Epilogue #2
Then we drove our asses to the motel like every other couple having daytime affairs. And we became the fellow guests she’d hated while living there, with our headboard knocking, dirty-talking, begging, and screaming sex.
Lula - 4 months
“Which room is this again?” Raff asked as we stood in the weather-tight frame of the first home build.
Not my home. Our home.
We’d batted around that idea for a while before ultimately deciding we were happy temporarily with living at the clubhouse while I got my new business venture up and running.
Besides, we’d taken a road trip across the South once each month since moving in, which was almost half the month on the road, so it wasn’t like we were even there long enough to get tired of it.
I had everything I needed there: a private room, a huge closet, a clean bathroom, a working kitchen, and a gorgeous new handmade desk. And, of course, Raff.
The house could wait.
Now that I’d spent so much time planning, I really wanted to see the first house go up and go for sale. I wanted to be sure my expectations were realistic for the market. And that I would enjoy the process.
So far, so good.
“This is a flex room,” I told him.
“And a flex room is…”
“Whatever you need it to be. When I was doing research on what people really wished houses had more of, the list was mostly simple: more outlets, more—and bigger—closets, a pantry, and built-in storage. But almost everyone said something like: a guest room, a home office, a craft room, a home gym. No one agreed on what kind of room they needed, but everyone needed an extra room for… something. So we worked a flex room into the plans. It has a closet, so it can be a bedroom. It has enough wall space to put in storage for crafts or office supplies. It’s big enough for some home gym equipment.
It can be whatever the buyer dreams up.”
“You’re a genius.”
“So you have said. Daily. For four months.”
“It’s been true. Daily. For four months.”
“It’s really looking like a house now,” I said, moving back into the main space. “I can see a family moving in here. Having kids. Hosting Thanksgiving dinner…”
“I can see us doing all those things too,” he agreed, moving in behind me and wrapping his arms around my stomach. “Eventually.”
We agreed on that whole ‘eventually’ part.
Yes, we both wanted a house, we wanted the kids, we wanted the big, crazy, family parties.
Eventually. Right now, we weren’t in a rush.
We were enjoying living together, traveling together, making plans together.
Everything else would come at the right time.
“So, did you decide on what to do with the lots?”
“We’re keeping them each at two acres,” I told him.
“I mean, we do want to scale a business, but we also love this town. So all the investors agreed that preserving the small town feel was important to us. The town could use more housing and more people. But we don’t want it to become too built-up either. ”
Technically, the Murphy brothers were the only investors right now. I had discussed with Cillian the potential to scale up, but he’d understandably asked to consider only working with them for the Shady Valley project.
I was, after all, their bookkeeper. And he claimed they had more than enough money to fund the project in the town.
He was open to me expanding eventually, but wanted to get to be the first investor.
And since I was still just a little insecure about the whole thing, I was happy to agree to keep working with people I trusted—and who had faith in me.
“I like that idea. Keep Shady Valley a small town. I mean, it’s been a ghost town for a long time now, but it’s nice to see people moving in and wanting to revamp downtown and shit. So, when you get to your house, you get two acres too?”
“Unless we decide to be selfish and keep four.”
“I mean, you could be a billionaire by then and want six wings and a driveway big enough for ten sports cars.”
That had been, in a very exaggerated way, the dream.
And I still wanted to build wealth that could compound generation to generation.
But it suddenly didn’t matter as much about labels or cars or how big the house was.
Because I finally understood what people said about how it wasn’t the house; it was the people in it.
I guess when I’d been on my own for so long, it was hard to wrap my head around that concept. So I clung to things that seemed more attainable: designer brands, how many zeroes were in my bank account, what kind of marble I would put in my kitchen. Superficial things.
Now that I had not only Raff, but his entire extended family, I was more interested in fostering relationships and traditions than chasing trends or impressing strangers.
Being with the bikers and their families reminded me, in an odd way, of spending summers with my grandparents. The loud, chaotic, loving energy. The amazing meals. The laughing until everyone’s bellies hurt.
And, well, Slash let me plant a flower garden.
By “let me,” I mean he said, “Why the fuck would I give a shit about that?” when Raff asked if it would be okay if I opened one up. Sure, it was getting cool, but I had major plans come springtime.
There was so much to look forward to.
And also so much to enjoy in the present moment.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Raff asked as we made it up to the second floor and what would become the primary bedroom.
“Not to sound like an old lady, but my knees are not made for being on all fours on plywood floors.”
“Well then,” he said, grabbing me and turning me, dragging a shocked yelp out of my chest. “I hope you invested in good, solid walls,” he said before we slammed into one of them, mouths and hands already greedy.
Luckily, I had invested in good walls.
And a lot of sound-blocking insulation.
Raff - 3 years
“My friends!” Zayn greeted, arms thrown wide as he stood on the dock wearing an all-white outfit that billowed in a light breeze coming off the coast.
Daniyal stood a few feet back, his gaze scanning the shore for any threats.
“This is bizarre,” I told Lula as we made our way toward him. “Like my two worlds are clashing.”
Because, for the most part, while some of us did spend time in Golden Glades, the Golden Glades crew never spent time in Shady Valley.
But this event was sort of bringing the two worlds together, I guess.
And by ‘event,’ I meant our wedding.
Which was not technically taking place on the yacht, but our honeymoon—at least in part—was.
We were having our wedding in California, then some of us were hopping on the yacht to travel all the way to Florida.
Which would be, roughly, a four-week trip.
On the other end, Lula and I planned to mix a little business with pleasure.
We were going to drop in on a development site she was working on, then we were getting a car and driving all the way back to California. We planned to stay at all the same hotels and hit up all the same restaurants on the route we’d originally fallen in love on.
It felt like a fitting way to celebrate the beginning of our marriage.
And we were excited for all of it. But Lula wanted us to do a quick once-over of the yacht before we invited guests on the following evening.
“Everything is as you wished,” Zayn said as he welcomed us onto the yacht.
“And all the… illicit stuff?” Lula asked.
“Gone. Not a trace of cocaine anywhere.”
“Cocaine?” Lula gulped. “I was talking about the weapons.”
“Oh, right. Well, yes, those have, of course, been removed.”
“Why was there cocaine here?”
“Oh, you know. A little cocaine, a little molly, some mushrooms if someone wants to partake in those kinds of party favors.”
“Our guests will not be partaking in those party favors,” Lula, who had grown to understand how direct you needed to be with Zayn, said carefully.
“Understood. Nothing here but what you ordered.”
We did a tour of the yacht, checking out the guest rooms to make sure they were fully stocked, then moving through the common areas.
The planner we’d hired in Miami had done a great job setting everything up to our specifications—including a set of photographs I’d taken of Lula and both of us on that original road trip years ago.
“And the staff?” Lula asked.
“Thirty-five crew members specially trained in their hospitality fields… as well as special forces training,” Zayn explained.
“Special forces?” Lula whispered to me.
“International arms dealing billionaire,” I said, shrugging. I’d always known he had more than the highly capable Daniyal keeping an eye on him, but I’d never been given those details before.
“Right,” she agreed. “Well, we and all our guests will feel very safe knowing that.”
“The medical crew is also fully stocked and prepared. The chefs are ready to get to work. The crew has been working tirelessly to make sure the vessel is in tip-top shape.”
“I really wish you would let us pay you for this,” Lula said.
When I’d first suggested the yacht, she’d been resistant because its sheer opulence.
“Those things cost between ten and fifty thousand dollars a day to run.” And with a trip as long as California to Florida, we were looking at over a quarter to half a million… just for part of our honeymoon.
It was interesting to see how her ideas on opulence had changed over the years. Even as she built her real estate empire and started to acquire more than enough money to be as reckless with it as she wanted, she got more conservative about how she spent it.
She dreamed differently now. I didn’t hear her talk about summer houses or lavish vacations. She talked about investments, retirement, about a safe, quiet life in our dream home with our kids.