Epilogue
A lot of emotion can be conveyed in a knock. Sharp and pissy. Cordial and businesslike. Great big pounding angry knocks. A rap-tap-tap of happy knuckles across a wood panel. Just now, I heard my first ever long-suffering knock.
I roll out of bed and twist out of the way of Jack’s attempt to give my rear a slap. My eyes promise retribution as I throw on a robe and rush to the door.
Gence is standing on the landing. He is shaking his head. “Penny. Come on.”
I blush. There’s only one thing that could’ve brought him up here. It’s been a glorious six months of coupledom—for everyone but our neighbors downstairs. They never used to hear a thing down there. Guess we just hadn’t been making the right kind of noise.
“Quiet hours. Your neighbor in 4A… They think earthquake happening, they say.”
I sense Jack behind me before I feel him.
“Sorry, Gence… We…ah…got a little carried away.”
Gence takes in our state of undress. The fact Jack is in my apartment. He hasn’t seen us together yet. His bushy brows hike their way up his face like lethargic caterpillars. “Oh, ho ho! Look at that. I thought you two would kill each other. Instead, you…do this. Hajt pra.”
“I’ve got him for a month-to-month lease with option for renewal.” I shrug, the smile I’ve been carrying around the past few months literally hurting my cheeks.
“You should buy. No renting,” Gence says sternly, looking at the two of us. “When you need officiant, you let me know, okay? I have side business.”
I stifle my laugh, mortified that the topic of marriage has arisen so early in our relationship, but I’m nearly pitched into hysterics at the thought of Mom’s reaction to Gence conducting our ceremony.
She’s mellowed significantly, and she’s even seeing a therapist she really likes. We’re still working on boundaries.
I clear my throat, not wanting the subject of marriage to dangle out there too long.
“We swear. We won’t make any more noise,” I say, giving Gence my most reassuring look.
The kind I usually reserve for my team at work when I know an exciting new project will require long hours.
It’s half promise, half apology for future angst.
Gence harrumphs and rolls his eyes, but there’s a fondness in his expression, too, I think? Ever since I switched to making him sugar-free baked goods, he’s been way friendlier. And I bake a mean diabetic-friendly snickerdoodle.
The tickling Jack gives me the second the door closes belies that promise, of course.
I turn to face Jack and wind my arms around his neck, feeling like I’m glowing from within.
He smirks down at me, his warm gaze full of mischief.
He brushes back a strand of my hair, tenderly, and I have to give myself a mental shake.
I still can’t quite believe this is my life now.
I’ve got my very own white knight with a pirate smile, and I’ve brought down all my walls and then some.
Jack leans down to murmur in my ear, and I shiver.
“Let’s go be bad.”
Gence looks heavenward as he moves down the stairs. He’s mumbling when he enters his apartment to find Zoya, straightening as she closes the oven.
“The burek smells good,” he says.
“You already ate. This is for tomorrow.”
Gence grunts. Their children are coming to visit tomorrow, with their own spouses and children. Which means that the only way to get a piece of burek is to wake up after she goes to sleep.
“Don’t make me hide it from you,” Zoya says, reading his mind correctly. “So what are the gomare on five up to now?” she asks him, wiping her hand on the dishrag at her hip.
“The donkeys? They are living together, I think,” Gence responds.
“Of course they are! I already knew that, o burre. I asked cka dreqin po bajne up there?”
“Too much up and down,” Gence mutters.
“The man is a pervert. What I found in the dryer that day…bo bo… And someone said he worships the devil. I like the girl better. She tried to kill you, so she’s okay in my book.” His wife’s smile sets Gence’s belly to jiggling with his silent laugh.
After the purple monstrosity was found in the dryer, he’d had the idea to drive the fifth-floor occupants out.
One of them. Both of them. Didn’t matter.
He needed peace. So that broken toilet? Two days without fixing.
And maybe a dishwasher mysteriously breaks just after Gence was in the apartment to fix something else.
He’d even taken all the girl’s underwear out of the wash once and thrown them in the dumpster out back before his wife could find him with them and get the wrong idea.
Who stays in a building where one of your neighbors has the disgusting habit of stealing underwear? No one normal.
But they stayed. And they fought. And they gave Gence more gray hairs. And now…together?
He inspects his own wife of forty years, each line on her face reflecting a shared laugh or cry. Are they really so different from the gomare upstairs?
Gence shuffles along to the kitchen and presses a soft kiss to his wife’s forehead. “Love is very stupid,” he grumbles. And a profound gratitude flows through him as his wife turns to give him a proper kiss.
Zoya presses something against his chest. Her copy of The Pirate Duke’s Revenge. Gence eagerly opens it. “Finally! You read like a breshke, too slow.”
“I take my time.” She waggles her eyebrows. “And you’ll want to take your time with page one hundred forty-one.”
Gence opens to the page and then slowly looks up, his cheeks red. Love is stupid. But it is also very, very good.