Epilogue
Jane
West’s New York apartment looks like a shipping facility had a nervous breakdown.
Boxes everywhere. Tape. Bubble wrap. The chaos of a man who owns too many things and hasn’t purged anything in eight years.
I stand in the kitchen holding a colander.
“Why do you own three of these?”
“I don’t know.”
“You live alone.”
“Aware.”
“When have you ever needed to drain three separate pots of pasta simultaneously?”
He looks up from the box he’s taping. “Are you genuinely asking or is this rhetorical judgment?”
“Both.”
He crosses the kitchen, takes the colander from me, and tosses it into the donate pile without ceremony.
“Happy?” he asks.
“Deeply.” I make a face at him, which only makes him grin.
We work in silence for a while. I wrap glasses in newspaper. He labels boxes in handwriting so neat it looks like a font.
The doorbell rings.
West goes to answer it. Voices spill into the hallway — warm, familiar, the cadence of family who don’t need permission to show up.
Eleanor Prescott walks in first. Elegant as ever. She spots me immediately.
“Jane!”
“Eleanor!”
She crosses the room and hugs me properly — not the polite version. The real thing.
West’s dad follows. Shakes my hand. Smiles.
“You’re still here. Good.”
“Where else would I be?”
“Anywhere but a half-packed apartment on a Sunday. Most people would have run by now.”
West reappears carrying another box. “Dad. Stop terrorizing her.”
“I’m not terrorizing. I’m giving her an out.”
“Don’t worry,” West says mildly. “My ten-minute-interval kisses reenergize her.”
Aunt Milly arrives last. She takes one look at me, one look at West, and beams.
“So,” she says. “When am I getting great-nephews and nieces?”
West doesn’t look up from the box he’s taping. “In Progress.”
I throw a dish towel at him.
He catches it without looking.
Eleanor makes a sound that might be a laugh.
Aunt Milly pats my arm. “I like you. You throw things. That’s good. He needs someone who throws things.”
“Noted.”
Charles moves toward the door, pauses, and looks back at West.
“Put a ring on her, West. Before someone else figures out what she’s worth.”
West doesn’t pause.
“Working on that too.”
I stare at West.
He keeps taping.
“Alright, we’ll see the two of you at Jean-Georges at 8 p.m. once you’re done with the movers.”
The door closes behind them.
“Did you just—”
“Yes.”
“In front of your entire family—”
“Yes.”
“West.”
He looks up. His expression is completely calm. Completely certain. The same face he makes when he’s already decided something and is now simply waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.
“Problem?”
“No. Just—” I pick up another glass and wrap it carefully. My hands are steady, which surprises me. “That was a lot.”
“It was accurate.”
I don’t say anything after that.
But I keep my shoulder pressed against his for the rest of the afternoon while we work through the boxes. And when he reaches past me for the tape gun, he drops a kiss on the side of my head like punctuation.
This.
I think this is the whole thing right here.
April 7 | Cedar Falls | The Daily Grind
I'm at The Daily Grind by eight-thirty in the morning, laptop open, coffee steaming, vendor contracts loaded on three separate tabs.
April Sullivan moves behind the counter like she’s been doing this for years, even though The Daily Grind just opened in Cedar Falls a month ago. She and her two friends co-own this little caffeine gem that I’ve come to love.
Glasses sliding down her nose, hair twisted up, She smiled and nodded when I walked in. I nodded back. We have a routine now.
The florist emails at eight-forty-five. I read two sentences and already know where this is going.
FLORIST: We’re having trouble sourcing the white-with-red-center mugunghwa for the ceremony arrangements. It isn’t something that can be forced or reliably imported in May. Would the bride consider garden roses as a substitute?
I stare at the screen for three seconds. Garden roses are not the same thing.
Tara doesn’t want “pretty.” She wants meaningful. She wants to honor her mother-in-law's and Cam's heritage.
Mugunghwa—the Rose of Sharon—isn’t just aesthetic. It’s national symbolism in Korea. Resilience. Endurance. Identity.
Substitution without context feels lazy. So I don’t substitute. I pivot.
I spend the next thirty minutes not googling “replacement flower,” but researching contemporary Korean wedding florals — what couples in Seoul are actually using now. Not ceremonial textbook arrangements. Modern interpretations.
The point isn’t replication. The point is resonance.
I build a quick visual board. Three options. And I email them out to Tara and her mother-in-law, Hana, about the situation and choices.
Then I call the florist and ask for availability on white peonies, white ranunculus, white anemones with dark centers, and structured branch work.
I pen down a note to consider red silk ribbon integration as a backup plan if we need to shift symbolic weight away from the bloom.
Mark the task for follow-up. Move to the next item.
My phone buzzes again.
GRACE: Clinical rotation starts tomorrow. I'm going to be so tired. Also so excited. Pray for me and my shoes. And send snacks.
ME: Snacks require specificity.
GRACE: The kind that aren't vegetable-based.
She sent back a photo of her scrubs and a face that was eighty percent terrified, twenty percent ecstatic.
ME: Noted.
Grace’s going to be extraordinary. She already is.
April 7 | Cedar Falls | Home
West comes home at six-thirty.
I'm at the kitchen table, laptop open, vendor spreadsheet color-coded within an inch of its life. Pink for confirmed. Yellow for pending. Red for vendors who are testing my patience.
He drops his bag. Walks straight to me. Kisses the top of my head and then folds me into his arms from behind—chair and all—because this is something we do now.
"Hey love." His chin rests on my head. "How's Tara's wedding coming along?"
"Under control." I manage.
His arms tighten slightly. "Liar."
"Controlled chaos." I tip my head back to look up at him, which is a tactical error because from this angle he's all jaw and warm eyes and the particular expression he gets when he already knows the answer and asked anyway. "Better?"
"Accurate." He drops another kiss—this one to my temple, casual as punctuation.
Then, he moves to the fridge. Pulls out leftovers. His shoulders are tight—the specific tension that means he spent the afternoon doing something mentally exhausting.
"How was Hendricks?"
Hendricks is the veteran AHL coach in Montana. West has on-going zoom calls with him once a week—whiteboard sessions, the intensive education of a man learning a completely new job from someone who's done it for twenty years.
"Good." He heats the food. Leans against the counter. Crosses his arms.
Don't look at the arms. We've discussed this.
"Overwhelming." He exhales. "He keeps saying I need to stop thinking like a center and start thinking like a head coach."
"You have two months."
"That's not much time. I used to see the whole ice. Now I have to see everyone."
"I'm sure you'll get there."
He looks at me. I hold his gaze.
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure you'll figure it out. I'm not sure you'll enjoy the process."
His almost-smile becomes an actual one. Small, reluctant, completely lethal. "Fair."
The microwave beeps. He brings his food to the table. Sits across from me.
"How's the florist crisis today?"
"Settled. Alternate flowers chosen and thankfully confirmed to be available."
He nods. Eats. Watches me work.
After a moment his foot hooks around my ankle under the table. Just rests there.
No glance up. No acknowledgment. Just the quiet, certain weight of it, like he's done this a thousand times and intends to do it a thousand more.
I don't look up. But I hook my foot around his in return.
This. This exact thing. Two people working in the same room. Comfortable silence. Leftovers and spreadsheets and the particular intimacy of not needing to perform.
That's it.
That's the whole thing.
April 10 | Cedar Falls | Home 6AM
West is asleep on his stomach, one arm thrown across my side of the bed, breathing slow and even in the dark.
I slide under the sheets with a specific intention and zero patience.
His body registers my presence before his brain does—muscles tensing, breathing changing rhythm. I kiss his shoulder blade. Trail my mouth down his spine. My hand slides lower.
He makes a sound into the pillow that's half-groan, half-question.
"Morning," I say against his skin.
"Jane—what are you—"
"Shh."
My hand wraps around him. He's already half-hard, getting harder with every stroke. His hips shift involuntarily.
"You don't have to—"
"I want to."
I take my time. Learn the sounds he makes when he's barely awake and I'm deliberately wrecking him. The specific way his breath catches when I use my thumb. The low curse when I lean down and use my mouth.
"Jane—wait—"
I don't wait.
His hand finds my hair. Not controlling. Just holding on.
"Come here," he rasps.
"Busy."
"Jane."
The command in his voice does something to my entire nervous system.
I release him. Look up.
He flips me so fast my brain takes a second to catch up. Suddenly I'm on my back, his weight pinning me down, his mouth on mine—hungry, desperate, the kiss of a man who's done being passive.
"My turn," he says against my lips.
His hand slides between my thighs. Finds me already wet.
"Oh—that's—"
"Shh," he mimics, and I would laugh except his fingers just did something that makes coherent thought impossible.
He takes his time. Makes me shake. Makes me beg.
Then he flips me again—stomach down this time, hips angled up, his hand firm on the small of my back.
Then he's behind me, one hand gripping my hip, the other guiding himself to my entrance.
"You good?" His voice is rough.
"Very."
He pushes in slowly. The angle makes me gasp—deeper than I'm ready for, the stretch immediate and overwhelming.
"Breathe."
I breathe.