Epilogue One Year Later
“Jess, where do you want me to put these donuts?”
I rolled my eyes. “Try the big table with the sign that says donuts?”
“Right, right,” Liam replied, his voice almost shaky as he turned on his heel and barreled toward the donut table.
Liam was driving me insane. He had been acting weird all week. It was as if he woke up one day and simply forgot how to be a normal, functioning human.
His cool, overly confident demeanor, which I had grown used to, was missing. In its place was a jittery, nervous attitude that didn’t suit him at all.
“Shoot,” I heard him call out from the other side of the room. My gaze darted over to find him picking up a box of spilled donuts off the floor.
I sighed. “Seriously, are you okay?”
I had been asking him that same question all week. But every time I asked it, he treated the words like a personal attack.
Liam looked at me defensively from his spot on the floor, a donut in hand that had lost the majority of its frosting to the ground. “Yeah,” Liam replied, his voice cracking like an adolescent boy. He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Why?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was hiding something from me.
“That’s the fifth thing you’ve dropped today. And this morning you asked me where we keep the protein powder. You are the only one who makes protein shakes.”
A flash of worry flickered in his eyes. “I’m fine. Just… nervous?”
“Nervous?”
When had Liam Ashford ever been nervous?
“For the event,” he explained. The words came out far too rushed for me to gain any real comfort from them. “It’s the anniversary of our shops combining, and it’ll probably be our most popular event by far. I’m just worried that something might go wrong.”
I offered him a soft smile. It was unusual for him to get nervous about this sort of thing, but in a way, it was also sort of sweet.
“You’re cute. It’ll all be fine. You don’t have to worry.”
“Right. I’ll… try to chill out.”
“You do that, Ashford,” I teased.
An hour later, everything was in place. The decorations had been hung, the food tables were perfectly arranged, and I was just about to open the doors of the shop.
It had been rocky at first, trying to combine the premises of our two shops when they felt so drastically different.
First, it had been the name. Liam didn’t want to lose the Galaxy Gamers’ name, and I refused to rename The Prologue to anything else.
Eventually, we compromised by calling it The Prologue—Bookstore & Gaming Cafe.
I still felt that the name was a mouthful, but knowing I got the better end of the deal, I stayed quiet about that opinion.
Then, there was the worry that we would lose a lot of our individual customer bases. Liam feared that a quiet bookstore wasn’t the place to hang out and play games, and I feared that the whole hanging out and playing games thing would ruin the quiet atmosphere.
We had both been right to an extent. But within the first few months of the merger, it seemed that we each had more customers than ever before.
Our shop attracted those who enjoyed gaming, those searching for a good book, and all sorts of others who found themselves somewhere in between.
The Prologue became exactly what I had always longed for it to be.
It had become a space not just to sell books but a space for the community.
A place where people from all walks of life and all sorts of interests could come together.
I had never been happier.
Liam moving into my apartment had me feeling more nervous than the store merger had.
But when moving day came, we hauled each and every one of his boxes down his stairs, across the sidewalk, and then back up the stairs to my place.
With every step, all the fear and anxiety I had felt seemed to vanish.
It wasn’t without its fair share of trials.
I could have sworn that his couch would have led to us breaking up and calling the whole thing off.
How he ever got that thing into his apartment in the first place, I had no idea, but getting it down the stairs and then back up to my apartment nearly ended us.
But Liam and I were resilient. No less than an hour later, we were able to laugh over the sheer ridiculousness of it all as we devoured an entire pizza, lounging across the couch in its new rightful spot—the middle of our living room.
When I opened the shop’s doors, I was met with a familiar face.
“Mom?”
Mom flashed me the brightest smile that I had ever seen. “Jess,” she said, pulling me into a bone-crushing hug.
“What are you doing here—Dad? I didn’t know you guys were coming.”
Dad waved, “Hey, Jess.”
My grandparents popped out from behind him.
“Are you going to let us in, dear?” Grandma asked.
“Okay, seriously, what is going on?”
“Turn around, Jessa,” a familiar voice said. I looked over to find Lily, Clara, Val, and Lottie all standing there on the sidewalk, wearing matching smiles.
Everyone was dressed nicely. Way nicer than what was considered appropriate for this event.
“What—”
“Turn around, honey,” Mom said, finally letting go of me. There were tears glossing over her eyes.
“Seriously, what—” Was all I could get out before the words were stripped straight from me as I whipped around.
There was Liam. In the very center of our shop. Down on one knee.
Freddie, the little grey cat we had adopted a few months ago from the cat cafe that took over Liam’s old shop, rubbed against his leg. He was purring and dressed in the cutest little bow tie I had ever seen.
“You’re kidding.” I was frozen in place, still standing in the middle of the doorway.
I felt Mom’s hands press into my back, nudging me forward.
“You’re kidding,” I repeated, taking one slow, tentative step forward.
“Jessa Alden…”
My heart skipped a beat as he said my full name. This was really happening. I took another step forward. My legs were jelly, shaking beneath me.
“I have loved you all my life, and I promise to keep loving you for the rest of it. You are the single greatest thing to ever happen to me.” Liam’s voice was shaky as he spoke, but he still wore an impossibly bright smile. “I wouldn’t be half the man I am today if it weren’t for you, Jess.”
“Liam,” I said breathlessly as I finally reached him.
“I swear, with you by my side, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be the best man I can be for you. Will you marry me?”
I let out a breathy laugh, stepping closer until I could cup his face with my hands. “Yes. Of course, I’ll marry you,” I said before dropping to my knees so I could match his height. “I love you, Liam.”
“I love you too, Jessie,” Liam said before pressing his lips to mine. “Always.”
As our lips parted, I whispered between us, “Always.”