Epilogue
Autumn—Some Time Later
“Is this seat taken?”
I look up to see a mountain of a man towering over me, a smile on his face. He has pale blue eyes in a gorgeously hewn face and shoulders that block out the light.
“No,” I say, and the breath squeezes out of my lungs because he’s beautiful.
He slides into the seat beside me at the Hott Springs Eternal lodge bar. Before he can say a word, Emma, the bartender, slides a whiskey toward him. He grins and salutes her.
“Didn’t you do this conference’s keynote?” I ask him.
“I did, actually.”
“You were great.”
“Thanks.”
“You, uh, from around here?”
“Actually, born and bred. Grew up in Rush Creek—came back here around four years ago.”
“That’s wild,” I say, “because I’m from Rush Creek, too.”
“I live in the cutest fucking house, just outside of town…”
“Funny thing,” I say, unable to hide my own grin a second longer. “Me, too.”
He leans down and drops a chaste but surprisingly hot kiss onto my mouth. I lose my breath again.
“I happen to have a private hot tub booked at Hott Spot later tonight. Any chance you’d want to join me?”
“That’s very forward of you!” I say.
“Yeah, well,” he says. “I saw you at the bar, and it was love at first sight.”
I roll my eyes, but I lift my chin for another kiss anyway.
I still don’t think Tucker believes in love at first sight. But he definitely believes in a love that can grow over a few days at a destination wedding and turn into something amazing.
So, yeah: Tucker and I live in an adorable house about a fifteen-minute walk from Rush Creek’s downtown. It doesn’t have a pool or a hot tub, but we do have permission to use the Hott Spot private hot tubs any old time we want. And obviously, we never hesitate to hop in.
Since Summer’s wedding, a lot has happened.
Rena and Sienna’s crimes were all over the news, which drove a ton of curiosity tourism to Rush Creek and a ton of wedding business to Hott Springs Eternal.
In due time, Rena and Sienna got tried for their crimes.
Rena got thirty years. Sienna got ninety months, which is seven and a half years.
Well, well, well. If it isn’t the consequences of your own actions, ladies.
Their business shut down. Hanna’s business boomed again; she had to build an addition on the lodge and a couple of new venue spaces to accommodate multiple weddings in the same weekend. She had to hire a lot of new people.
My dad and Nessa got engaged, then eloped to Cancun.
Ivy and Shane’s baby came. Preston and Natalie got engaged, then married.
Rhys and Eden got engaged. A whole bunch of other stuff happened, because Preston and Shane are full of ideas for how to use the ranchland they now officially and permanently own.
I can’t possibly fill you in on all of that right now, but stay tuned and, of course, visit Rush Creek Bakery frequently for updates from Nan and still-warm chocolate croissants, or whatever your jam is.
Summer got pregnant with Jane’s banked sperm. Summer and Jane are so excited to be parents, they can’t stop talking about it. Every time I Zoom with them or visit, I get a complete rundown of all the baby equipment they’ve acquired. I’m so excited to be an auntie, I can barely deal with it.
Hanna re-extended her offer that Hott Springs would create a do-over of Summer’s spoiled pre-wedding prom for her and Jane’s first anniversary.
Summer thought about it for a minute or two.
Then she turned to me and said, “You know, Autumn, I think you were always more stressed out that I didn’t get to go to my high school prom than I was. ”
“I think you might be right,” I told her, and that was that for prom.
Hanna refunded them the cost of the prom, and they used it to buy some really nice nursery furniture.
Meanwhile, my Poststack has gotten a ton of love.
I settled into my new routine and decided I want to become a therapist. I enrolled in a low-residency program that lets you do your field placement wherever you want, with a few in-person check-ins and lots of Zooms. I haven’t started practicing yet, but I will.
I’ll keep up the Poststack, though, just a lot lower key.
It’ll be a good way to bring in clients, and also, I love it so much.
Tucker’s Poststack got even more love. He started talking frankly about what happened with Elizabeth, and about a bajillion people identified with the story in some way, mostly private-security people and cops and firefighters—people who are directly responsible for someone’s safety—but also parents and teachers and other people who take on other people’s safety as part of another role.
He hit a nerve, talking about how when your own actions are part of a traumatic situation, it’s hard to move past it.
People wrote to say that they’ve started meditating because it helped him.
They said they’d gone to therapy because he normalized it.
They wrote to say that they’d asked for forgiveness or forgiven themselves or let themselves move on because of him.
They wrote to ask for advice and to give unsolicited advice to him, which he was waaaay nicer about than I would be.
His Poststack, which was supposed to be a love letter to me, turned into a love letter to safety professionals. He renamed it along the way, since How to Be Miserable turned out not to cover all the territory he wants to write about.
He got asked to speak at a bunch of conferences.
He traveled a bunch, and I went with him.
We had a blast. The week we were together at Summer’s wedding may have been a strange, time-out-of-time experience, but it wasn’t an anomaly.
The chemistry was real. The way we talk—and listen—to each other was real.
The mind-blowing sex was definitely real.
He loved conferences so much that he decided to host his own small conference on the subject—which is how we came to be sitting here together at the bar tonight.
We’re both really happy. And Tucker feels like he’s doing something super important, but I can also tell he’s a little itchy.
Something in his life doesn’t feel quite right.
I’ve been feeling it for weeks, which is why I’m not surprised at all when he turns to me now and says, ”What would you say if I said I wanted to start a new private-security firm?
And maybe an executive-protection training program as part of it? ”
I’m familiar enough with the lingo by now to know that executive-protection training program means bodyguard school.
I immediately picture hundreds of shirtless guys jogging around Rush Creek and the joy that it would bring to this community.
Still, that’s not why I say “I think that’s an amazing idea. ”
I think it’s what’s been missing from Tucker’s life. Actually doing what he loves.
“It would be a lot of work. I’d be really busy.”
“Would you love it?”
“I think I would,” he says.
I say, “Then you should go for it.”
I swear, the shirtless guys don’t enter into it at all.