommy and Alana and the kids.
And behind them, Chris and Fox… and Fox’s slightly swollen belly.
“My big brother is in luuurve. And Rosaline Valera is still drawing pretty pictures.” Eliza wanders across to the counter and peeks at the drawing.
“Your brother was hot. Just so you know. Total smoke show.”
“Eliza!” Rose exclaims. “You’re a freak.”
“What!?” She lifts the page to the left and flips backward to another drawing. Then again. And again. “You’re banging my brother. I’m allowed to look at yours.”
“Dude.” Alana groans, shaking her head. “Have some respect. He’s deceased.”
“So? I’m not saying I’d bang him, since…
like… duh. He’s deceased. But that doesn’t negate the fact he was a total babe.
” She flips to another page and smirks. “Excellent bone structure in the Valera family. Jawlines are good. Eyes are pretty. Skin is healthy.” She turns to another drawing—Seth and Liam together again—and snickers.
“How close do you think they were? Like…” She makes a stupid face.
“A trip to the Eiffel Tower close, or…?”
“Good lord!” Alana forces Hazel into Eliza’s arms and pushes them away.
“She’s looking for a reaction. Worse than a friggin’ child.
” Glancing down at the sketchbook, she points toward a section of beautiful cursive script and reads, “Ollie and I finished the deck together. June twenty-third.” Her eyes shift toward the massive glass sliding doors leading onto the finished deck.
Then back to the book, and another page.
“Ollie started rebuilding the greenhouse for me. July sixteenth.” And right under that, grinning, she reads, “Ollie blackened his thumbnail with the hammer. He didn’t shout at me.
Didn’t blame me. Didn’t scare me. July seventeenth. ”
Curious, Fox strolls closer to look. “Are you afraid you won’t remember?”
“No. I remember everything since the hospital.” Rose wraps her arm around my hips and lays her face on the side of my chest. “I just like writing these things down sometimes. It makes me happy to go back and revisit those memories.”
Alana flips all the way back to the beginning, her eyes softening as she reads, “Ollie bought me this book. I didn’t even ask.
He just did it because he knows I like to draw.
Added it to my list of things to pay him back for.
February eighteenth.” And then just beneath that, “Ollie discovered my list and tore it up. He wasn’t mad.
Feels good that he wasn’t mad. Made another list. February 21.
” And then a little further beneath that, way back when Liam was just a pair of eyes.
Wire-frame glasses. A shadow in the back of her mind.
“I feel awful for breaking Ollie’s mug. Replace it!
!!!!” Alana releases a gentle, sweet sigh.
“You underlined and added a half dozen exclamation marks after replace it.”
“Oh, boohoo to Rose and her mug. You should see the shit she said about me.” Eliza muscles her way back into our space, Hazel clinging to her side, and flips forward a couple of pages.
“Eliza fights for a living. WTF is wrong with her?” She moves to another page.
“Eliza is a total ass. She calls it tough love and training. I just think she likes the sound of her own voice. I would pop her in the nose if I didn’t think she’d kill me for it. ”
“It was a compliment,” Rose snickers. “You’re a world champion. That’s a big deal.”
“Yeah, it’s a big deal. Why don’t you try that popping me in the nose thing? See how it works out for you?”
“You stomped the imprint of your shoes into a certain someone’s face,” Billy grumbles. “You lack emotional regulation, Eliza. And you made it my professional problem to fix.”
“I lack emotional regulation?” She leans back against the edge of the counter. “Have you seen yourself in the mirror? Besides, if you were better at your job, you would’ve predicted I would do that shit and handled the scene accordingly. This was a failure on your part, not mine.”
“You’re cussing a lot in front of my baby sister.” Franky scoops Hazel straight out of Eliza’s grip, settling her on his hip. “Cussing is for people not intelligent enough to use their words properly.”
“It’s kinda cute how he’s got those Watkins genes, but it’s like they’re dormant,” Fox snickers. “For now. Someday, eventually, Watkins will come flying outta that mouth and shock us all.”
“You act like those Page genes aren’t the most vicious of them all.
” Tommy crosses the kitchen, laughing and helping himself to my fridge, perusing its contents, and snagging a can of soda from the shelf.
Two cans, because he won’t consume a single morsel of any damn thing without first ensuring Alana has some of her own.
“Add in that Hazel will know Eliza as Aunty, and Aunty Eliza won’t sleep till she teaches Hazel how to crush a man’s skull under her boots.
These kids are gonna fuck some shit up.”