Epilogue
MAGGIE
Mickey’s behavior at puppy class was going to get us permanently banned from civilization as a whole.
I was convinced of it. After a month of absolutely no progress and many apologies being issued to the owners of every other puppy in Mickey’s age range, I had a feeling it might just be time to give up.
I burst through the front door with him trotting behind me, his giant paws thudding against the floor. “Your dog is a menace.”
Ryan looked over at me from where he was standing by the windows with one hand in his pocket and the other holding his phone to his ear.
With his feet bare, his shirt halfway unbuttoned, and his dark hair all messy, he was annoyingly hot and much too calm to understand yet that his wife had just been the subject of extreme humiliation at the hands of a two-pound Yorkshire terrier.
He showed me he needed a minute but didn’t turn away as he spoke into his phone. “Yes, I know. It’s not viable.”
Naturally, Mickey was the recipient of a personality transplant now that he was back with his favorite person. His ears perked up and his tail wagged wildly as he trotted over to Ryan and sat, perfectly, next to his foot.
I groaned. “Twenty minutes ago, he was wrestling a Yorkie.”
Mickey looked up at him with such an innocent expression on his face that Ryan smiled and scratched behind his ears as he murmured, “Good boy.”
“No, not good boy,” I whispered furiously as I got closer. “He picked up a Yorkie with his whole face and shoved it across the floor.”
Ryan’s shoulders shook with quiet laughter as he cocked his head slightly, still listening to whoever was on the phone. I shook my head at him. “Don’t laugh.”
He finally lifted a hand to cover the microphone. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at the Yorkie. It should learn to pick its battles.”
I sighed. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m not trying to.” He reached for me with his free hand and pulled me closer, kissing my cheek before letting his lips graze down to my neck.
I immediately forgot what I’d been saying, letting my eyes slide shut even as he spoke into the phone again.
“Yeah. No, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
We need to stop pitching high-tech manufacturing breakthroughs to people who have never set foot on a factory floor. ”
Ryan kissed my neck again without skipping a beat, keeping me close as he continued his conversation like he wasn’t setting my blood on fire.
“Cater to the actual blue-collar base. We should focus on what the technology can do for them, not on how impressive it looks on a PowerPoint being presented to a room full of billionaires.”
I smiled, so completely in awe of the fact that Ryan still went out of his way to make me feel like I was the only thing that mattered to him despite whatever else he had going on. “Yeah. Okay. Let them hate me. I’ll handle the fallout, but I’m telling you, this is how we make money.”
He listened for only another beat before he nodded, said goodbye, and hung up. Then he pulled back slightly to look into my eyes. “How was puppy class?”
“Mickey is a criminal.” I wound my arms around his neck. “He almost killed that Yorkie. It was humiliating.”
Ryan grinned and lifted me clean off my feet. I squealed and wrapped my legs around his hips, laughing as he carried me across the room. “Ryan! This is serious. Our puppy is going to get chucked out of school.”
Instead of reacting to the news at all, he kissed my mouth, then my cheek, then my eyelids, then moved back to the corner of my lips. “Tell me everything.”
“I already have.”
“Maybe, but I wasn’t listening. I was too busy saying hello to my wife.” He lowered me down on the couch and pressed another hard kiss to my lips. “Hello, wife.”
Tingles shot through me at the word. It didn’t matter how often I’d heard it by now. I still couldn’t believe that I was married to Ryan Thayer and living in our blissful happy-ever-after. It was ridiculous. I loved it.
“Hello, husband.” I stroked my fingers into his hair, smiling against his mouth and just breathing in the incredible scent of him as I tried to reorganize my thoughts. “Mickey thinks he’s smaller than the average-sized family SUV.”
Ryan hummed thoughtfully. “So what? He’ll learn. He’s still so little.”
“That’s the thing, though,” I protested. “He’s not little.”
Ryan’s lips dragged down to my throat and I almost lost track of what I’d been saying again, but I grabbed onto my train of thought at the very last moment.
“I’m serious, Ry. He’s growing so fast and there’s no controlling him.
There was this Labradoodle at the class today too, and every time it got a treat, Micky tried to steal it. ”
“That’s terrible,” he murmured absently, his hand finding my hip and gripping it firmly as he pressed his mouth to mine once more. “Absolutely awful.”
I moaned when he settled on top of me on the couch, his hips fitted between my own and his kisses becoming hungrier. I arched into him, about to surrender to how heated this was getting when I heard a soft but unmistakable clatter.
“Wait,” I murmured between kisses.
“What?”
“Mickey.”
“He’s fine.”
“He might be, but whatever was on the kitchen counter is not.”
Ryan finally lifted his head and glanced toward the kitchen. I pushed myself up on my elbows to follow his gaze, both of us groaning when we saw Mickey standing on his back legs, his paws against the counter and his face buried in the sandwich Ryan must’ve left there.
I gasped. “Mickey!”
Mayonnaise was smudged on his nose when he glanced at us, but he swallowed, looking for a beat like he was about to drop his paws from the counter before he grabbed the rest of the sandwich and ran.
I burst out laughing as he disappeared around the corner and Ryan sighed. “We’re going to have to get that away from him, aren’t we?”
“Well, yeah.” I started sitting up, my body hating me from moving out from underneath my husband’s, but we had to do what we had to do. “Unless you want him eating that on our bed and sleeping in a pool of slobber and drool.”
He exaggerated a shudder, following when I went after our incorrigible, massive puppy. Mickey ducked under the dining table, so I went down there too, yelping when Ryan caught me by the ankle. “Got you.”
“I’m not who we’re chasing.”
“I disagree.”
He dragged me back by my ankles and I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. Meanwhile, Mickey emerged from the other side of the table with half a sandwich in his mouth and bolted. “Mickey!”
Ryan scrambled after him and I followed, but five minutes later, we were both sitting on the kitchen floor, breathless and surrounded by the evidence of our puppy’s crimes. Crumbs and pieces of crust littered the tiles, a few dollops of mayo and a whole lot of shredded lettuce to go with it.
Mickey had finally collapsed next to a chair, either having decided the sandwich wasn’t worth it or just finally full after all the treats he’d stolen too. I looked around our apartment before lying down flat on my back and closing my eyes. “We need a bigger place.”
“Yeah, we really do.” Ryan leaned back against the cabinet. “With a yard and a much bigger house.”
“Somewhere far away from any Yorkies for him to eat.”
“He didn’t eat the Yorkie.”
“Trust me, he would’ve. Even if he wouldn’t have done it on purpose,” I said, dropping my arm across my forehead and deciding I might as well get comfortable. “The worst part is that he really thought he was just playing, but it’s a miracle that other dog didn’t get hurt.”
“We’ll get a bigger place,” Ryan said confidently. “I’ve been meaning to look around for one anyway, but he’s growing faster than I ever could’ve expected. It’ll be easier once he has more space.”
“We’re taking him on three proper walks a day and letting him come with us to run errands whenever we can. So if you’re serious about this, we need to start looking, like, today.”
“We’ll go to the cottage this weekend for a start,” he said. “Mickey can chase out the raccoons for us and we’ll stay there until we find someplace else.”
“I’ll go pack,” I said, already starting to sit up, but Ryan checked his watch and grimaced.
“I can’t go today. I have golf.”
“Golf?”
“Yeah, with Marcus and Daniel.”
“It’s still weird that you guys are friends now.”
“I know, it’s ridiculous, but he’s a nice guy.”
I groaned. “So I’ve heard. Repeatedly. From absolutely everyone I’ve ever known.”
He chuckled. “No, I’m serious. He’s been getting me back in touch with some people I haven’t spoken to for years and those people are exactly who I need to grow the acquisitions team.”
As I blew out a breath through my nose, disappointed about the cottage and still not really sure how to feel about him becoming so close to my brother and my almost-husband, I met his gaze and smiled.
It had been almost surreal, watching him slip so easily back into the life that had once been taken from him.
Old friendships were slowly returning. People were starting to open their doors to the Thayers again and Ryan was stepping through them like he’d always known he’d be going back to where he belonged.
It was incredible, him flourishing in this new life we were building together while I just got to reap the benefits of being married to the man I loved—and had chosen.
Unfortunately, Court’s impending release lingered in the background like a thundercloud. I reached for Ryan’s hand and scooted up to sit against the cabinet with him. “Have you heard anything else?”
He glanced at me, not needing to ask to know what I was talking about. “Nothing new, but I’m okay. Holden…”
“Holden is not,” I finished for him, leaning into his side and tightening my grip on hand. “He’ll get there, Ry. It’s going to be a big adjustment to you all the day Court gets out.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m just worried about him, is all.”
“So am I,” I admitted quietly, stiffening when I saw Mickey emerge from under the chair and grab one of the couch cushions, dragging it across the apartment. “Mickey!”
Ryan didn’t even look to check what he was doing this time. He just caught my face between his hands and kissed me. “Let him go. I want to get back to welcoming you home.”
I smiled. “He’s destroying our furniture.”
“Yeah.”
“We should stop him.”
“We’re going to need new furniture when we move anyway,” he murmured, reaching for the hem of my t-shirt. “Besides, he won’t actually ruin anything. He’s just playing.”
“You’re going to spoil our children rotten one day.”
“I can’t wait.” He pressed me down against the floor and crawled over me, smirking against my lips as he pinned me down. “Kids. Dogs. I’ll spoil them all. The only person I’m going to spoil right now though, is you.”
As he kissed me again, Mickey barked and raced back to us. Ryan groaned but finally helped me to my feet and grabbed Mickey’s leash. Our happily ever after definitely wasn’t quiet or uneventful. That was for sure.
There was always a family member calling, or Mickey begging for a walk, or work, or news about Court, but honestly, this life we were building together, as loud, chaotic, and slightly ridiculous as it was, was also completely ours, and frankly, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
***