Epilogue
CALEB
I wake up on my wedding day to Harper’s hand in my hair.
“You awake?” she whispers.
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
I roll toward her, only to find her already watching me in the early morning light. Her eyes are dark and unreadable.
“Second thoughts?” I ask.
“Never.” She traces my jaw with her fingertips. “Just thinking about the first time I saw you.”
“In Ms. Robertson’s English class?”
“You looked so annoyed at me.” She gives me a small smile. “This perfectly put-together prep school boy, and there I was, trailer trash with an attitude problem.”
“You were never trash,” I say quickly. “And I wasn’t annoyed.”
“You were.”
“I was terrified,” I correct. “You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and I knew—I knew right then that I was completely fucked.”
She laughs softly. “You did not.”
“I did. Rule eight-thirteen wrote itself that night: Don’t fall for your stepsister.”
“How’d that work out for you?”
“Terrible.” I pull her closer. “Best rule I ever broke.”
She kisses me, slow and deep. When she pulls back, her eyes are wet.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she whispers.
“Getting married?”
“All of it. You. Me. Bruiser. This life.” Her voice cracks. “I keep waiting for it to fall apart.”
“It won’t.”
“You don’t know that. We still don’t know if Silas is okay or not. That stubborn bastard was protecting me the whole time, and I never knew, and now he’s not even here to walk me down the aisle.”
She starts getting choked up and I pull her in close.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whisper vehemently. “We’ll find him. And in the meantime, I’m not letting you go. Ever.” I kiss her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. “You’re stuck with me, Harp. Forever. And it’s about to be official.”
“Forever officially,” she repeats and smiles. She swipes tears from her eyes. Crying through laughter is kinda how it’s been with us lately. All the emotions get jumbled up with each other when you’ve been through as much as we have. For Bruiser, too.
We lie there wrapped around each other until Bruiser’s door slams open down the hall.
“Is it time yet?” he yells.
Harper groans. “It’s six in the morning!”
“But it’s wedding day!”
Footsteps thunder toward our room, then the door flies open. Bruiser stands there in Spider-Man pajamas, grinning.
“Can I have pancakes?”
Harper looks at me. I look at her.
“I’ll make them,” I say.
Down in the kitchen, I start the coffee while Bruiser bounces in his chair. He’s been excited about his suit and carrying the rings. And the cake. He definitely got excited about the part with the giant cake.
“Will there be dancing?” he asks.
“Probably.”
He makes a face. “Do I have to dance?”
“Only if you want to.”
“Good. Because dancing is weird.”
Harper pours coffee and leans against the counter beside me while I flip pancakes.
“You okay?” I murmur.
“Nervous.”
“Me too.”
“Really?”
“Terrified.”
She slides her arm around my waist and presses her face against my shoulder. “What if I mess up my vows?”
“You won’t.”
“What if I cry?”
“Then you cry. I’ll probably cry too.”
“Don’t! Or it’ll set me off and ruin my makeup.”
I kiss the top of her head. “No promises.”
After breakfast, Harper’s friends arrive—Ximena, Anna, Kira, Moira. They sweep her upstairs in a chaos of laughter and champagne and makeup bags.
Ximena pauses at the bottom of the stairs and looks me dead in the eye. “If you fuck this up, Graham, remember, I know where you sleep.”
“Noted.”
“I’m serious. She’s been through enough. You fuck with her in any way, and we’re gonna have problems. I have brothers. And cousins.”
“Understood.”
She stares at me for another beat, then her face softens slightly. “Good.”
She starts up the stairs, then calls back without turning, “Also, you clean up nice. But don’t let it go to your head.”
I almost smile. From what I understand, it took Harper and Ximena a long time to fix what Z destroyed between them. But they did it. And now Ximena’s got Harper’s back fiercer than anyone—which means she’s got mine by extension, even if she’d never admit it.
Harper looks back at me from halfway up the stairs. “Don’t see me again before the ceremony,” she says. “It’s bad luck.”
“Since when do you care about bad luck?”
“Since today.” She grins. “Humor me.”
“Always.”
Then she’s gone, and it’s just me and Bruiser in the sudden quiet.
“What do we do now?” I ask.
“Get ready?”
“It’s nine in the morning,” I laugh. “The wedding’s not until three.”
I look at him. Nine years old, sticky syrup on his chin, looking at me like I should have answers.
Which I guess I should, as the adult here.
“TV?” I offer.
“Yeah!”
We camp out on the couch and watch some screaming cartoons I can barely understand, but Bruiser loves. I’m not really watching. I’m thinking about vows and standing in front of people and saying out loud what Harper means to me.
How do you put that into words? Silas would know.
The Lonestar Kings have gone underground, and Senior is off-grid.
Because of how public the spectacle at the bar ended up going—the footage went viral in a way that’s never healthy, with clear video proof of Senior’s confession to murdering Harper’s aunt and kidnapping Silas—so far they’re staying that way.
We keep a security detail with us at all times, just in case, and Isaak’s working as a liaison with the DEA to keep channels open.
All the while Domhnall and his wife do their own investigation off the books since this isn’t the first time they’ve dealt with international criminals because of the shit Anna’s father was involved with.
Still, it’s stressful, and both Harper and I miss Silas, especially as big life markers like today pass with him still not here. His brother stole enough of his life, and Harper and I will fight like hell to get the rest of it back for him.
Around noon, Bruiser gets restless.
“I’m bored,” he announces.
“Want to get ready?” I ask.
“It’s still too early.”
“Want to practice walking down the aisle?”
He considers this. “Okay.”
We go to the backyard. The chairs are already set up with an arch covered in flowers at the start of the aisle. String lights hang everywhere.
“You walk from there,” I point, “to here. Then you stand beside me.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“That’s easy.” He kicks at the grass.
“Then why do you look nervous?”
He shrugs, digging the toe of his shoe in. “What if I drop the rings?”
“Then we pick them up.”
“What if I trip?”
“Then you get back up. Bruiser, look at me.”
He does, and it slays me like it always does. Trust with him is as hard to come by as it always was with his mother. And just as precious when it’s earned, bit by bit.
“There’s nothing you can do today that will mess this up. Okay, bud? Nothing. You just showing up is everything.”
He nods slowly. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
We practice his walk three times. He takes it very seriously, measuring his steps, his face super solemn with his fingers clutching the ring pillow.
“How was that?” he asks.
“Perfect.”
“Really?” he frowns distrustfully.
“Really.”
The frown finally relaxes into a grin. “Good. Can I go play now?”
“Yeah, buddy. Go play.”
At one o’clock, I shower. Then I stand in front of the mirror in my towel, staring at my reflection.
In two hours, Harper becomes my wife.
My wife.
The thought makes my chest tight.
I think about every moment we’ve survived. Mom’s death. Z’s betrayal. The showdown with Senior. Z’s last words. Every time I thought I’d lost Harper. And every time she came back.
One, two, three, four—
I catch myself and stop. Take a breath.
You don’t need to count anymore, I tell myself. She’s not going anywhere.
At one-thirty, I’m wrestling with my tie. It won’t sit right. It’s either too loose or too tight. Or crooked, damn it.
One, two, three, four attempts—
“Caleb?” Bruiser’s in the doorway, already in his suit. “You okay?”
“Can’t get this d—darn tie right.”
“Want help?”
I turn to him. “You know how to tie a tie?”
“Mom taught me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Can I try?”
I crouch down so he can reach. His small fingers work the silk, tongue between his teeth in concentration. He looks so much like me when I was his age that it hurts.
“There,” he says, stepping back.
I check the mirror. Perfect.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He pauses. “You look good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Like someone getting married.”
I pull him into a quick hug. He lets me, even though nine is almost too old for hugs and he gets squirmy almost immediately, so I let go after a quick squeeze.
At two forty-five, I’m standing under the arch in our backyard, trying hard to remember to breathe.
There are maybe thirty people in the chairs. All friends. No family since we still haven’t found Silas.
But right now the backyard feels full, not empty.
It feels right.
Bruiser stands beside me, holding the ring pillow with white knuckles.
The music starts—simple acoustic guitar that feels perfect for the moment.
Bruiser begins his walk down the aisle in slow, measured steps. His face is so serious I almost smile.
He reaches me without incident, then smiles with relief.
“Told you that you wouldn’t drop it,” I whisper.
He grins so big I can see all his teeth, then he steps to the side.
Finally, Harper appears at the end of the aisle, and everything else disappears.
She’s wearing a simple white dress. Nothing elaborate. Her dark hair is loose around her shoulders, the way I love it. Her feet are bare on the grass. She’s not wearing a veil, and there’s no one giving her away.
It’s just Harper, walking toward me.
She’s crying before she’s halfway down the aisle. When she finally reaches me, I’m swallowing hard to keep my shit together.
When I take her hands, they’re shaking.
“Hi,” she whispers.
“Hi.”
“I’m so nervous I might throw up.”
I laugh. “Please don’t. But there’s a great bush over there if you need to.”
“No promises.”
The officiant starts talking but I barely hear it. I’m too busy looking at the woman who’s undone me since I was a teenager.