Epilogue
Olivia
The first weekend in June, Connor and Olivia squeezed onto one beanbag chair in their treehouse. Not the one in their hometown. Connor had promised her any wedding she desired, and she’d had a vision since the moment she saw the enormous tree in his backyard.
The treehouse they built resembled the original. It’s where they spent the majority of their time since they’d finished it the week prior.
Their treehouse was a sacred space. One where they could be themselves and feel their feelings. They’d agreed not to let others intrude on that space. Even Valentine and Jake. That day, they made an exception.
Valentine, Beanie, Daisy, and Jake were all crammed in there with them, shoulder to shoulder. Connor removed their second chair to make room. Valentine sat criss-cross in the middle of the floor, holding a stack of notecards.
He’d been ordained online the previous week when Olivia first hatched this plan.
Valentine asked them to repeat after him, and they said, ‘I do,’ kissed, and signed on the dotted line as quickly as possible so they could get out of the tiny space.
It was rushed, cramped, and inconvenient, but Olivia hadn’t wanted to get married anywhere else.
They would take a trip with Jayden and the Hales in August to celebrate, but Connor wanted to tie the knot sooner.
As soon as the ring adorned her finger, he’d been champing at the bit.
It drove him insane to wait for the treehouse to be built.
Once they were married, everyone filed out of their fort and congregated on the patio. Beanie offered to grill some steaks and was serving them when the doorbell rang.
Olivia answered it and found a short, pretty, delightfully flamboyant stranger on the other side.
“Hi,” he said with a sweet smile. The man must have been around her age and seemed like someone she would be friends with. Something about his face seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him.
“Hi,” she said, weary. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so! I’m Sammy. I’m looking for Jake. I went to the practice rink and Toma told me I might find him here.”
“Jake... Connor?” Olivia clarified.
“The one and only.”
Olivia stepped aside and let Sammy into her house. “He’s out back. We were about to eat. Are you hungry?”
Sammy seemed kind and fun. Like he didn’t take himself too seriously. Almost the opposite of Jake.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I couldn’t impose.”
The man was crashing a literal wedding, so that ship had sailed, but she didn’t say as much.
“How do you know Jake?” she asked as she slid the sliding glass door open.
All eyes fell on her and her new guest. Jake stared at Sammy with a mix of shock and... reverence?
“He’s my husband.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
Jake abandoned his plate of food and hustled over to Sammy. He grabbed his shoulders and pointed him back inside.
“I have to go,” he said. “Congratulations. I love you! See you tomorrow.”
Everyone stared after the retreating men, matching expressions of shock and confusion on their faces.
When the door slid shut behind them, they all looked at each other blankly for several seconds before everyone started talking at once.
They spent fifteen minutes going over every detail they knew about Jake’s personal life. Olivia knew him best, and she’d still been blindsided by the fact that Jake had a husband.
Eventually the shock wore off and everyone slipped into lighthearted conversation. They ate and played games, and Connor and Olivia slow-danced to ‘A Thousand Years’ by Christina Perri.
Olivia hated the song choice. They could have danced to literally anything. But Connor insisted on a song made famous by Twilight because they’d danced to it one time at a high school dance. That they hadn’t even attended together. They’d ended the night together, though. So maybe he had a point.
It was a perfect day, made better when everyone left.
Connor poured them each a bowl of Cocoa Puffs and led her out to the treehouse. Inside, he set the bowls on the floor and cupped her face in both hands, placing a feather-light kiss on her lips.
“I had a whole plan for our first kiss to be in the original treehouse.”
“Yeah, the engagement ring gave it away. I would have given you a kiss, but you didn’t ask for one. You asked for a wife.”
He got comfortable on his beanbag chair, smugness radiating off him. “And looky here, less than six months later and I got both.”
Olivia flipped him off and shoved Cocoa Puffs into her face. She looked around the familiar yet different surroundings. After swallowing, she said, “Do you think our kids will fall in love in this treehouse?”
Connor’s eyes sparkled. “I hope so.”