Epilogue
Simone
Sunlight pierces my eyelids, and I wake to being the center of a Dravik and dog sandwich.
Behind me lumbers his big, sleepy self, that delicious, wide demon chest rising and falling with soft snores.
In front of me, tucked into the curve of my belly, are Tito and Missy.
After I moved in, it took no time at all for me to crave him, and most mornings I wake up slightly early and just watch his face for a bit.
Sometimes I trace his cheeks or his horns with the tip of my finger.
Only when I try to leave the bed does he wake, tugging me back down and pulling me tighter into the curve of his body, pressing his hard cock against my ass.
Most mornings, his hand will slide over my hip bones, down past the tuft of my mound, cupping me as he slowly massages me, causing me to arch against him like a cat.
It’s at that point the dogs get kicked off, and I’ll climb on top to straddle him.
He loves to watch me ride his cock, insisting that it's the best of both worlds.
Every day, I fall a bit deeper in love, and every day, I wonder where the future is taking us.
???
THE BELL ABOVE THE shop tinkles pleasantly, and I glance at the camera from where I’m sitting on my stool to see a young man has stepped in, looking around with hesitancy, clutching a small laptop to his chest. Missy and Tito are snoozing by my feet, but perk up as I make my way out of the back room to the front counter.
The man spots me, giving me a shy smile.
I’m hoping the light classical music and soft lighting will ease his nerves.
I can’t tell if he is here for service, to ask about a build, or to use the internet cafe, but the way he is glancing at the folks already seated at the tables working, I’m thinking it's the latter.
Ever since the Big Attack, Dravik, myself, and the Coven have been hard at work shoring up the tech for the town, which resulted in much stronger speeds for Wifi access and a renewed interest from businesses in getting connected and online.
That had an interesting effect on the families of the business owners, who wanted to expand their horizons a bit, and now we have several regulars coming in to use the high-speed Wifi from my shop to get their degrees online.
“Hi there, welcome in. How can I help you?” I say brightly.
“Hi, Ms. Okoye. Um, you came out to the school a couple of weeks ago to talk about your shop, and you mentioned robotics, and um, I was wondering if you could help me get into that?” His fingers grip the case of his laptop to the point where some of them are turning white.
I briefly think back to the event I attended at the school in Coldwater, letting the seniors know that they could get online in my shop, starting to apply to colleges, and I briefly mentioned some of the schools with nice coding or robotics programs.
“I’m glad you stopped by. What’s your name?” I keep my voice gentle and light, as though he might turn and flee at any second.
“James.” He murmurs so low I almost don’t hear him.
“Well, James. Let’s get you set up. You hungry?
We have cookies here from Mrs. Ames, a free cookie for the first paid hour of Wifi.
” I wiggle the dish of cookies, which smell so heavenly I might snag another one while everyone is busy.
It’ll be my third cookie today, but nobody needs to know that except me.
And Tito and Missy, who will watch me eat every crumb.
“No, I’m okay, thank you. I wanted to look at some schools that have robotics programs, and then I wanted to see if I could make a small one, just to test it out.
” His face gets a pinched look of longing.
“I haven’t had any opportunities to find out how to even start, but I try to help my dad out with cars and such, which is kinda the same, but not really. ”
I look at the laptop he’s been clutching, and with a sinking heart, I realize it will never be able to run the programs needed to fully automate a robot, and I know this kid has next to no money to buy anything from me.
“Can I see that for a moment?” I reach for his device, looking it over with a critical eye, even though I already know what I am about to say.
“So, you’ll need an upgrade for robotics, especially if you get into these programs, you don’t want to have to use the lab every time.
You’ll need something with a dedicated GPU, solid cooling, and room to grow, especially once you start running simulations or working with control boards. ”
I reach behind the counter, pulling out a sleek, matte-black machine with subtle RGB keys.
“This one’s a custom SFF build. Beefy internals, light enough to haul to college, and preloaded with everything from Arduino IDE to Fusion.”
His eyes grow wide, and I can see the panic already setting in.
I pat his arm, diffusing the tension. “We’ll do a trade, you give me your laptop, which I can use for parts, or upgrade and sell later.
And you’ll also agree to buy a Wifi package of ten sessions to cover the cost, and you’ll pay in installments.
That way, you can come in whenever you need, and you're still paying for the machine. What do you think?”
I was absolutely not getting the full value for that computer, but I didn’t care.
This is why I moved here: to give people a chance, a leg up, an opportunity.
I could see James, thinking it over, looking at the other people working away on their projects, some of them in high school like him, others closer to his parents' age, looking up videos on fixing things or new recipes.
I see the tension ease from his face, his shoulders relax, and I know he is going to say yes.
“Okay, let’s do it.” A shy smile spreads across his lips as he hands over his laptop. “And I think I will take a cookie. Mrs. Ames’ cookies are the best.”
“Don’t I know it!” Chuckling, I push the plate over.
???
LATER THAT DAY, I come back from giving Mrs. Ames her fourth tutorial on her new build.
Mrs. Ames, the owner of the Hollow Pine Inn, had finally come around, saying she needed a system to track her guests after an out-of-towner accidentally ruined a lamp.
I did a custom build for her, matching her rotary phone, keeping it antique and special, and I tacked on regular classes about using the simple system I set up.
In trade, I also get unlimited cookies, so win-win there.
I pop back into the shop to close up for the day, letting Missy and Tito go in ahead of me.
Drav and I take turns on who gets the dogs during the day, because now that we live together, they don’t seem to want to ever be apart.
We tried having Missy stay with Drav during the day, and Tito with me, but it was pretty clear how unhappy they were.
They zoom in, barking loudly, and I look up to see Drav in the center of the empty shop, on his knee, holding a ring box in his hand.
Time stops, and I’m not sure if my brain is even processing what is happening.
I step closer, not even really looking at the ring, just at him, tears sliding down his face, curving over his cheekbones, and dripping onto his shirt.
He’s in his true form, a black button-up shirt tucked into dark wash jeans.
“I’ve wanted to ask you this for a long time, but I kept putting it off because I thought you would think it was too soon, or maybe that you needed more time to get settled, or maybe because you moved in, we needed to wait longer, but I can’t wait any longer.
” He says all this in a rush, in one long breath, his hands holding the box shaking slightly.
My hands are covering my mouth, and I just wait for him.
“Simone, will you marry me?” His voice is steady as he asks me, but before he can even get all the words out, I stride over to him, crying out, “Yes!”
We tumble together onto the floor, Missy and Tito jumping in to join, thinking it's a big game, as we collapse together in a heap, one big happy family.
~ The End ~