Epilogue One Year Later Amanda
Forty is a not just a number,” Rosie informed them as she stood up in front of the partygoers at Dominic’s fortieth birthday party with her champagne glass extended in the air for a toast. “It’s a mindset, and, Dominic, I’ve never met anyone who thinks more like someone over the hill than you. You are an old soul, through and through.”
Dominic lifted his glass in the air from where he was sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs Amanda had fixed up for their backyard. “Cheers to being over the hill!”
Everyone else at the party in the backyard of their houses lifted their glasses as well.
“I’m honestly just insulted that you think forty is over the hill,” his mother said from somewhere behind them.
Amanda turned to look at Ellen with a smile, laughing. “Don’t listen to Rosie. She has a complete anxiety spiral anytime she thinks about aging.”
“No, I don’t!” Rosie called out, but then Nola shot her a look, and she laughed. “I’m just going to stay thirty-nine. Forever.”
“That’s what I said at forty-nine.” Ellen downed the rest of her glass of champagne. The raspberry at the bottom of the glass hit her in the nose as she drank it. “Enjoy the forties, Rosie. You’ll have some of the best sex of your life at that age. It’s a woman’s sexual prime, you know?”
“Mom, Jesus,” Dominic called out. “Save that conversation for Richard.”
A tall man with salt-and-pepper hair circled his arm around Ellen, nuzzling his nose into the side of her neck. She giggled and batted him away but then twisted her hand in the front of his shirt and pulled him closer for a kiss.
Ellen had spent the last two months since graduation in a whirlwind romance with her former professor, and Amanda had never seen anything grosser or cuter at the same time. The two of them were over the top with all the PDA, but thankfully, she was only in town for the weekend to celebrate Dominic’s birthday.
“Amanda, we have a big problem.” Marvel grabbed her by her elbow and pulled her toward the house.
“What?” she asked, letting herself get pulled along through the crowd of partygoers by the older woman. “What happened?”
“I mixed up the brownies with the shrooms in them with the brownies that aren’t psychedelic,” she informed her. “My sense of smell is shot to hell, so I need you to decipher which is which before I give them to the kids.”
“The kids?” Amanda balked and stopped in her tracks. “Marvel, absolutely not. Throw them all out. Just toss both batches, and we can play it safe with the cookies and cake only.”
Marvel frowned, hands on her hips. “But then how are we going to do shrooms?”
“Uh, we’re not?” she replied.
“This is a terrible birthday party,” Marvel informed her, leaving her with a wave.
Amanda laughed and shook her head, turning back toward the party. Just as she did, she nearly collided with Clayton and Adam.
“Hey! Are you guys having fun?” she asked.
“I heard there were shrooms here?” Adam asked with a teasing grin. “Because then we’d be having more fun.”
Clayton gently smacked his partner’s arm. “We don’t do shrooms. Adam, don’t spread rumors like that. Amanda, can we put something on the calendar this week to discuss the new condo development on the lakefront?”
Her firm was a lot smaller than Clayton’s—she’d only just hired her first-time employee this past month—but they’d won the bid together on a new housing development. This was the first time they’d be working together again since she’d left, and she was actually excited about it. Things had already been collaborative and open between them, and she did appreciate his help, since the scale of the project was huge.
“Absolutely. I’ll send you an email. And we’re still on for the double date next weekend, right?” she asked, pointing between the two of them. “This time we’re paying. You guys picked up the tab at Lord of the Fries last time.”
“Can’t wait,” Clayton confirmed. “I want to try that new seafood place, the Codfather.”
She had been wanting to try that place as well. “Dom and I are in!”
“Oh, and I invited Melinda and Emmy Jac—is that okay?” Clayton added, then pointed and waved over to the couple where they were standing and talking to Mrs. Crawford and her husband, along with Nola, Tanner, Rosie, and Evan. “They are really great and are staying in town another week before Emmy Jac goes on tour.”
A triple date with her old boss and her boyfriend’s ex-wife—sure, sounded like a typical day in their life.
Amanda laughed and gave him a thumbs-up, making herself a mental note to schedule a girl’s night with Rosie and Nola immediately after that to debrief. “Yeah, they’re great. We’ll have a great time.”
She headed back to where Dominic was to check in on him. “Babe, do you need another beer?”
Dominic reached out a hand for her and she gave it to him, letting him pull her down onto his lap. “I’m great. I just need you.”
Amanda curled into his lap and kissed his cheek. “You’ve got me.”
Gary’s head nuzzled onto both of their laps, and she reached out to pet the large Labrador. They’d finally finished the approval process to get a guide dog for Dominic about six months ago, and he was part of their family now. His temperament was perfect and gentle, and he never left Dominic’s side. While Dominic’s vision had slightly improved postsurgery, he had settled into his life now as someone who was considered legally blind. Some colors and shapes, light and dark, he could still make out in one eye, but that was about it. In the other eye, things were blurry, but slightly better. Either way, Gary was a faithful assistant who helped him navigate around the house and around Heart Lake pretty independently. She missed Tom, but Tom was living in the lap of luxury at Rosie’s house, so she still saw her pretty often. That cat was glued to Rosie’s twins, and Becca was already saying that she planned to sneak Tom into her future college dorm one day.
“That’s all I want,” Dominic replied, kissing her back. He leaned his head onto her shoulder. “Thanks for throwing me this birthday party, Amanda. It’s been a really great day.”
“Next year, let’s not invite Marvel,” Amanda joked. “I think she’s trying to microdose the entire party.”
Dominic lifted his hand up and there was half a brownie in it. “Wait, is that why I feel so good right now?”
Amanda laughed and grabbed the brownie from him, smelling it. “No, I think this is one of the regular ones. Maybe.”
“You know the episode of my podcast where I brought her on to talk about her love affair with Mike Schmidt from the Philadelphia Phillies is still one of my highest-rated episodes?” Dominic said to her. “An entire podcast about baseball, and still the human romantic element wins out with the listeners.”
“The human element is the most important thing anywhere,” she replied, then leaned in to kiss him again. “I know it is for me.”
Dominic lingered in their kiss for a moment before they pulled apart. “I love you, Amanda. I love our life together. I don’t think I could have imagined any of this for myself a year ago. Things felt so dark back then.”
“I know,” she said softly, remembering how difficult the beginning of their relationship had been. Settling into a new relationship postsurgery while he was also relearning how to do a lot of things he’d previously done so independently had been incredibly difficult. It had definitely tested them on more than one occasion, and she’d even gone to some of his therapy appointments with him to talk about it. Finally, she’d agreed to get her own therapist, and now she’d been going weekly for almost six months. It had been a game changer. She was already so much more comfortable talking about emotions and communicating her needs with other people. She and Dom had weathered the worst parts of his depression, and once he finally found the right combination of antidepressants, Gary the dog, and therapy, he was doing a million times better.
“What do you think the next year has in store for us?” she asked him, musing as she thought about what they’d already accomplished in the last year. One thing was certain about her new life—she never felt even remotely lonely. “I feel like we need a vacation.”
She’d moved into his house with him about eight months ago—bringing a ton of sunflowers with her, of course—and they were renting out her cottage on Airbnb, which apparently was a huge novelty because of the sunflower theme and, of course, the view of the lake. They’d hired her mother to be the property manager for it, as well as two other properties they were looking at turning into Airbnbs on the other side of the lake.
Amanda had also finally convinced her mother to retire from full-time work, but only by offering her a part-time job with them. Not perfect, but it did mean that she was spending a lot more time with her mother. It might have been in a work-related sense, but it still meant the world to her. She looked over to where Ellen and Richard were now talking to her mother, happy that they all got along. This past Easter had been the first time both sides of the family had met, and they’d all really seemed to hit it off since then.
“We should absolutely take a vacation. Somewhere really warm, so I can feel the sun on my face and the sand in my toes,” he agreed. “What about the Bahamas? Or Mexico? Ooh, wait—you know what sounds amazing?”
“What?” she asked.
“A honeymoon in the Cayman Islands,” he replied. “Just you and me on the beach and a sugary cocktail in our hands. Lots of naps in the cabana and a dip in the pool—I don’t know if I feel comfortable swimming in the ocean, but we’ll see.”
She lifted her brows. “Wait, hold up. A what?”
“Come on, Amanda,” he teased. “You know we’re going to get married eventually. What are we waiting for?”
“A judge to sign a piece of paper? Because I don’t want a wedding,” she said jokingly. “And honeymoons are just sexcapades.”
Dominic shrugged like that was an easy fix. “So let’s go to the courthouse on Monday, and then we’ll plan ourselves the most luxurious, sexless honeymoon in the Caribbean that ever existed.”
Amanda laughed loudly and kissed him again. “You are literally insane, you know that?”
“Insanely in love,” he replied, kissing her back.
She gazed into his eyes, and her heart felt like it was going to explode in her chest. “I love you, too, Dominic.”