Epilogue
Ten Years Later
Sadie should have known the evening was going off the rails the moment she walked in and saw three open bottles of wine and Beck already shirtless before the appetizers were out.
“Who spilled cranberry sauce on the runner?” Ingrid demanded, staring down at the white fabric she had sworn would “class it up this year.”
From the stove, Beck shrugged, completely shirtless and completely unashamed, flipping sweet potatoes like nudity was a seasonal requirement. “It adds contrast. Very rustic.”
Eden’s voice rang out from the living room. “If I see one more bare nipple near that turkey, I am calling the CDC. This is a holiday, not Chippendales.”
“I don’t want the food smell in my shirt,” Beck replied easily, somehow burning marshmallows while maintaining eye contact with Ingrid. “And danger adds flavor.”
Ingrid continued carving the turkey with the precision of a surgeon and reached back to squeeze Beck’s ass like it was an essential step in the recipe.
Sadie laughed softly into her wine, watching the familiar madness unfold.
Every year, without fail, they all gathered for Thanksgiving.
No one was allowed to back out. Not Ingrid, technically retired from ballet but still teaching masterclasses with Beck at Juilliard.
Not Beck, even with his tour schedule or the constant stream of classes he taught.
Not Eden, even with her never-ending concert tours.
Not Ronan, no matter how many deadlines called him away for the next big story.
Not Quentin, no matter how many buzzing movie projects landed on his plate.
And definitely not Sadie, despite the demands of her ever-growing makeup empire. Thanksgiving was sacred, chaos and all.
At the table, Ronan and Quentin were deep in debate, both leaning over the stuffing bowl. Ronan, fresh off another months-long documentary shoot that he had promised would be his last for a while, gestured emphatically with a spoon.
“If you add one more sprig of sage,” Ronan said, “it stops being stuffing and starts being a forest floor.”
Quentin shot him a look. “Bold words from a man who once tried to justify raisins.”
“They add texture.”
“They add betrayal,” Quentin countered.
Sadie leaned back against the counter. “You would think world peace depended on bread cubes.”
“This is sacred,” Ronan said. “My grandmother’s recipe.”
“Your grandmother also believed microwaves caused ghosts,” Quentin replied.
“That is not relevant.”
Sadie smiled. She had been looking forward to this noise all month.
“We rotated Malibu last year, remember?” Eden said, sweeping back into the kitchen with her youngest son balanced on one hip.
Sadie’s sister was somehow still touring, with three cities last month alone, while juggling motherhood with the kind of glam casual chaos only she could pull off.
“Ocean views, quinoa stuffing, and my children flinging sand like it was performance art.”
As if summoned by the memory, Eden’s oldest son, Ziggy was currently face down in a mountain of mashed potatoes at the table.
Carmen stood nearby, clapping enthusiastically. “Ten out of ten. Excellent commitment. Minimal splash.”
Sadie raised her glass toward her nephew. “Consistency is important.”
“Galaxy, please do not eat that,” Eden said absently, glancing down at the toddler on her hip. He was technically named Lennon, but he only answered to Galaxy on principle. His dark curls bounced as he lunged for a cinnamon roll, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like a spell.
“I’m fine!” Galaxy shouted, which was impressive considering no one had accused him of not being fine yet. Eden set him on the floor. He immediately booked it toward the dessert table like a tiny, determined criminal.
Sadie sighed fondly. “That’s my nephew.”
Carmen’s husband, once known as Piggy Pete, had since matured into just Pete, then recently earned the nickname Spreadsheet Pete after emailing everyone a lovingly detailed, color-coded chart of food preferences and allergies.
He appeared beside her, clutching his phone with the earnest expression of a man who desperately wanted to be helpful.
“Did anyone even glance at the spreadsheet I sent?”
Carmen beamed. “I printed it.”
Pete visibly relaxed. “Thank God.”
“To wrap wine,” she added. “It was festive.”
Pete sighed. “It was color-coded.”
Across the room, Ingrid and Beck’s five-year-old son, Nico, sat quietly at the kids’ table, carefully arranging green beans into the unmistakable shape of a dinosaur. He had Beck’s eyes and Ingrid’s stubborn focus, the kind of kid who observed everything and wasted no energy on nonsense.
“That’s a stegosaurus,” Beck said proudly. “Notice the tail detail.”
Ziggy reached for a green bean. Without a word, Nico lifted the entire plate and placed it on the top shelf, then calmly returned to his work.
Sadie watched, impressed. “Ruthless.”
“Genetics,” Ingrid said. “I taught him that between pliés.”
At the far end of the room, Sadie’s granddad, nearly eighty-five and still spry as ever, was deep in an animated story involving a goat, a fence, and what appeared to be a daring escape.
He gestured wildly with a spoon while Quentin’s Grandma Lucía clapped along, laughing with pure delight despite not understanding a word of English.
Quentin leaned in close to Sadie, lowering his voice. “They are either falling in love or forming an international crime ring.”
Sadie sipped her wine, watching them with fond amusement. “I am rooting for both.”
“Mom just texted,” Quentin added. “She and your parents are five minutes out. She says she’s bringing three pies and ‘emotional support flan.’”
Sadie groaned. “We’re going to need bigger plates.”
“And possibly a second table.”
Her phone buzzed, and she glanced at it.
DEVI: We got the deal with Universal’s FX division. Thank Avery, she wowed them.
Sadie grinned as Quentin leaned in. “Please tell me this means you’re finally making that exploding boils kit.”
“Not boils. Blister bloom prosthetics. There’s a difference.”
“Mm-hmm. And you’re the CEO of that difference.”
She elbowed him. “Don’t knock it. You’re talking to the founder of an accidental empire. Built on glitter blood and skin that peels off in sheets.”
He tilted his head. “You are absolutely, certifiably incredible.”
She opened her mouth, ready with a joke but it never made it out. Because Quentin was already kissing her, warm and sure and sweet in a way that felt like home.
When the Radiance investment came through, Sadie immediately asked Devi to join the board.
It was partly trust, but mostly instinct.
Devi had an uncanny ability to spot a trend before it existed, sell it like art, and do it all with ruthless confidence in four-inch heels and a trench coat worth more than Sadie’s car.
Avery, who had started as a temporary assistant meant to last only through launch, had already made herself indispensable and was now their COO, the quiet engine keeping everything from flying apart.
Together, Devi and Avery helped transform Sadie’s half-deranged skin fountain idea into a full-blown special effects powerhouse.
What started as a strange booth at an indie horror con evolved into major studio contracts, red carpet shoutouts, and a brand that straddled glam and gore without apology.
The company was now legit, revered across indie and blockbuster circles alike, part glam, part gore, and entirely theirs.
Sadie stepped onto the porch and drew in a long breath, the Montana air crisp and pine-sweet against her skin.
Quentin and her had wandered the world together—climbed dunes in Morocco, soaked in hot springs under Icelandic stars, got engaged for the second time on an Italian beach right after Quentin threw up a plate of bad clams. But nothing compared to Montana.
After Blood on the Prairie wrapped, she traveled. Sometimes with him, sometimes without him, though the without-him part never stopped sucking. Adventures were still adventures, but they felt incomplete when he wasn’t there.
So she moved in with him after a few months. They gave Los Angeles an honest try, lasted a year, and mutually agreed it wasn’t for them.
The paparazzi were relentless, but Sadie refused to read anything about herself. Eden, however, sent updates anyway. “Sadie Murphy is hot. Quentin has taste.” Sadie would text back, “Please tell them I also have IBS and a mole shaped like Texas. Balance the narrative.”
The first month they moved to Montana, she started allergy shots and never looked back.
She woke up every morning with itchy eyes and a red nose, and she loved it anyway.
She loved the ranch, the endless sky, the gentle rhythm of mornings, the way the sun dipped low like it was kissing the earth goodnight.
She was his live-in girlfriend for five chaotic, weird, ridiculously good years.
They both traveled for work, always circling back here.
Somewhere between watching Eden patiently untangle Ziggy’s curls and seeing Nico curled up in Ingrid’s lap, Sadie realized she didn’t want to just be the wild aunt with stories and souvenirs.
It took IVF. It took prayer. It took a level of grace neither she nor Quentin had known how to give before. And then, impossibly, it worked. Twice.
Now the house behind her echoed with laughter, running, and the unmistakable sound of something breakable hitting the floor. She smiled.
Sadie caught a blur tearing across the front of the property.
Pepe, aka the tornado in a Labrador body, was terrorizing the squirrels again.
That dog had already eaten two sandwiches, a Barbie shoe, and what may have been part of Quentin’s boot.
Quentin claimed the dog had a personality disorder.
Sadie suspected Pepe just had no taste buds.
He had been a rescue from a nearby farm, and the moment the girls saw him, they demanded he stay.
Not long after the twins were born, Quentin sold his Los Angeles house and poured everything into expanding the refuge, a decision that apparently included housing one completely unapologetic, sandwich-stealing canine menace.
From inside, Carmen’s voice rang out in exasperation. “Galaxy, pants are not optional!”
“Mommy!” a child shrieked behind her. “She STOLE my STICKER CROWN!”
“I did not steal it!” came the indignant reply. “I borrowed it. Because I am queen of the potatoes!”
Sadie turned just in time to catch two glitter-covered missiles launching themselves at her legs.
“Cielo,” she said, catching the first blur of motion, “borrowing means you ask first.”
“I was gonna,” Cielo muttered, arms crossed with a dramatic sigh.
“She’s only mad because I looked majestic,” the second twin declared.
“Estrella,” Sadie warned, “you are not queen of the potatoes.”
Estrella smirked. “Yet.”
Cielo Delores and Estrella Rebecca. Their first names were Spanish for sky and star, and their middle names came from family they’d loved and lost, a little quiet piece of them tucked into every day.
Quentin appeared behind them, scooping both daughters into his arms like it was nothing.
Sadie reached up to brush glitter out of their curls. “Cici and Ella. Team Mayhem, still undefeated.”
He kissed her temple. “We should send the clinic a thank-you basket.”
“Filled with wine,” she said, “and earplugs.”
Back inside, the usual madness was underway.
Her grandfather was dramatically dipping Lucía across the kitchen tiles while Carmen filmed with a running commentary.
Spreadsheet Pete was muttering to himself about the weight limit on the dessert table.
Ziggy had climbed into the oven, which was thankfully off.
Galaxy was under the table without pants, eating rolls.
Nico sat calmly on the couch reading Exploding Volcanoes Are Just Misunderstood, utterly unbothered.
Quentin wrapped an arm around Sadie as they stood in the doorway, watching it all.
“Someone told me there was a kid at NYU who dressed up as my Blood on the Prairie character for Halloween,” he murmured.
Sadie grinned. “You know you’ve hit cult classic status when college students are cosplaying.”
He shrugged. “Didn’t win the Oscar for it.”
“No,” she said, bumping his shoulder, “but the fan theories about whether you died in the saloon fire are Oscar-worthy.”
He chuckled. “At least I got one eventually.”
“Yeah,” she said, bumping her shoulder into his. “But that one involved you crying in the rain for ten straight minutes over a woman named Cinnamon.”
He puffed up with pride, because not everyone could make a soggy hair-and-mascara meltdown look like a career-defining performance.
Most people cried in the rain and just looked…
wet, sad, and mildly ridiculous. Quentin, somehow, had turned it into art.
Rightfully so—years after Blood on the Prairie, he had finally won an Oscar and earned the kind of respect that made directors call him first for serious roles.
Eden breezed by with two glasses of wine, leaning down to whisper, “Thriving or barely surviving?”
“Both,” Sadie whispered back.
She sat just as Beck declared from the head of the table, “If one more person double-dips in the gravy, I’m walking into the sea.”
“There’s no sea here, Dad,” Nico said, deadpan.
“Fine,” Beck shot back. “Then a river. The fastest-moving one you’ve got. Whatever you mountain freaks use for dramatic exits.”
Laughter rippled through the room, clinking glasses and clumsy toasts echoing off the walls. Pepe sprinted through again with a dinner roll, Estrella shrieking and Cielo chasing, Carmen filming every second.
Sadie looked around at the beautiful mess, her wild daughters, their ridiculous family, the friends who had become roots instead of stops along the way. Every person here had taken the long road and arrived anyway.
She reached for Quentin’s hand, fingers lacing with his. He squeezed once. She squeezed back.
Sadie raised her glass. “Happy Friendsgiving, you lovable disasters.”
Quentin tapped his against hers. “To us.”
And to the miracles, the messes, and the wild, winding road that finally led them home.