Epilogue One
SPECTACULARLY MESSED WITH
Reese
It turns out that Miles Lancaster can, in fact, get me on the sunset cruise leaving from the Finger Piers. It only took two attempts, one kidney stone, one international criminal investigation, the birth of his niece, a kidnapping, and another six weeks to make it happen.
“See?” Miles says as we step onto the upper deck. “We made it.”
I look around suspiciously. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m convinced yet.”
“We are physically on the boat. It didn’t leave without us.”
“True. But the sun is still up. A lot can happen before sunset.”
Miles slips an arm around my waist and pulls me in close. My body fits against his side in a way I have become very fond of.
“Our part in the Rooke case is all wrapped up.”
I am close enough I could kiss Miles’s cheek. “An excellent start,” I breathe.
“I’m not assigned to any active operations.”
“Also encouraging,” I say, and then I do give his cheek a kiss.
“My kidneys are functioning normally.”
“Did you get that in writing?”
Miles kisses my temple softly as the boat pulls away from the dock. “Yes, a lot can happen before sunset, but I’m feeling pretty good about our odds.”
After indoor skydiving and a terrible dinner, this was how our first date was supposed to end. Instead, we got a ghost tour and proof that Miles and I can have a fantastic time even when almost nothing goes according to plan. I’m pretty fond of that version.
But I’m also not complaining about this one. Especially because this one includes kissing. And snuggling into Miles. And a lot more kissing. Miles presses another one below my ear.
That particular spot has a direct connection to every coherent thought leaving my brain. I turn my head toward him. “You know, if you keep doing that, I’m not going to notice anything going on around us.”
“I’m willing to accept that risk.”
I laugh, give him a wide grin, and do take a look at everything going on around us. Then I look back at Miles. “Play The Village Detective with me.”
His eyebrows pull together. “What?”
I gesture around. “We have people here. Let’s pretend everyone is in an episode, and we do the same things we would if we were sitting on the couch, watching it on TV.”
“Okay,” Miles says, nodding. “I’m in. But I think we should skip the ‘Are they going to find the dead body or be the dead body’ part.”
I turn to look at the water surrounding us in the bay. “Good call.” Then, I take his hand and lead him to two open seats near the railing. We sit close enough that my thigh is pressed against his, and I start scanning the passengers.
In The Village Detective, Roxie Wallace narrates the beginning of each episode in true crime podcast-style.
Miles, in doing what I’m guessing is his best impersonation of her, says, “At sunset, the water turns gold, the sky turns pink, and ordinary people gather to watch another beautiful day come to an end. But every stranger carries a story. Some carry secrets. And statistically speaking, at least a few of them have probably been committing felonies.”
I can’t help the laugh that escapes. This is one of the many things I love about Miles. He doesn’t simply tolerate my nonsense—he embraces it and enthusiastically contributes his own. Then, I lean in and whisper, “Guy in the beachy short-sleeved button-down.”
Miles follows my gaze to a man in his fifties standing near the railing with a camera around his neck.
“Insurance fraud?” Miles says.
I shake my head. “Counterfeit historical documents.”
Miles tilts his head, studying the man, and whispers back, “Interesting.”
“He has an Etsy shop.”
“That makes it worse.”
I nod gravely. “Much worse. He sells fake Civil War letters to unsuspecting collectors.”
Miles leans in close enough that his mouth brushes my ear when he says, “His wife thinks he restores antique maps.”
My skin tingles where his lips graze it, which is extremely distracting, considering we are discussing forged Civil War documents. A laugh bursts out of me. “That’s his cover?”
“Yep,” Miles says. “The man contains multitudes.”
We move on to a woman in an enormous sunhat.
“Competitive orchid smuggling,” Miles tells me.
“There are competitions for that?”
“There’s a competition for everything. Even if the competitors don’t know they’re competing.”
By the time we move on to Secret Lives of the Innocent, the woman in the sunhat has become the mastermind of an international botanical crime syndicate, and beachy button-down is forging documents to help her transport rare orchids across borders.
The night is getting a little chillier, so I’m tucked against Miles’s side now, his arm around my shoulders. I gesture discreetly toward an older man who’s eating pretzels from a paper cup. “Him.”
Miles studies him. “Retired accountant.”
“But that’s only his cover. He was once the drummer in an extremely successful eighties rock band. He even had the big hair.”
“He walked away at the height of their fame,” Miles says.
I nod. “After a scandal.”
“But it wasn’t his scandal—it was the lead singer’s. He just took the fall.”
“By choice?” I ask.
Miles nods. “He knew the lead singer was suffering from male pattern baldness and could no longer pull off the big hair without a wig. If the band didn’t break up, the public would’ve found out.”
I look back over at the retired accountant / disgraced rock drummer as he finishes his pretzels and moves to another part of the boat. “Now that’s a true friend.”
I turn back to Miles to see that he’s just gazing at me.
His hair is moving in the breeze, his eyes warm and amused, and for a second, I just look back because my best friend is ridiculously handsome, and I no longer have to pretend that fact is irrelevant.
So, I kiss him. He kisses me back, pulling me in close, and it’s a good, long while before we get back to the game.
Eventually, I spot a woman sitting alone with oversized sunglasses, reading a paperback. “Witness protection,” I say.
Miles looks. “I can confirm. She keeps checking the reflection in the window instead of turning around.”
I look at the woman until she does it again. “Ooh, the perks of you being a spy. It gives us an occupational advantage.”
“Yep, and combined with your librarian-grade pattern recognition and beekeeper vigilance, we’re unstoppable.”
Both our phones buzz at the same time, so we both pull them out. It’s a text with a picture from Charlie.
Charlie: In case you were wondering what my ring looks like in the lighting of Board and Butter.
She’s got her left hand facing the camera and the deli in the background, even though I’ve now seen her engagement ring approximately forty-seven times since Owen proposed to her eleven days ago after the ribbon-cutting and opening night of the Shadowridge Theater.
Just three more days until he finishes the train station restoration in Philadelphia and Charlie gets him back in town full time.
Miles chuckles and texts back.
Miles: You know, I HAVE been wondering what it would look like there. Thanks, sis.
We both tuck our phones away. The sky over the water is beginning to change, the blues slowly changing into gold and pink. I stand and tug Miles with me. “Come on, I say, leading him toward the bow. “We finally got to the sunset part of the cruise.”
“Are you impressed?” Miles asks. “No emergencies materialized, and no one passed a kidney stone or had a baby.”
“And no one even kidnapped me. Yes, I’m deeply impressed.”
“Reese,” Miles says.
“I’m kidding.” We reach the railing, and I turn toward the horizon. “But I am impressed. The sky is really looking like it’s going to go all out for this sunset.”
“Yeah.”
Something in his voice sounds different, so I look over and see that Miles has gotten down on one knee.
For maybe the first time in my entire life, my brain produces absolutely nothing. No side story, no joke, no theories. All it can take in is Miles, holding a ring box. “Oh,” I say.
His smile is nervous.
Miles. Nervous. About me.
“Ever since that second Tuesday in the library, I’ve kept showing up because I wanted to be with you.”
My eyes immediately fill with tears.
“And I want to keep showing up every Tuesday. And Wednesday, and Thursday and every other day. I want ordinary days with you, Reese. Ridiculous ones. Hard ones. Beautiful ones. The ones that don’t go remotely according to plan.”
A laugh comes out through my tears.
“I want them all.”
Miles opens the ring box, and inside is a ring with a center diamond surrounded by little sapphires in pink, blue, yellow, and green.
All different shapes and sizes, arranged in a way that should probably look chaotic, but somehow doesn’t.
Of course Miles bought me a ring that looks like organized chaos.
It’s so beautiful and perfect and more exactly me than I thought a ring could possibly be that a fresh wave of tears blurs it before Miles gets out the words, “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice coming out somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Yes! Obviously, yes.”
People around us cheer, and I start laughing harder because Beachy Button-down is clapping enthusiastically, Orchid Smuggler has both hands over her heart, and Disgraced Rock Drummer whistles loud enough to startle half the boat.
Miles slides the ring onto my finger and stands, smiling at me with damp eyes and wind-tossed hair, and I have the wildly satisfying realization that this ridiculously attractive man is now my fiancé. I throw my arms around his neck. “I completely forgot all these people were here.”
“I gathered.”
Then he kisses me. It’s a long, glorious kiss, and the people we falsely accused of assorted felonies cheer again.
Later, I stand at the bow with Miles’s arms around me, my left hand resting over his. I just can’t stop staring at the ring. I didn’t even know one so perfect for me existed, and I’m still blown away that he found it.
And then I look back into the eyes of the man who knows me so well that he knew this ring was the one. I’ve always known ours is the kind of friendship people spend years trying to find, and most people never do.
And I once thought that when you have something this good, you don’t mess with it. Apparently, I was very wrong. We messed with it. Spectacularly. And somehow, being in love with Miles only made the best friendship I’ve ever had even better.
Now, I can’t wait to find out how much better it is when I get to call him my husband.
We both look out over the bow of the ship, and this time, we don’t miss the sunset.