Epilogue
IRIS
I know I said I wanted to wait but I am done waiting.
IRIS
I know you’re in a meeting with those fancy podcasters but when you see this, if you want to… hurry home.
IRIS
Carter left condoms here the last time he came over for a movie night. It’s probably wasteful if we don’t use them before they expire.
IRIS
Oh never mind. They don’t expire for a while. We’ve got time. I will wait until you’re ready too.
DANNY
I’m coming home.
DANNY
I’m ready. Don’t you dare change your mind.
DANNY
Iris?
DANNY
Did you fall asleep?
IRIS
photo
DANNY
Oh shit. Stay just like that. I’m almost home.
I’d never imagined being someone top-rated podcasters would want to have on their show, but apparently, I was.
My YouTube fame, the chaos of my videos, and the success we’d had with the Undead Club had gotten so much attention that Carter had started acting as my manager.
He had finally convinced me that we could help so many more people if I would stop being such a fucking idiot and would go on a few podcasts, his words not mine.
A few months ago, I had finally done one and realized that it wasn’t so scary and the hosts were genuinely interested in me, and led the conversation so kindly that I actually enjoyed myself, so I agreed to do another.
The hosts on that one cried when they heard my story, and the ratings shot through the roof.
When the hosts of tonight’s interview reached out, I thought Carter had been joking.
Why would a man with a top-rated podcast who had interviewed the most famous people want to talk to little old me?
I’d almost said no, but I was glad I hadn’t.
We had talked about so many important things, and my story would get to so many more ears that when I left the studio I had felt like I was on a high.
Then I saw Iris’s text and my heart had rolled over in my chest. Giddy, frantic, excited, happy…
none of that could possibly describe the cacophony of feelings that had erupted inside of me.
Once I got back to our building, I skipped the elevator because it would take too long to get me to her and instead, I took the stairs two at a time.
My scar twinged slightly like it always did from quick movements, but I ignored it.
I would just have to keep getting used to it.
I wasn’t slowing down my life for a bullet wound scar.
Nope, I had way too much to do than let that stop me.
My breath burned in my throat. Not from the climb, but from the way her texts echoed in my mind.
“I am done waiting.” The words crawled up my sternum and burrowed their way into my heart.
Everything about her turned me on. Sleeping next to her at night, her warmth, soft and pliable beside me.
Watching her brush her hair, the comb gliding through the strands, making me wish it were my fingers.
The way she blew on her mugs of tea, the heat steaming up her glasses, her lips pursed and full.
Her laugh, her smell, her love for garage sales and thrift stores.
Her mind, her safety, her body. All of it made me desire her.
My own body tightened at the thought. In the past few months, I had finally allowed myself to go there.
To want more than just run my fingers along the nape of her neck and laugh when she shivered, as she pushed at me.
“Stop, that tickles, Danny,” she’d say as her body defied her words, and she’d curl up closer to me.
I’d begun to feel safe with allowing my eyes to linger on the curves of her waist and the soft skin on her thighs.
I’d begun to expect the hitch of her breath while giving her a massage as my hands would hesitate along the edges of her underwear before moving away.
We’d been flirting for so long now. Feeling safer and safer to let down the last of our walls, me protecting the most vulnerable pieces of me, her protecting a promise she had made so long ago she could barely remember why.
I quickly punched in the code and unlocked the door to our apartment.
Even thinking the words, our apartment was pretty cool because I never thought I’d live long enough to call something this pretty, mine.
But here we were. I hadn’t ever dreamed of any of this.
Not the soft hum of the fancy ice maker on the counter.
Not the scatter of blankets on her reading chair or the row of mismatched mugs that lined the kitchen shelf.
Not the thirteen plants that I’d learned to mist, water, prune, and not kill.
And definitely not the woman currently humming to herself in the next room, half-dressed and glowing like the angel she was who’d saved my life.
I smelled her body wash, telling me she had recently showered. The notes of vanilla and jasmine clung to the air, almost caressing my face. The lights in the kitchen were low, bleeding soft gold all over the walls. For a moment, I just stood there, memorizing the sound of safety.
Somehow, I’d gotten lucky enough to be here.
In our apartment that had all the best parts of her in it; it was warm, slightly cluttered, yet quiet and cozy in all the right ways.
Perfect from my hoodie draped over the back of our couch, to her slippers parked beside my boots at the door.
Sometimes I’d catch myself staring at the ordinary things like a spoon in the sink or a shopping list, and I’d tear up.
Because the ordinary meant I’d stayed. I was here.
And staying meant learning how to want things that weren’t dangerous. That I wanted more than an ending.
Tonight, what I wanted was her.
I was peeling off my coat and toeing off my shoes when she came into the doorway of our bedroom looking a little nervous.
I’d seen her annoyed, excited, sad, happy, patient…
overly kind. But this? I’d never quite seen this version of her yet.
She glowed with her decision to be so bold with me, to step off into this unknown territory with me.
Her hair was braided, her skin flushed, and the tie of her robe hung loose like she had just untied it but was considering retying it.
I worried she might be unsure if she was actually ready.
“You okay?” I asked.
She nodded but didn’t speak. Her hands fidgeted with the edge of her robe until she met my eyes. “I’m ready.”
“Are you sure?” I whispered as I followed her into the room, my heart a full-on orchestra inside my chest.
She walked over to me as I sat on the bed, and she straddled my lap with a grace that stunned me. “I’ve never been surer. Are you?”
I let out a slow breath; my hands shook slightly as I steadied them against her hips.
“I am ready for you.” I thought I heard her let out a soft gasp as she leaned in and pressed her lips to mine.
The touch did not startle me. It didn’t make me nauseous.
It didn’t bring up unwanted images or nightmares.
All I felt was her sitting in my lap, my body thickening against the warm weight.
All I heard was her breath and the sound of us together.
All I could think about was how much I loved her.
How I hoped I wouldn’t mess this up for her by it ending too quickly.
I let out a groan as she shifted in my lap.
We continued to kiss; it had started soft and slow, but it didn’t stay that way.
There was a hunger that crept in around the edges.
Months of teasing glances and brush-of-the-hand moments had led us here.
In the never-ending courtship and flirtation stage, I had discovered that hope and desire was a kind of pressure too, and tonight, it would finally break.
Her lips were warm and sure; she tasted faintly of mint and rose.
Every tilt of her mouth, every pass of her tongue unraveled me a little more.
I’d gone so many years without ever wanting anything like this and now I couldn’t get enough.
She tugged my shirt up and over my head. Her fingertips felt blazing hot as they skimmed my chest like she was memorizing every scar and every bone.
“You’re beautiful,” she murmured. “Even the parts that hurt you.”
I almost laughed, almost cried. Instead, I pulled her in for another kiss that stole the breath from both of us.
When we fell back onto the sheets, it was clumsy and heated—knees bumping, breathless laughter, her hair tangled around my fingers like a tether.
I made her gasp. She made me swear. We fumbled with each other’s clothes, laughed again, kissed through the nerves.
Soon we were naked, and a condom had been rolled down my length; she had watched me figure it out, eyes wide, lips puffy from my kisses.
I hadn’t been able to look at her for fear of this being over before we even started.
I trembled as her chest pressed against mine, her warm skin was so soft, so foreign to me.
I shook with my want of her. I ached as her thighs wrapped around me and then time slowed.
“Is this okay?” I asked for what must have been the one hundredth time against her lips. Please say it’s okay, I can’t stop now.