Epilogue
One Year Later
The obnoxious pounding on the door pulls me from the comfort of a dream. I settle into reality, the room taking shape around me as Noah’s arm cinches tighter on my waist and I remember where we are.
The room where we first came together—where we shared the broken and unruly parts of ourselves—is bathed in the early light of a spring morning. Cheryl has updated some of the decor, but the soul of the space is something that will never change. Not for us at least.
Noah’s face is nuzzling into the back of my neck, his body pressing up against me. He hums, breathing in a lungful. “Tell me again why you changed your shampoo?”
“They discontinued it. I got the closest thing I could find.”
“I’m going to have to have some specially made. It’s not the right balance of tropical.”
I roll my eyes, the pounding on the door rattling through the house again, Kara’s frustrated grumble following next.
“Get out of bed, you horndogs. We have work to do!”
I make to roll out of bed, but Noah’s arms close tighter. “Five more minutes.”
“Unless you want her pounding her way in here—believe me, she will—you better let me go.”
“Never,” he says, rolling me over and on top of him, my back pressed against his chest. He runs his hands down my sides and squeezes the soft bit of skin slipping out between my shorts and my tank top.
I shriek a laugh and kick my feet, twisting until I am facing him and push to sit up, straddling his hips.
“Oh, I like this even better,” he muses, running his hands up my thighs.
I roll my hips, feeling the hard length of him almost right where I need it.
“I kind of like this too.”
It’s taken me most of the last year to get over my fear of Noah having his fill of me, many months of waking up and wondering if that day would be the day he’ll decide he’s had enough.
But moments like this, with him still teasing and tempting and desperate to be together, remind me that Noah might not ever get his fill of me.
It’s a realization that would have scared me this time last year.
But today? Today it makes me want to get naked together again and again . . . and again.
Finally out of patience, Kara bursts through the door. “I swear to god, Lottie—Oh my god you guys!”
Noah laughs and I twist around throwing her a grin. “You’re the one bursting in without an invitation.”
I’m still mostly covered but she’s holding her hand over her eyes, her hip cocked out in her impatient stance. “Seriously. It’s seven forty. We already slept in too late. Cheryl’s going to kick your asses, I know it.”
“No,” I say, leaning down to peck Noah on the cheek before slipping off him and to the floor. “Cheryl adores me. If anyone will get the lecture, it will be Noah.”
He huffs, leaning up on his elbow, and I wink before turning back to Kara. “Alright. Give me five minutes and I’ll be out.”
Kara, realizing I’m no longer straddling Noah, drops her hand and narrows her gaze at him.
“I swear it, Graves, if you ruin our first year here, I am going to kill you.”
He holds his hand up in surrender and she marches back out to the living room. I cross the floor to the giant suitcase we lugged in here late last night, pulling my toiletries bag and the lilac colored dress I brought for today. I feel Noah tracking my movements.
“Are you nervous?”
I was—incredibly so. The nerves took root when we landed back in Portland after our two week trip in Costa Rica and gained overwhelming momentum over the last eleven months.
The business plan I concocted with Kara over cocktails—scribbled out on paper napkins—and then celebrated with Noah later that night felt like a vacation fueled fever dream.
But now, standing here in the Scented Acres guest house and ready to launch our first festival season, it finally feels real.
“No. It feels right.”
Nanecdotes is, by every definition, the legacy left for me by Annette Riley.
Armed with her four boxes of empty picture frames, Kara’s artistic ability and my capital, we were able to take a little piece of healing out into the world.
Our business is geared at helping people safekeep the mementos their loved ones leave behind—or even memorializing snapshots of time with the ones who haven’t left.
From hand painted frames for letters to portraits illustrated by Kara, people send us little pieces of themselves and we help make sure they’re kept safe.
Noah beams and I slip out to the bathroom before Kara can come barging through again. It is time to get going, and knowing we still have to arrange our booth, the time crunch is setting in.
Calling Cheryl and asking about booth space at her festival was intimidating, especially knowing Noah and I would probably have to come clean at some point.
But after an hour long conversation and lots of gushing on her part, it too felt like the right step for us.
Now, a year after my first festival opening, on the anniversary of Noah and I’s fake relationship, I am back to offer a little piece of my genuine self.
Kara is tapping her foot by the time I make it out to the kitchen.
She’s strapped down with every last bag of merch she can carry and checking her watch every thirty seconds.
Her excitement has a tendency to err on the side of neurotic hysteria, something I did not fully understand before going into business together.
Noah stands shirtless at the stove, a pair of basketball shorts hung low on his hips. He spins around right as I get there, a look of trouble passing over his face. Leaning down to kiss me first, he hands me a to-go mug of coffee.
“Sure you don’t have time for breakfast?”
“Seriously, Graves. I am about to chuck this frame at you and make you pay for it.”
Noah laughs at Kara’s threat as he slips his hands around my hips and tugs me closer. As I expected, the two of them have a habit of egging each other on, and though it is all in good fun, I know Kara is about at her breaking point. I kiss him quickly before stepping back again.
“Bring me lunch?”
“I’ll be there at noon with a lavender lemonade in hand.”
“Can’t wait.”
In addition to this business taking off, the last year has been filled with the beginning of a real ass relationship.
We’ve taken things slow—well, about as slow as one does with their boss turned fake boyfriend turned sex olympic teammate, turned real boyfriend.
But things are good. Really fucking good.
Kara is already on the porch and she starts marching towards our booth with military strides.
“Hey General Kara, wait up.”
“That boyfriend of yours is trouble.”
“Oh, cut him some slack. This is the first vacation he’s taken in a year. And you tease him as much as he does you.”
She rolls her eyes and drops her armful of merch on our business’s table. “You’ve gone soft.”
It’s true, but I won’t give her the satisfaction of admitting it. “Let’s get set up. The gates are going to open any minute.”
By the time lunch rolls around, we’ve nearly sold out of the stock we brought and have a dozen special orders arranged. Kara is considerably less anxious and currently sitting in her chair, fanning herself with a folded up sample.
“I can’t believe we have a whole summer of this. We’re gonna need to get some fans and shit. Hey, you think Noah would stand here with palm fronds or something? I bet that would draw a crowd.”
“I have it on good authority, he would not,” Noah says, sliding in at my side and pressing a kiss to my temple. “He does have some standards.”
Kara glares at him, but a potential customer approaches and steals her attention. Noah laughs and raises the plastic cup of purple hued lemonade.
“I’m going to pay for that later, aren’t I?”
“Probably. But if she makes this sale, your lecture will be severely diminished.”
“Thank god,” he says leaning in to kiss me.
“You look tired.”
“You wore me out last night.”
“And you spent this morning working, didn’t you?”
He gives me a sheepish grin. “Maybe.”
For as busy as Kara and I’ve been, Noah’s been twice as much—keeping tabs on the new scholarship program, as well as Flourish’s newest endeavor, Nan’s Place Community Kitchen.
After our trip to Costa Rica, Noah finally confronted his dad about the real estate.
It went about as well as we expected, which left him with only one option.
He met with the district attorney assigned to the case about a week later and offered a signed statement about the embezzlement charges against his father with one condition: that the real estate Carlisle swiped out from under him wasn’t seized with the rest of his assets.
Then, since he had his original storefront back, it was easy to convince the other Flourish executives it was time to move on the community enrichment side of their business. Tom has been helping mentor Noah through the process, and their working relationship has never been better.
It’s been a hard year, with both of us so committed to our respective businesses, but the pockets of time we find for each other make it all worth it.
He asked me to move in with him last night. We were nestled between the sheets after a rousing salute to the beer fueled romp we shared last year. My answer was settled before he even finished the question.
Of course I will.
Because if there is anything I’ve learned over the past year with Noah, it’s that when I’m teetering on the edge of uncertainty and ready to spiral out of control, or he’s frustrated with the way things are less than perfect, we’re both there to figure it out.
And our road might be a bumpy mess, full of all the pieces that make us flawed and human and hard to love, but it’s our mess.
The best mess.
The end.