Epilogue
ROMAN, TWO MONTHS LATER
“Maks,” I shout from across the street, spotting my cousin past a thick line of taxis and traffic.
He waves at me and weaves through the cars, jogging over across the busy New York City street.
I wipe at the edge of my lips and see that my fingers come away with a streak of pink, and I can’t keep a smile off my face.
Tate hasn’t been able to stop kissing me all morning.
Even when his own lips have goddamn cherry syrup on them.
For the first time, I’m with a family that actually celebrates Thanksgiving. Maks just arrived in the city, and back inside the house behind me, I have someone who loves me, someone I love more than I ever knew I was capable of.
Miracles, all of them.
Maks finally makes it across the street, reaching out and giving me a hug. “Happy Thanksgiving. We’re matching.”
He’s in a white beanie and a black puffy jacket, just like mine.
“Glad you’re here. I was starting to forget who I am, around the Landrey family,” I tell Maks. “They’re so polite. It’s nothing like our family.”
Maks hums, lifting an eyebrow. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”
“It’s a fucking great thing. Come on. I’ll introduce you.”
We walk up the short set of steps that leads into Luke Landrey’s slice of New York City, a historic brownstone that has been renovated in a classic style.
The front doors open into an entryway that looks like it’s from a movie, with polished hardwood floors, a curving staircase leading to the upper levels, and beautiful fixtures on every surface.
I take Maks to the kitchen near the back of the first floor, which is large with a giant island at the center.
“Maks! You made it,” Tate says, putting down the pie crust he’s working on and bouncing over toward Maks to wrap his arms around him. “Are you a cherry pie guy, a pecan pie guy, or an apple pie guy?”
“Pumpkin,” Maks says.
“Oh, that’s a given. We have three of them already baked. We’re working on the second set of pies now.”
Tate’s brother rounds the corner with a big open box of liquor bottles in his hand, setting it down near the bar at the edge of the room.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Luke says, smiling at Maks.
“Luke, this is my cousin, Maks,” I say, introducing them. Luke’s friend Logan Stone is at the edge of the kitchen counter, too, and his boyfriend Chase has his arms wrapped around his waist. I introduce Maks to everyone, and as usual, he plays it cool.
Luke Landrey is one of the most famous football players in the world, and Logan Stone plays a football pro on his TV show, Yard Line. Maks knows who both of them are, but one of the best things about my cousin is that he treats everyone the same.
Soon, Tate recruits Maks into helping him roll out more pie crusts, and for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m part of a happy family. Tate is incredibly cute when he bickers with his brother, and it reminds me of how I’ve always been with Maks.
It’s been two months since Maks and I cut ties with the rest of our family. The worst thing is that no one even tried to convince us to stay.
My other cousins have been radio silent.
My own father couldn’t even pretend to care.
I expected something from him. Maybe anger, maybe bargaining. But when I told him I was out, he stared at me for a few moments, then nodded, walking over to his front door to lead me out.
There had never been a stronger sign that I was making the right decision.
Maks did the same, a few days later, and we haven’t heard anything since. I have no idea if my family holds ill will toward us. Maks has told me he’s worried, and that at some point, they may try to make our lives hell for it. He thinks my father may be planning something.
I have no idea if he’s right.
I had barely spoken to my father during all of my years at Crimson to begin with. Ever since my mother died, at Sunday dinners I just felt like a ghost.
My father didn’t want me anymore.
The loss of Maks probably hurt him even more.
But if they do come after Maks, threaten him, or try to force him to do anything for them again, I will be ready and fucking waiting to make sure they never succeed.
“You’re good at that,” Tate tells Maks, watching him firmly roll out the pie crust. “Those Petrov muscles.”
“Yo, you guys have muscles, too,” Logan tells Tate. “Landrey muscles.”
Maks grins. “Thanks, guys. Pounding out this pie dough is definitely the most action I’ve seen in months, so I appreciate it.”
“Not fucking possible,” I tell him. “Six months ago, you told me you were… what, drowning in cum?”
“Drowning in dick,” Maks corrects me. “Jesus, Roman. You’re so graphic.”
“Cum is not more graphic than cock.”
Everyone else in the kitchen is snickering and laughing at us.
“Okay, show of hands,” Maks says. “Who thinks talking about drowning in cum is more explicit than saying drowning in dick?”
To my horror, I watch every hand in the room go up.
I wave my hand through the air. “Bullshitters. All of you.”
Tate blows me a kiss. “Sorry, my love.”
I cross over to the other side of the island to whisper in his ear. “Remind me to punish you later. Extra hard. Think you can take an extra finger next to my cock in your ass? While your wrists are chained to your bed.”
“Stop,” he murmurs. “Do not make me hard while I’m baking. That’s a fast track to a bad pie dough.”
The rest of the guys get distracted by the big-screen TV on the far wall for a while, watching replays of old Thanksgiving Day football games while Luke analyses the plays.
Tate, Maks, and I stay by the counter, finishing off the tops of the pies.
“I hate you for reminding me about that, by the way,” Maks tells me. “Drowning in dick was nice. I miss it.”
“Give me a break. You could find a hot guy any night of the week.”
“True,” Tate says. “I can think of, like, six guys back on campus who would probably beg to get railed by you. You’re not quite as hot as Roman, but you’d make people very happy, too.”
“Shucks, Tate. Thanks,” Maks says. “It’s not just about hookups. It’s…”
He trails off, but I know what he’s thinking.
Maks has been struggling to figure out what direction he wants to go in, now that he’s no longer in the family business.
“Maks. Do you know that I am friends with the head of campus security at Crimson?” I ask him.
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“The Crimson security is absolute shit, to be honest. But I do know they fired one of those shit security guards last month, and they’re in need of a new one.”
“Are you saying I should be a shitty security guard?”
“You are fucking kidding me, right? You would be the best security guard Crimson College has ever seen in history.”
Maks nods, looking down at the counter. “What kind of things do the Crimson security guards do?”
“Make sure the students are safe, both from each other and themselves. You’ll see some wild things, Maks. But how bad could it be? It’s not…”
“Not the Bratva,” he murmurs.
“Right.”
He is silent for a while, but the fact that he doesn’t refuse immediately makes me know that he is considering it.
And I know it would be good for Maks.
Tate nods. “I know I’d feel a billion times safer with you there rather than one of those guys who stand around playing slot machine games on their phones.”
“You will have the job,” I say firmly.
The sound of the front door swinging open fills the house. A moment later, football history walks through the door.
“I smell cinnamon,” Christopher Landrey says as he walks over to Tate, putting his arm around him in a hug. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Hey, Dad,” Luke calls over from the area by the TV. “They just showed one of your old highlights!”
“Glad to hear it,” Christopher says.
“Dad, this is Roman, my boyfriend,” Tate tells him, smiling. “Roman, this is my dad.”
Christopher reaches out to shake my hand, but then thinks again and comes in for a hug.
“It’s a true pleasure, Roman,” Christopher says. “You protected my son’s life. I have to say that I’ve been struggling to even begin thinking of how I can ever repay you.”
“You don’t need to do anything. Being a part of Tate’s life is a gift on its own. He did a lot to protect himself, too.”
“I was really worried about him, sending him off to that school. Luke said it would be good, and that he would be well taken care of. But I didn’t even know how bad the situation really was.”
“My fault, honestly,” Tate says. “I didn’t know it was a true threat, either.”
I hum. “Don’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known.”
“Wow,” Christopher says to Tate. “You found yourself a good one, didn’t you?”
My heart squeezes in my chest.
I’m floored by what I’m hearing. I had heard that Tate’s dad could be a bit of a traditional guy, and sometimes a hardass, but it’s clear he cares more about his son than Tate ever let on.
“Where’s Mom?” Tate asks.
“She wasn’t happy with the way I parked, and she’s fixing it up.”
“Typical,” Luke calls out from the other side of the room.
“Very typical.”
A couple of minutes later, Tate’s mom, Andrea, comes in, and I immediately see where Tate gets his beautiful smile from. Andrea is pure sunshine, just like Tate, and she goes around the room giving each of us tiny little crochet pins of colorful fall leaves that she made.
Soon, Tate ropes half of the room into helping him peel potatoes, and the hours start to fly by as I hear stories from Tate’s childhood.
His mom tells me about the first time he broke a bone, trying to climb a tall bookcase in a library.
His dad tells me about the way he stood up to a school bully in sixth grade, and Luke laughs talking about how Tate once tried and failed to sneak out through a front window in high school.
When we sit down to eat around the Thanksgiving table, the food is ridiculous. Every inch of the table is covered in plates and bowls and serving trays full of every Thanksgiving food imaginable.
“I didn’t think it could be possible that marshmallows could taste good on top of sweet potatoes,” I tell Tate afterward, when everyone is lying around on the living room couches, dazed and full and happy.