Epilogue
SIX MONTHS LATER
You Two Look Familiar
Mark
I’m sitting on the sofa, eavesdropping, while Rosie manipulates my live-in boyfriend.
“That was a short chapter,” she says. “We could read another one real quick.”
My hands go still on the corkscrew, waiting to hear whether he gives in or does the hard thing and gets his gorgeous ass out here so we can watch TV together.
It’s not like I’ve been waiting a whole damn year for the conclusion of An Arranged Marriage .
Tonight we’re finally getting the finale to season two.
“Well . . .” Asher hedges.
I clear my throat. Loudly.
“. . . Not this time,” he says, his voice colored by regret.
Honestly, Asher and Rosie are a great team. When he came to stay with us last winter, I’d had no idea how easily my boyfriend would slip into the role of becoming another parent to Rosie.
They have a whole set of jokes and hobbies together. He’s teaching her to play soccer. And lately, they’ve been reading a British series of children’s books I’d never heard of before.
It’s magic. Usually . But tonight, I’m impatient.
I hear the low sound of Asher’s goodnight to my daughter. And the click of the lamp. Now it’s quiet, and I can picture him passing a hand over her hair, and giving her a last kiss on the crown of her head.
Asher never moved out of my apartment. He flew home for Christmas after our Paris weekend and never left.
Next month, he’s selling his Brooklyn place to the subletter.
We’re going to look around this neighborhood for a bigger place to buy together.
But we’ll take our time until the right apartment comes along.
The door closes with a soft click, and Asher emerges from Rosie’s room.
“Finally!” I hiss. “I’m dying here.”
“Simmer down, nerd boy. Ooh, wine?” He seats himself on the couch beside me and I pass him a glass.
I press play .
The theme music kicks in, and Asher wraps an arm around me. “C’mon, Webflix. Give us a happy ending. And if that’s too much to ask for, at least give us a good make-out scene.”
“It’s not too much to ask for,” I argue. “They can tell the duchess where to shove it, and settle down to manage Ollie’s place in the country. His people need him.”
“Hmm.” Asher sips his wine. “But will the bad boy poet be content in the country? He’s a man of action and sin. What if he loses his muse? What if all his poems start to rhyme? There was an old git from Nantucket . . .”
I snort. “I’ll admit that Sir Trevor has been slutting it up during season two. But it’s all an act. He’s trying to convince himself that he doesn’t need true love.”
“He does, though,” Asher says, turning to kiss my neck. “He really does.”
An hour later, the show ends more or less how I called it?in a swell of orchestra music and a hot, steamy kiss.
Troliver have kept a pied-à-terre in London?to keep Trevor up on the latest gossip.
But they spend much of their time frolicking around Ollie’s estate and modernizing the agricultural technology.
Or something. I’m a little unclear on the details, because Asher has been sucking gently on my neck for the last twenty minutes.
The cat slinks by, heading into the bedroom. He has the right idea. “Should we move this to the bed?” I ask, palming the bulge in Asher’s pajama pants. “You shouldn’t stay up too late, though. Aren’t you playing tennis with Brett tomorrow?”
“Pfft,” Asher says, running his hand beneath my T-shirt. “You think I can’t beat Brett at tennis after a late night with you? What do I get if I win?”
I mull that over, but his hands turn wicked, which makes thinking hard. “You have to win all the sets, or I get first dibs on our rental car in Italy.”
“Ooh, good one, Banks.” He chuckles. “It’s on.”
Then his hand creeps into my briefs, and it so is.
Asher
I’m wearing a white polo shirt.
Stranger things have happened.
Like falling in love with a hot, nerdy, single dad banker who is not boring; Mark Banks is an adventure every single day.
And like me living happily with that guy and his seven-year-old daughter. Who I took to a softball game last week, since my guy had to work late. Something about the inflation index or the CPI blah, blah, blah. It didn’t make much sense, so I shut him up with my mouth when he told me all about it.
Then he said much more interesting things like yes, more, deeper .
So yeah, life is strange and good. Imagine that. Single, globetrotting, former-athlete-now-photographer settles down with a Wall Streeter and his kid. And he loves every single second of it.
But I’m really going to relish destroying Mark’s work husband at tennis.
“Hope you lose today,” Mark tells me when I leave our home the next morning.
“No, you don’t. You love it when I drive,” I say with a wink.
“You love it when I drive,” he counters as he pours his coffee.
But I plan to win. There’s an Alfa Romeo in Tuscany calling my name.
Well, I still love fast cars. Some things never change. That means I have to beat Brett in a shutout today.
Which I do a few hours later, when Brett misses the final ball by miles and I clean up.
“Rematch. Can we play again?” he asks.
“’Fraid not, Brett,” I say, then I look at my watch. “I have to collect on a bet. Another time.”
“Another time,” he says with a nod as we shake at the net.
I leave and return to Sixteenth Street. As soon as the door unlocks, I call out, “Honey, I’m home, and I’ll be driving first.”
“Dammit,” Mark curses from the bedroom.
I sweep into our room where he’s tossing T-shirts into a suitcase. I grab him, yank him up, and kiss him hard. “I’m sweaty,” I rasp out.
He growls. “And I like it.”
“I know you do,” I say, then I glance at the clock. We have to meet Hannah, Flip, and Caroline for fro-yo to celebrate Rosie’s last day of first grade, then in the evening, we’ll take off.
“There’s just enough time for . . .”
Ten minutes later, we’re gasping and panting.
Life is very, very good.
Later that night, we settle into the second row on our transatlantic flight.
“May you never fly coach again,” I say, as I squeeze his hand.
“We’re posh fuckers all the way,” he says, and when we’re airborne, a statuesque flight attendant does a double take.
“You two look familiar.”
So does she?the Gisele Bündchen ringer. “We flew to Miami together a year ago and you were on our flight,” I say.
“Right,” she says, wagging a finger. “You called yourselves . . . what was it? The best men .”
Mark looks at me as he answers. “That’s us, and he’s all mine.”
That’s all the label I’ll ever need.
His.
THE
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Thank you for reading The Best Men!