Epilogue
The inside of the limo was quiet, buzzing low beneath the streets of Los Angeles. The soft leather seats glowed under the blue lights, and the tinted windows blurred the outside world into streaks of city light.
Frankie sat on one side, legs crossed, fingers fidgeting in her lap. She looked ethereal. Otherworldly.
Her suit was completely covered in rhinestones—thousands of tiny crystals catching the light with every breath she took.
It shimmered silver-blue under the interior lights, with the faintest violet undertone that matched the curl of her hair.
And her hair—long, eggplant-purple spirals—was down and perfectly styled, glossy and soft, framing her face like art.
Willa could barely look away.
“You’re staring,” Frankie murmured, catching her eye across the seat.
“I’m allowed,” Willa said, voice low and warm. “You look like a fucking star.”
Frankie smiled, but it was a nervous one. She smoothed a palm over her thigh, brushing imaginary lint from her rhinestones.
Willa reached over and took her hand. Gently. Steady.
“You okay?”
Frankie shrugged, eyes flicking to the window. “I just… don’t want to get my hopes up, you know?”
Willa watched her for a moment. Then shifted closer, tugging Frankie’s hand into her lap.
“Did you write a speech?” she asked.
Frankie laughed under her breath. “No. I’m not gonna win. You’ve seen the category. Everyone else is, like, chart-topping pop gods. I’m just—”
“Stop,” Willa said, firm but gentle. “You always write the speech.”
Frankie looked at her, brow raised.
“I’m serious,” Willa said, already reaching into her clutch. She pulled out a pen—because of course she always had one—and then a cocktail napkin from the limo’s built-in bar. She handed both to Frankie. “Rule number one of journalism. You never show up unprepared.”
Frankie took them slowly. Napkin in one hand, pen in the other. She smiled. Softer this time.
“You really think I might win?”
Willa leaned in. Kissed her temple. “Baby. I know you’re going to win.”
They sat like that for a second. Hand in hand, heads bent together. Just breathing.
And even though it was a night made of glitter and cameras and chaos, somehow the air between them stayed quiet. Steady. Sure.
The last ten months had felt like that too.
Not easy. Not without ache.
But right.
They’d moved in together almost immediately.
Frankie had asked sometime between waking up in her Brooklyn apartment and falling asleep at Willa’s old place one too many times.
Lena hadn’t blinked, she encouraged the move, and assured Willa she would be more than okay on her own—and they’d see each other all the time still.
Their new place in the city was warm and lived-in and entirely them. Guitars leaned in corners. Notebooks scattered the coffee table. The fridge was always half-full. Their bed was always full of limbs and love and heat.
The print issue for Side B had gone to press in late spring.
Willa’s profile on Frankie wasn’t just an article—it was a moment.
Sharp, rich, stunningly intimate, it captured Frankie in a way that even Frankie hadn’t known how to show the world.
The magazine sold out in days. Critics called it career-defining.
Readers underlined passages and posted them online like scripture.
One woman even stopped Frankie on the street in SoHo, clutching a copy to her chest, and said, “I felt like I finally knew you.”
The photos were iconic. The writing earned Willa a national journalism award.
Frankie had cried the night Willa brought it home, tucked inside her coat like treasure.
Not because of the trophy, but because every word on those pages felt like love made permanent.
Proof that someone had seen her—all of her—and written it down for the world.
And Willa wasn’t done. The book she’d once tucked away unfinished on her laptop, too afraid to claim, was now a manuscript under contract.
The first round of edits sat stacked on their coffee table, marked with her handwriting in the margins.
Soon, her name would be on a cover, just as Frankie’s was on albums. They were building legacies side by side.
And the music…
Frankie had just finished recording her second album.
She said it was about love, but really—it was about Willa.
Sexy, slow-burning tracks laced with longing and heat and adoration.
Willa knew every lyric by heart before the release.
Had heard the demos at midnight. Had laid in the studio with Frankie’s head in her lap as she edited bridges and fine-tuned guitar lines.
Mimi passed away three months ago.
It had been—
God.
There weren’t really words for that kind of loss.
Frankie had unraveled slowly. Quietly. Not all at once.
But Willa had been there. Every minute. Every step. Every late night where Frankie just needed someone to sit on the floor with her and listen to Patsy Cline records while she sobbed.
And in that time, she’d grown close—so close—to Suzanne and Grace. There’d been something sacred about the grief they shared. Something that wove them into each other.
Willa’s family had loved Frankie from the start. Her mom, her brother, her sister. Over the holidays, they’d split time between both families. Cozy dinners, fireside games, too many cookies.
It had been perfect.
Not because it was easy.
But because it was theirs.
Now, as the limo turned the final corner, and the lights of the Grammys came into view—flashing bulbs, velvet ropes, red carpet chaos—Willa squeezed Frankie’s hand one more time.
“Write the speech, baby,” she said softly. “You never know.”
And beside her, Frankie finally picked up the pen.
The limo slowed to a stop.
Outside, the world was all flashbulbs and velvet rope, reporters lining the barricades with press badges and perfect posture, camera shutters already clicking like static. The Grammys.
Frankie exhaled slowly, fingers still wrapped around the cocktail napkin she’d scribbled on in her lap. She slipped it into her pocket and didn’t let herself hope.
The door hadn’t opened yet. Not yet. They still had one more breath of privacy.
Willa turned to her, curling a hand gently around Frankie’s jaw, guiding her face toward her.
“You’re gonna kill it out there,” she said softly, brushing her thumb across Frankie’s cheekbone. “No matter what happens. You’ve already won. You hear me?”
Frankie looked at her—eyes bright, full, a little overwhelmed.
Willa leaned in and kissed her. Slow. Sure. Deep enough to anchor them both.
When she pulled back, her voice was steady. “You’re amazing. And I am so, so proud of you.”
Frankie swallowed, chest tight in the best kind of way. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
“You wrote an entire album about me,” Willa said with a crooked smile. “So, I guess we’re even.”
The door opened.
The cool L.A. night swept in, chased by a roar of distant cheers, the pop and pulse of red-carpet music threading through the chaos.
Frankie took Willa’s hand, let herself breathe.
And then they stepped out—together.
The scream was instant. Loud. Frenzied.
The crowd went wild the moment Frankie appeared—flashes lighting up like fireworks, fans pressed against barricades shouting her name, holding signs, snapping photos with trembling hands.
But when Willa stepped out beside her?
It doubled.
They lost it.
Not just for Frankie, but for them. For the two of them together.
“FRANKIE AND WILLA!”
“THEY’RE HERE!”
“LOOK AT THEM!”
The ship name—Frankilla—was everywhere. On signs. On buttons. Even one girl in the front row had it printed across her cheeks in glitter letters.
Frankie blinked in disbelief, then laughed, stunned and radiant.
She turned toward Willa and reached for her hand again—no hesitation, no nerves. Just pride.
And Willa gave it to her. Fingers threading with hers like they were always meant to be there.
They walked the carpet together—step by step, shoulder to shoulder—pausing for photos, answering questions with quick smiles and soft jokes. Willa stood beside her, this was Frankie’s moment, but she never let go. Not once.
The photographers couldn’t get enough.
Neither could the fans.
Frankie, in her rhinestoned suit and purple curls.
Willa, in a perfectly tailored vest with nothing underneath, pants hugging her hips, heels sharp enough to make the sidewalk jealous. Her long hair curled just so, falling like silk past her breasts.
They looked like opposites. Like poetry. Like a love song made real.
At one point, Frankie turned and said something, only Willa could hear—something that made Willa laugh so hard she tipped her head back and threw her hand over her heart.
The photo from that moment would be everywhere by morning.
By the time they reached the end of the carpet, Frankie leaned over, lips brushing Willa’s ear.
“You’re the best thing I ever brought on tour.”
Willa squeezed her hand. “Good. Cause I’m never going away.”
And with the cameras still snapping behind them, they stepped inside.
Together.
Ready for whatever comes next.
Inside the theater, the lights were low, but everything still shimmered.
Frankie sat tall in her seat, fingers intertwined with Willa’s beneath the table. The rhinestoned fabric of her suit caught every flicker of light, casting glimmers across her lap like stars had landed there just for her.
Beside her, Willa leaned in close—cheeks flushed, eyes brighter than the chandelier overhead.
She brought her lips right to Frankie’s ear and murmured, just for her:
“You’re so sexy, Mae. You’re driving me crazy.”
Frankie inhaled sharply, eyes fluttering closed for a second.
Then she turned and looked at her—really looked—like she was trying to memorize her face in this exact moment. “You’re gonna kill me,” she whispered, breathless.
Willa smiled like sin. “Not until after you win.”
Frankie huffed a laugh. “I’m not gonna win.”
But her hand gripped Willa’s tighter anyway.