Chapter 17 Rowleigh （Epilogue）
Chapter seventeen
Rowleigh
Epilogue
Iglance up from swiping a towel over the bar’s top—I’m fastidious about cleanliness—and my eyes lock on the most beautiful woman in the world.
I temporarily forget about the towel in my hand, the bar’s sticky top, and the lineup of people crowded around, waiting for their drinks.
The lounge might as well be as empty as it was that first night, just me and my piano goddess.
She’s lovely, her back straight, her hands flying over the keys. We changed the direction of the piano, which affords me a view of her side profile. The low light glints off her wire-rim glasses, and her scarlet lips are tilted at the corners. She’s lost in the music, and I’m lost in her.
The music she creates is second only to her beauty.
Her kindness somehow flows into her playing, infusing the instrument with the same kindness and graciousness.
She’s the kind of person who never has a bad word to say about anyone.
Who takes life’s hurts and tries to transform them.
She’s the kind of woman who won’t let me throw my life away on a fake marriage.
Three chances. Three wishes.
I didn’t even take all three.
“Hey, Dad. Can you stop ogling my future stepmom and start pouring drinks again?”
I snap my eyes from the piano straight into my daughter’s face. Literally, because she’s leaning over the bar, her striking red hair, dark red eyes, and heavy black makeup moving into my line of vision as she sways even further forward.
“I know you’re thirsty when it comes to my bestie, but I’m thirsty, as in, I’m dying for even a glass of water.
Those new chicken wings were spicy! Bellatrix warned me, but I didn’t listen.
I can handle spice, I said. I’ll be fine, I said.
Well, I’m not fine.” She fans her face, opening her mouth to suck in rapid bursts of air.
“Milk. Not water,” I tell her.
“Excellent idea.”
Once I’ve poured her a glass, she doesn’t move out of the way and let anyone else through. “She’s amazing up there. And all the time,” she gushes.
My throat closes up tight, and I can barely nod.
At the table closest to the stage, Bellatrix’s parents lean in.
When we first revitalized the lounge, they came to see her play as often as they could.
Her mom’s schedule made it hard for her to be here all the time, but her dad never missed a night.
She’s been playing three times a week for a few months now, and they still make it every chance they can get.
Mika’s thin eyebrows draw in over her nose. She chugs back the milk and sighs, wiping her upper lip. Somehow, all her makeup stays in place. “When are you going to ask her to move in with you? Pleaseeeee tell me it’s soon.”
It floors me that even though Mika and I spent so many years apart, our wavelength is so frighteningly similar. “Did Bellatrix say anything about that?”
She snorts. “Never. She’s very private about you guys unless it’s telling me how wonderful you are, and kind, and considerate, and all the barf-worthy sappiness.”
We’re both as private about our relationship as we can be.
Not ashamed. There’s a difference. Bellatrix doesn’t even have social media.
She did when she worked as a wedding planner, but she deleted it after the jerkholes fired her.
She doesn’t believe in public consumption, and that’s incredibly refreshing.
Instead of worrying about a life lived online, she just lives her real one to the fullest.
A few weeks ago, she took me to a playground in the middle of the city so we could swing at two in the morning.
She was irrationally worried about getting arrested, but there was no one around, and even if there had been, I’m sure we would have been fine.
She has also tried convincing me to go skinny dipping, but since it’s October, that’s something we’ll have to save until next year.
I plan to help her with the other items on the love life bucket list that she intended for me. They all deserve to become a reality.
Especially her pet a cat if a cat wants to be petted, or a dog, or pet all the animals wish.
“I have a surprise for her later tonight. After we close up, I’m going to ask her.” I’ve been nervous about this for weeks, which was when the idea first started churning around in my brain.
Despite her dark makeup, Mika is all sunny smiles. “Yes!” She claps her hands. “Yes. She’ll love it. Don’t worry.”
“It’s only been a few months,” I point out nervously.
“Yes, but you guys move at a pace that is entirely your own. It might be weird to the rest of the world, but who cares? The rest of the world can suck it up.” She goes utterly still and gets totally serious.
“You deserve to be happy, Dad, and Bellatrix deserves every good thing ever. Don’t worry about rational timelines.
Those are for people with zero imagination. ”
Mika’s support means everything. “You deserve every good thing ever too.”
Her eyes sparkle with unshed tears. “Oh my godddd, Dad. I know that. Don’t make me cry about it.”
She does, though. Truly. In a world where it’s so easy to become bitter, where people love to say horrible things and love to hear them even more, Mika has never let any of that get to her.
She’s always been happy for Bellatrix, and she encouraged her from the first. I can’t imagine what it would have been like stumbling into my soulmate, only to have my daughter be dead set against it because that person also happened to be her best friend.
Mika hasn’t just encouraged us to be together.
She’s been in both our lives so seamlessly, though I know what a great amount of effort that takes.
Someone jostles Mika from behind, but instead of getting mad about it, her smile becomes a grin. “There’s going to be a full mutiny in here if I don’t get out of the way. Let me know when you’re starting to book other bands. I have a few friends who would love a chance to play somewhere.”
“Anytime. For you, anytime,” I say to Mika.
She laughs. “I’ll tell them then. You just focus on serving drinks, romancing the world’s best woman, and doing you because you have always been really cool.”
She leaves me with that, dancing away across the open stretch of floor in the middle of the lounge in her massive platforms. She didn’t start the night by sitting with Bellatrix’s parents, but when she approached their table, they quickly gestured at a chair for her.
Bellatrix opens her eyes at the movement so close to the raised stage, and her face breaks into a perfectly gorgeous smile. In the next second, her hazel eyes flash to me. Our gazes lock, and her lips curl into a soft, private smile just for me.
“Lock the door,” she mouths. “And come here.”
She’s not serious, but when she sees that I nearly fall over and have to clutch the bar, her smile widens playfully.
She never misses a single note for the rest of the night while I’m at the bar, fumbling over everything. I spill at least three drinks, drop a full bottle, and mix up orders incessantly. It’s astounding that no one gives me any grief about being the world’s most inept bartender.
The lounge is packed until the last call, and even then, I have to usher people out.
It’s not the kind of place where anyone goes to get fall-on-the-floor drunk.
We revitalized the lounge, making it a more welcoming spot for people of all ages.
Mika says it’s hip and trendy and has all the good vibes.
The people who stay until the last call are just having fun soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying each other’s company.
Bellatrix’s parents are the last in the crowd to leave. They tell their daughter how beautifully she played and then hug her tight. It never fails to make her teary-eyed in a good way. Her parents aren’t huggers, but they know she is.
Mika is the last of the last to head out.
She stays to help with clean-up even though there are staff working who are more than happy to do it.
She even wipes down the bar for me, then discreetly tells me to “give ‘er balls at that surprise,” hugs me goodnight, and heads out with one of the security guys. He’ll walk her to her car and make sure that she’s in with the doors locked behind her before he comes back here.
Bellatrix is radiant. I’d do anything in the world to make her happy, but she’s told me before that it’s not necessary.
She’s taken charge of her own life, strengthening her relationship with her parents, staying in touch with some of her old co-workers, and making sure she’s always there for Mika.
She was with me one hundred percent as we changed up the lounge.
She’s been my partner in every way, never relying on me to do anything for her just because I’m older or because I have the means to do it.
She’s getting used to sometimes being treated with special dinners or a surprise trip to Europe that I mixed in with business, but lavish gifts are out.
She’d told me that she’d rather I donate the money.
But she has promised me that if she ever needs anything, she’ll just ask.
That’s more than fair.
She knows what she wants, and it’s me rather than my money.
It doesn’t mean that if I want to spoil her in the future, she won’t agree to it, as long as it’s something I can enjoy too.
“What are you thinking about so hard back here?” Bellatrix asks when she finds me locking the cash drawers into the safe in the office at the back.
“Thinking?”
“I’ve been watching you through the crack in the door for at least five minutes, and you’re in that dazed trance state where your brain gets a workout.”
She wraps her arms around me from behind, locking her hands around my waist and kissing the side of my neck—a bonus of her being extremely tall.
“Just let me put these away and lock up. And then I have a surprise for you.”