Epilogue
SAM
Five years later
“I think that’s the last of it,” I said to Lana as I looked around the apartment where it all started. It felt like the end of an era.
“You act like you’re never coming back,” Lana said with a roll of her eyes. “Are you never planning to see me or your nephew again?”
Now that we were moving out, Annabelle agreed to let Lana move in. It wasn’t hard to convince her considering she was now Gramps’ ‘ lady friend .’
I gagged just imagining him saying that. I was happy Gramps and Annabelle had gotten another chance at love, but if I never heard him call Annabelle that again, it would still be too soon.
Since Lana was moving into the apartment, we let her keep the stuff she wanted. It was mostly living room and kitchen items because she vehemently insisted she’d buy bedroom furniture and told us to take our bed with us, acting like it had cooties from me and Ryker or something.
Then again, I couldn’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to sleep on a bed my sibling and their partner had been getting frisky on.
Junior ran around the place, full of energy. He was super hyped about getting his own room for the first time and had even talked Ryker into building him a pirate ship bed. At five years old, his greatest ambition was to sail the open seas in search of treasure.
Movement came from my right. Ryker and Jones exited from what used to be my office and was now Junior’s room, carrying my precious desk.
“Careful with that!” I admonished when they bumped the desk against the door frame.
“You act like it isn’t already covered in scratches,” my sister ever so helpfully commented.
I glared at her.
While she wasn’t wrong, it didn’t mean I wanted her to point it out. When we first turned the spare bedroom into my office and brought the desk Ryker had built for me home, we had a hard time teaching Gray to stop scratching the desk.
It was especially difficult because neither Ryker nor I could seriously reprimand Gray. He was just too adorable and knew how to use his cuteness, rolling on his back and exposing his belly to us whenever he sensed we were angry.
This didn’t bode well for our future parenthood. One of us was going to have to learn how to play bad cop before our adoption application was approved.
Lana, Junior, and I followed Ryker and Jones as they carried my desk down the stairs. Gramps and Annabelle were holding hands and waiting for us. I wondered if love was the magical fountain of youth because Gramps looked years younger as he gave a toothy smile to his…Annabelle.
I refused to call her his lady friend .
They were good together, and I liked Annabelle, especially after finding out that she still rented to us despite knowing all along that Ryker and I weren’t together. She’d told me since Ryker and I were so intent on living there that we’d go so far as faking a relationship, then she couldn’t disappoint us. Plus, she knew we were ‘ good boys .’
That wasn’t all she’d told me. The whole thin walls thing and worrying about our sex life? A complete and utter lie. While the wall between our bedroom and the outside stairs was on the thinner side, Annabelle had renovated the place to make sure no sound peeped through to the other living spaces. She’d just wanted to fuck with us as a little revenge for the lie. Plus, she’d thought Ryker and I would make a cute couple, so she brewed up a little matchmaking plan to push us together.
I couldn’t even be mad if I wanted to considering Ryker and I might not have fallen into bed together and started our relationship for real without her little strike to my ego.
Annabelle was good friends with Gramps’ neighbor and the biggest gossip in town, Auntie Mae, which was how she knew I hadn’t been dating anyone. She’d also gotten to know Gramps better on her many visits to Auntie Mae’s house. More than once, I’d be at Gramps’ house visiting and catch Annabelle bumping into Gramps as he tended his aloe plants in the back.
I suspected the run-ins were less than accidental on her part. She kept coming around and before anybody knew it, they announced they were courting and had now been together for a few years.
Our move seemed to have set off a chain of moves, with Lana and Junior moving into the apartment and Annabelle moving in with Gramps—since she had more space to garden in the backyard there. Gramps must really adore her if he was willing to sacrifice precious aloe plant real estate for her.
Ryker’s friends, who were now also my friends, were kind enough to bring their large vehicles and help with the moves. Ryker and Jones hefted the desk into the back of Jones’ truck. Jones mock-saluted me, then got into the driver’s seat. Ryker came around to give me a kiss.
“I’ll meet you at the new place?” he said, giving me a peck.
“Okay, husband,” I replied and smacked his ass as he walked away.
Damn, I’d never get tired of looking at him or calling him my husband, even after four years of being married.
It felt like our wedding ceremony was just yesterday. Surrounded by our friends and family, we made the vow of a lifetime together, and I’d been walking on cloud nine every day since.
“You two are still disgustingly in love even after all these years,” Lana said with a shake of her head. There was a smile on her face as she said so, though, and I pulled her into my arms for a half hug.
Cade had tried to reach out to her a few times over the years, but she’d always ignored his messages unless they were about Junior. She was far kinder than I was to even give him updates about Junior, but she’d always claimed she didn’t want to take away Junior’s option to form a relationship with his father if he wanted to in the future.
I didn’t hold much hope for Cade as a father figure, but I could understand Lana’s desire to keep that avenue open for him when ours had been brutally taken away from us. And even if Cade never became a part of Junior’s life, he would still be surrounded by people who loved and cared for him.
I still suspected the whole breakup with Cade hurt Lana more than she wanted to admit. She’d sworn off dating, claiming she wanted to focus on Junior for now, but there were moments I’d catch a glimpse of loneliness that I hated seeing. But as her older brother, all I could do was be there for her and support her decisions.
A car pulled up the gravel driveway and stopped in front of Lana and me. Atlas exited the driver’s seat with a grin.
“I brought coffee,” he said with a wave toward the backseat of his car.
“You’re a lifesaver!” I laughed and gave my friend a hug of thanks.
I’d gotten to know Atlas a lot better over the years and we’d become good friends. He really was such a sweetheart and one of the sunniest people I knew, which was why it was even more shocking to realize he matched so well with the stone-faced diner owner.
“Sorry, I can’t stay to help. Hector’s gonna need all hands on deck at the diner soon,” Atlas said once we got all the coffees moved to Lana’s mostly empty car for her to take with us to the new house.
“Trust me, you’re helping a ton already with the coffee. Thank you again. You guys are coming to the housewarming next week, right?” I asked.
“You betcha!” he replied, then was off as quickly as he’d arrived.
“Should we head over, too?” I asked my family.
“Are we going to stay at the log house?” Junior asked with shiny eyes. He thought just because our new home was a cabin and made of wood, then it was naturally a log house.
I smiled and hefted him onto my hipbone. He was getting a lot bigger and heavier than before. How did time go by so quickly?
“Sure are. Unckie will take you treasure hunting in the woods behind our log house tomorrow with Gray, okay?” I told him.
Gray had grown a fondness for our walks and loved exploring all the new sights he wasn’t able to see inside our home. Ryker and I were very pleased about this development and had managed to get Gray down to a reasonable weight for a cat.
Unlike that happy news, unckie had not been Junior’s first words. Or his second or third. I was squarely fourth after Mama, GG, and food , but that was okay. His first three words were solid choices.
Junior nodded happily, then scrambled to be put down to run to his GG—otherwise known to me as Gramps—probably to tell him about all the wild adventures he was going to have.
Since my car was packed full of boxes, the others would drive Lana’s car to meet me at the house.
We’d purchased a small piece of land near my Gramps’ place and over the last year, Ryker and our friends had been slowly building the house of our dreams. The wood cabin was larger than Jones’ cabin, considering we’d built the place to raise children, eventually. Plus, there were enough rooms for our families to come and stay, too.
Everyone was already gathered in the large entranceway that turned into the living room, which was the heart of the cabin. Lana, Gramps, and Annabelle handed out the coffee to let everyone have a break.
Junior tried to help, too, but they were probably worried he’d spill the drinks and burn himself, so Ryker scooped him up and placed him on his shoulders. They ran around the couches and Junior’s bubbly giggles were the soundtrack to the adults’ casual conversation.
I stood there for a moment, taking the entire sight in. I never thought this would be my life one day. A home filled with the tight community we’d built with our friends and family, preparations to become fathers, and best of all, doing it all with the man who had my entire heart.
And to think all this started with a fake vow.