EPILOGUE
WALKER
FOUR YEARS LATER
“You got to wear the hat, Cowboy,” Sonya calls from the kitchen table in my childhood home. A gentle glee in her voice. “You promised me the full Georgia experience.”
“I do not understand your obsession with this thing,” I say, stepping down the hall with the felt hat resting over my head.
Her face lights up at the sight of me in a pair of light wash jeans, pale orange short sleeve button up with the sleeves cuffed, finished off with the worn-in cowboy boots I’ve had since I was seventeen years old and the hat that has stopped collected dust on the top shelf of my closet since Sonya found her way into my bed.
“This good enough for you, gorgeous?” I ask, giving a slow spin before approaching where she’s perched on the edge of the kitchen table.
She answers by parting her legs, letting me step between them. “You have never looked better.” She tilts her head back to meet my eyes, her hands coming down to rest over my hands as they slide up her thighs and under the hem of her sundress. “I specifically like this new addition,” she says, her fingertips pausing on the gold band hugging my finger. “Husband.”
“Wife,” I hum, leaning in to press my lips to hers. Her hands slide up my arms, running over my shoulders until her fingers are tangled in my hair, and mine travel further up her dress. “God, you in a fucking sundress is my new favorite thing.”
She grins against my mouth, sliding her hands down my chest and over the collar of the white undershirt peeking out from beneath my button-down, leaning back before lifting her leg on either side of me. “Yeah? I’ll make sure to wear more. What do you think about my boots?”
I turn my head to take in the white cowboy boots on her feet and when my gaze returns to her, she’s playing with the necklace I gave her all those years ago. The diamond ring on her finger is now joined by a thin wedding band. It never ceases to amaze me just how different things are from all those years ago when we kept telling ourselves we were just friends.
Now, I get to stand here and admire this incredible woman for the rest of my life. I thought I was lucky to get to love her, but then she said she would marry me, and I realized my luck was only starting.
“I love you,” I say, reaching for her hand when she lets go of her necklace. “You know that?”
She nods her head, sliding forward on the table and landing softly on her feet. “Yeah, Cowboy. I know,” she says, hooking her index finger in my belt loop. “But you can keep telling me forever if you want to. I don’t mind.”
I lean down and tangle my fingers in the wild curls at the base of her neck. “Always, Sunny,” I whisper against her lips before pressing them to hers.
Her arms move around my waist, pulling my body flush to hers. It never grows old, getting to have her like this. She’s the brightest star in my life, the clear direction in every route I take.
When I proposed at the end of my first year of law school, and Sunny’s last year of undergrad, I was sure I was pushing my luck. Asking too much of her too soon, but then she said yes.
“We should go,” she mumbles against my mouth, yet to untangle from me. “Your mom is probably wondering where we are.”
“She can wait,” I whisper against her lips, pressing her back against the table. She follows my steps, her hand coming out to rest on the table as I lean down to pepper her neck with kisses. “It’ll be her honeymoon gift to us.”
She giggles and rests her hand on my chest, giving me a small shove back. “I don’t think that’s going to fly, considering we have to inform her we eloped without her.”
I take a slow step back, grinning at the memory. A wedding was the plan. It was all we talked about for two whole years after agreeing we’d wait until I graduated law school, but then Sonya got a job offer in New York from her former professor, and suddenly, a wedding didn’t seem like a big deal. We didn’t want to wait for our lives together to start, so when we saw the chapel on our drive from Michigan to Ashmore to visit my mom, it seemed like fate was trying to tell us something. Like maybe we didn’t need to wait anymore to start forever.
“Yeah,” I say, my lips curling up. “You’re probably right about that.”
“Probably,” she says in a playful tone, tucking her hand into mine. “We both know I am always right, Cowboy. Better get used to it. You’re stuck with me forever now.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
She grins at me from over her shoulder while dragging me towards the front door, which opens before we can reach it. My mom is standing in the doorway with her hands on my hips. “The two of you are going to give me a heart attack one of these days, you know that? I thought we were meeting at the gallery?”
“Sorry, Mama,” I say, sliding my hand over Sonya’s waist. “We got a bit distracted.”
“It’s fine, Peach. I’m just glad the two of you…” she pauses, her eyes dropping to Sonya’s waist where my hand rests, and her hand comes off her hip, pointing towards it. “What is that?” she asks, lifting her gaze to me while Sonya’s hand drops to my hand, hiding the ring I wasn’t thinking about when I put my hand there. “Walker Bodie, do not tell me you eloped.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
“Walker Bodie!” She gasps, and for half a second anger fills her gaze but then it drops to my wife and it melts away. “Oh my God, I am so mad at both of you right now, but my Sunny girl! You’re officially a Bodie,” she says, joy lacing her words as she opens her arms.
Sonya pulls away from me and skips over to my mom, wrapping her arms around her. One of my favorite things about the last four years with Sonya is getting to watch her bond with my mom, sliding right in like she was the missing piece to our family.
I get to watch my two favorite girls be each other’s biggest cheerleaders, and I couldn’t ask for anything more. If this is what the rest of my life will be, loving Sonya and everything that she is, I will die a happy man.
I step towards them, sliding my arm around Sonya’s shoulder when she untangles from my mom. “So, that thing about me not being able to do anything to make you hate me…you still mean that?” I tease.
“I want to be upset, but how can I when you look this happy?” she says, resting her hands on her hips. “Please tell me you at least had some pictures taken.”
“We did!” Sonya answers for me, sliding her hand into my back pocket to take my phone out. “I know we said we wanted this big wedding and everything, but I got a really great job offer, so you are looking at two future New Yorkers.”
“New York, huh?” Her eyes shift to me before taking the outstretched phone from Sonya’s hands, the three of us heading for the front door. “Your friends live there, don't they? The artists?”
Sonya nods her head. “Yeah, they do. Plus, Flynn. It’ll be nice having them around. It feels like we’re all over the place now. Did I tell you Bekah’s getting married?”
“To the hockey player?”
“Yeah, I can barely—”
“Okay, that’s enough gossip,” I say, taking the two porch steps ahead of them. “You can fill her in later. I believe you were promised the full Georgia rodeo experience, gorgeous.”
Sonya's eyes glitter with amusement when I take the hat off my head, setting it on top of hers while my mom offers me my phone back. I slide it into my back pocket before turning around and giving Sonya my back. “Hop on.”
“So demanding,” she says, but takes my help in climbing onto my back before draping arms over my shoulders. “I don’t think this is what they meant when they said wear the hat, ride the cowboy.”
“Brat.”
“Just for you, Cowboy. Just for you,” she mutters, pressing her lips to my hair.
Her palm slides over my chest, and I lift one hand up to bring it to my lips, her wedding ring a glaring reminder that we have the rest of our lives together. To keep learning each other, to grow together and with every second, I fall a little more in love with the girl I never let myself believe one day could be mine.
Instead, she gave me forever.
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