Epilogue II
Later That Night
Chase
The house is finally quiet. Rip is snoring from his bed in the corner, probably dreaming about all the turkey he charmed out of Scarlett’s parents. The dishwasher hums in the kitchen—normal, domestic sounds that sometimes catch me off guard, making me realize that this is my actual life.
Scarlett is already in bed when I come out of the bathroom, propped against the headboard with her laptop, glasses perched on her nose. She only wears them late at night when her contacts start bothering her, and I love that I’m the only one who gets to see her like this.
“Still working?” I ask, sliding under the covers.
“Just reviewing the copyedits on book seven.” She doesn’t look up, but her foot finds mine under the blanket. “My editor wants to know if the hero really needs to apologize three times in the final chapter.”
“Does he?”
“Probably. He was kind of a dick in chapter twelve.”
I shift closer, my arm sliding around her waist. “Based on anyone I know?”
She finally looks at me over her glasses, fighting a smile. “Chase Remington would never lock the heroine out of the practice rink.”
“True. I’d probably just steal her coffee and make her chase me for it.”
“Which you literally did last Tuesday.”
“You love it.”
She closes the laptop with a soft click, setting it on the nightstand along with her glasses. When she turns back to me, her expression is softer—unguarded in that way she only gets late at night.
“Today was good,” she says quietly.
I pull her closer until she’s tucked against my chest. “Your parents were... surprisingly functional.”
“I know, right? They got through an entire meal without a single passive-aggressive comment about the divorce.”
“Progress.”
“And what they said...” She trails off, her fingers tracing absent patterns on my chest. “About me proving them wrong. About building something they couldn’t.”
“They meant it.”
“I know.” Her voice is small. “That’s what made it so...”
“Scary?”
She nods against my shoulder. “I spent so long being angry at them, using their failure as proof that love wasn’t worth it. And now—”
“Now you write romance novels and wake up every morning next to a hockey player who can’t cook.”
She laughs softly. “When you put it like that.”
I press a kiss to her hair, breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo. “You know what the best part is?”
“Hm?”
“We get to keep proving them right. Every day. Every burnt pancake, every deadline, every time Rip steals your spot on the couch. We just keep building.”
She’s quiet for a moment before she asks, “Even if you bring home a puppy?”
“Especially then. Think about it—Owen would lose his mind. The photo ops alone...”
She groans. “You’re not actually getting a puppy.”
“Forty-sixty chance.”
“Chase.”
“Thirty-seventy?”
She props herself up on an elbow to look at me properly. Her hair is messy, falling around her face. No makeup. That tiny scar on her chin from when she wiped out on her bike at eight—beautiful.
“I love you,” she says simply. “Even if you’re plotting to bring chaos into our perfectly functional life.”
“Our life is already chaos. We babysit with a foam hockey stick and use Rip as a pillow fort.”
“Valid point.” She leans down to kiss me, slow and sweet. “But still no puppy.”
“We’ll see.”
She settles back against my chest, her breathing already starting to slow. I trace lazy circles on her back, feeling her relax incrementally.
“Hey,” I whisper into the darkness.
“Mm?”
“Twenty-eighty on the puppy. Final offer.”
She pinches my side, but she’s smiling. I can feel it against my skin.
“Go to sleep, Remington.”
“Love you too, Calloway.”
She moves closer in the bed, pressing her body against mine—a perfect fit, like always.
I trace my fingers along her hip, my voice dropping. “Owen looked pretty good on you.”
She stiffens slightly. “Chase...”
“I’m just saying,” I murmur, pulling her closer, my lips finding that spot below her ear that always makes her breath catch. “We could start trying. Tonight, even.”
“We agreed—” she starts, but her voice wavers when I kiss her neck. “We said we’d wait until—”
“Until you finished book seven? Which you just did.” My hand slips under her sleep shirt, skating across warm skin. “Until I made captain? Check. Until we survived babysitting? We kept Owen alive for four whole hours.”
She laughs, but it’s breathless. “That’s a very low bar for parenting readiness.”
“Come on,” I whisper against her skin, feeling her pulse jump. “Let’s make a baby, Calloway.”
She’s quiet for a moment, and I think I might actually be winning this negotiation. Then she pulls back, eyes narrowed.
“Okay, fine.”
I blink. “Really?”
“We can get the puppy.”
I pause, processing. “Wait, what?”
“You win. Twenty-eighty split. You can get your chaos puppy.” She crosses her arms, trying to look stern despite her flushed cheeks. “But no babies. Not yet.”
I stare at her for a beat, then burst out laughing. “Did you just—did you seriously just negotiate me down from a human child to a golden retriever?”
“You’re welcome. Puppies don’t need college funds.”
I laugh harder, pulling her back against me. “You’re brilliant.”
“I have my moments.” But then she pauses, studying my face. “Wait. Was that your plan all along? Start with the baby talk so I’d cave on the puppy?”
I school my expression into perfect innocence. “Would I do that?”
“Chase Remington, you manipulative little—”
I cut her off with a kiss, deep and slow, until she melts against me. When I pull back, we’re both breathing harder.
“For the record,” I murmur, “I’m playing the long game. Puppy now, baby later.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Oh, we will.” I roll her beneath me, grinning at the way her eyes darken. “But right now, I think we should practice. You know, for later. When you finally cave on the baby thing too.”
She wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me down. “You’re insufferable.”
“You love it.”
“Unfortunately.” She sighs, but she’s smiling as she kisses me again.
And as her hands slide under my shirt, as she arches beneath me with that little sound that drives me crazy, I think about how this woman just played me like a fiddle—and how I couldn’t be happier about it.
“Best negotiation ever,” I mutter against her mouth.
Her laugh turns into something else entirely as my hands find better things to do than talk.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m already planning which puppy to bring home.
She’s going to love it.
Even if she pretends not to for the first five minutes.
***
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