Epilogue
(Because we all deserve a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year…)
Jake
You didn’t think this would end with some cheesy version of us all singing Christmas carols by the candlelit tree in a beautiful chalet in the middle of the Swiss Alps, did you?
No. Not even close.
It was New Year’s Eve, and I was back to work after what seemed like having a month off.
Lucky for me, my gorgeous wife decided to join me for lunch at the hospital.
After lunch, I took her to the private room connected to my office, where I slept when I worked twenty-four-hour shifts, and we got busy like we did in the days before we had kids.
“I love you, baby,” I said as she double-checked her outfit, ensuring her clothes and hair appeared just as crisp and perfectly fashioned as they were when she met me for lunch. “And hey, we should do these impromptu lunches more often, eh? It’s like back in the old days.”
“You had way too much fun in the Alps, Dr. Mitchell,” she laughed.
“I had way too much fun torturing my brother if that’s what you mean.
” I reached out to her to lead her out of my office.
“Come here,” I said, not wanting her to leave.
I kissed her neck and inhaled the spicy vanilla perfume John had hunted down as the perfect fragrance to buy his mother for Christmas.
“Consider our vows renewed after the way your sexy ass has me performing these days.”
“It does feel like old days, doesn’t it?” she said with an adorable smile that reminded me of when we first met, making me want to bring her back into my on-call room and ravish her body again.
“You have no idea. Happy New Year, my love,” I said. “Tell John to keep his Uncle Jim out of my thirty-year-old, single malt Macallan while I’m working, and he is enjoying the company of the rest of our friends who aren’t on-call tonight.”
“You know Jim will drink that if he sees it,” she said.
“Well, the decoy bottle that I assume he’ll go for is set out for the old man, so I hope he indulges himself in that one,” I chuckled.
“Jake?” Ash arched an eyebrow at me. “It’s New Year’s Eve, as in making resolutions about not playing silly pranks on everyone around you.”
“That’s one New Year resolution I will never make, and if my brother thinks I did, and he dares to raid my expensive liquor cabinet?”
“What did you spike it with? Tell me now, in case I’m foolish enough to touch your booze.”
“Yeah, you’ll want to stay away from that scotch,” I warned, nodding at the office secretary, who walked by with a humorous smile.
She must’ve seen the decorations I’d put up in Stone’s office this morning.
“What’s in it?”
“Let’s just say Jimmy wasn’t so discreet with the videos of Collin and me shitting our lives away in those woods, and when I returned to find Dr. Stone was amused by that, it just made me think of one final retaliation move that needed to be done on those who fucked with Collin and me.”
Ash rolled her eyes, “What other booze did you tamper with?”
“Just the scotch,” I said, pulling on my lab coat and preparing to head to the ER, where I’d spend my time this New Year’s Eve with Collin, Cameron Brandt, and John Aster.
“Jake, you’ve got something else up your sleeve,” Ash said, knowing me well.
“Well, Collin laced the figs that Spence, Alex, and Jim love so much because they’re fucking weirdos. I wasn’t going to say anything because those smug assholes like to eat those while amusing themselves with cigars and cognac, and everyone else stays away from them.”
“So, you were willing to take a chance that the kids wouldn’t?”
I rolled my eyes. “Eat figs? Uh, no, I wasn’t worried about that. The kids hate that shit.”
“What’s in them?”
“Laxatives, no biggie,” I said. “Injected them, so they’ll be none the wiser.”
“So, that’s what we’re all dealing with? Jim, Alex, and Spence shitting their brains out all night…at our house?”
“They need to feel what Collin and I felt in those woods. They had way too much fun doing all the Christmas gags. The retaliation just wasn’t over yet,” I said. When I leaned down to kiss her, she moved her face away from mine.
All I could do was laugh and love this woman for everything she put up with, having me as a husband and father of her kids.
“I swear our son acts older than you sometimes,” she said in disbelief and humor.
“Our son acts just like his Uncle Jim. He needs these candid moments to keep him young, or he’ll be gray by the time he reaches high school.”
“Hey, nutcracker,” Collin said, leaning into his nutcracker prank as if it hadn’t gotten old yet to put a life-sized wooden statue in front of my office every Christmas season to keep everyone in the building humored.
“Hey, Ash. Are you going to let the kids host everyone tonight so you can hang out with Jake and me for New Year’s? ”
“I’m thinking this might be the safer bet,” Ash said, then hugged Collin. “Happy New Year’s. I’m taking off just in case this is the night one of the ladies or kids gets a craving for wild figs.”
“Oh, shit. You told her? You can never tell the wives. That’s our number one rule,” Collin taunted.
“Oh, really? I didn’t realize this was some club you both had going?” Ash said.
“It’s only so no one gives away their bullshit,” Stone walked up, wearing scrubs and most likely hunting me down to join him in the cardiac ER wing. “Nice work, both of you,” he eyed Collin and me.
“What did they do to you?” Ash questioned.
“Nothing out of the ordinary for these two,” he said. “Luckily, I got laid as a result of it.”
“Jesus. You guys are all beyond me. I don’t even want to know,” Ash said, then offered me a quick kiss and wished us all a Happy New Year before she left the office.
“How did you get laid because of that?” Collin questioned.
“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps it was the blown-up, blue ball ornament with the lyrics to Blue Christmas written on it that you set up outside my office and your clown message, telling everyone I hadn’t been laid, so the ornament was dedicated to me?
You know, because I’m supposed to have blue balls, I guess? ”
“Most women find it pathetic when a loser such as yourself doesn’t get laid over the holidays?” I said.
“And most women aren’t turned on by Elvis unless they’re eighty,” Collin added.
“Turns out, the new Elvis movie has all the ladies drooling over him again, and apparently, when it comes to my sexy ass not getting laid, they lined up in an attempt to help me with that dry spell you both are forever saying I’m having?”
“Sounds about right,” I said, and that’s when mine and Stone’s pagers went off simultaneously.
“Looks like it’s go-time for you two studs,” Collin said. “Happy New Year’s.”
“We’ll hit you up if it dies down,” I chuckled, knowing how crazy this night could get in the ER.
And it did. Even so, we enjoyed our New Year’s Eve, knowing our families were happy, safe, and celebrating together. In our own special way, we were too. We just did it by saving lives.
Ash
The thing about the holidays is that they could either bring out the best in us or the worst. It was all determined by your outlook, and since I didn’t want to deal with the worst of any situation tonight, especially where my toilets were concerned, I decided I needed to intervene on Jake’s final bit of payback.
“I can’t believe those little shits were still plotting revenge,” Alex said as everyone sat around eating the New Year’s Eve Chinese food I had catered.
“Shit being the operative word,” Bree laughed.
“I’m just glad Ash called ahead and had John remove all the items laced with Collin and Jake’s special additive,” Jim said with a chuckle. “You saved our asses, sis.”
“Quite literally,” Spencer said, annoyed that Jake and Collin were like ruthless little brothers who didn’t know when to quit.
“Well, there’s a good lesson here, and I’m thankful to have learned it without having been a part of it,” Titus Hawk, the newest and liveliest member of our crazy gang, added.
“What’s that, brother?” Jim mused.
“You know exactly what that is,” Titus grinned. The man was most certainly a lady killer with his smooth voice and topaz eyes that glittered with his beaming smile. “That I will never join in on pranks to attempt to put Jake and Collin in their places.”
“True that,” Jim said with a laugh. “Lucky for you, they know you had no idea of our devious intentions when you donated the property for our private use. Not that you aren’t a fan of a good prank, but we knew this one would come with retribution from them that you didn’t deserve.”
“Not yet, anyway.” Titus raised his glass and laughed, “Regardless, good looking out, my friends.”
“No problem. We put too many years of personal vendettas into that prank to put you in that kind of danger,” Spencer said with amusement, having just taken a sip of his drink. “You know those two will keep this going until the end of time, and who are their favorite victims?”
“None other than us,” Alex said with an arch of his eyebrow.
“Wait a minute,” I said, looking at Spencer. “Where did you get that drink? Is that scotch?”
“Yeah,” he said, eyeing his glass. “It’s from the good liquor cabinet Jake has hidden in his office,” he smirked and took a hefty gulp. “My second glass and I already feel that this night will be the best New Year’s ever.”
“Oh no! Oh shit,” I reflexively pulled the glass from him to stop him from taking another victory sip. “That’s where I had John put that bottle that Jake spiked with laxatives.”
“You had your kid hide the booze? How very alcoholic of you,” Titus teased while I stared at Spencer in fear.
“Yeah, well, I had no other option,” I sighed. “I called John and told him to throw out the figs Aunt Laney sent over earlier and then move that bottle to his dad’s office.”
“Why did you raid Jake’s office liquor cabinet?” Jim questioned with a laugh.
“Because that’s where that asshole always hides the good stuff when we attend parties at his house, and he’s at work,” Spencer answered. “And I’m still stuck in the days when Jakey would tell us what’s mine is yours…”
“Well, if you drank enough of that,” I said with a laugh, “you’re going to feel his pain when it becomes yours and you’re shitting your brains out all night like they were at Titus’s resort.”
“Meh, I’m not too worried about it,” he answered. “I don’t feel anything out of the norm.”
“You better not fuck up my plans for ringing in the New Year with you,” Nat looked at Spencer with a fair amount of fury. “If my new lingerie isn’t put to proper use after that ball drops tonight, I’ll make you suffer far more than diarrhea ever could.”
“Weaponizing sex again, lover?” Spencer winked at Nat.
I could instantly tell the man was feeling more than just one or two glasses of scotch.
“Um, Spence?” I spoke. “I think you’re closer to drunk than you realize. You’re probably not going to feel it coming.”
“He’s fine, Ash,” Jim said.
Midnight was finally nearing after going through rounds of adult card and board games while the kids played upstairs in the game room.
We finally turned on the television to watch the ball drop, and then we went outside to watch fireworks get set off from the ocean barge that Mitchell and Associates had hired for everyone in Malibu to enjoy.
Everything was going perfectly until the laxative finally caught up to Spencer, who let out a howl like a dying coyote as he ran to the nearest bathroom with his butt cheeks clenched so hard that he looked two inches shorter.
“Well, looks like Spence is going to miss the fireworks,” Jim mused with a smirk.
“Sounds like he’s going to have plenty of those going off in that bathroom,” I said, shaking my head. “Can we all agree that pranking Collin and Jake—or at least trying to get them back—is never a good idea?”
Alex grinned at me, “Sweetheart, this war between us has gone on for years. The only reason Jim and I aren’t shitting our brains out in the closest bathroom is because we know better.”
“Exactly, we’ve dealt with those two since childhood, but after tonight, Spence will know not to be so trusting around Jake or Collin in the early days after pranking their asses as well as we did.”
“The early days,” Nat questioned with an arch of her eyebrow. “It’s been almost a month of this?”
“Yeah, it usually takes a good six months with no activity to begin trusting those two again,” Jim advised.
“Let’s get the kids downstairs. I don’t want them to miss the fireworks,” Avery said, returning our attention to the New Year’s celebration.
Even though I tried to run interference and save someone’s literal ass tonight, Spence fell victim. Maybe that would be enough for my husband and Collin to calm their butts down for a while?
Probably not.
This had been a full-circle holiday, and although I was thankful for all my friends and family, I was exhausted and ready to curl up in bed. The new year had started a little over an hour ago, and I planned to go into it refreshed, renewed, and restored.
Overall, it was a beautiful holiday; I would cherish it forever, and our children would never forget it. I loved my life, my husband, my children, and family and friends, and I was excited to see where the new year would take all of us.
The End