Epilogue
By seven on Christmas Eve, I had cranberry sugar in my hair, fake snow in my cleavage, and a line of tourists ordering Santa Shark margaritas like the North Pole had personally requested tequila.
Bite Me Boardwalk Bar & Bites glittered red, green, and ridiculous.
Tinsel wrapped the chalkboard. Palm trees outside wore net lights.
A plastic reindeer guarded the host stand with haunted courage.
On the boardwalk, every business had joined the holiday bash, which meant three competing speakers played three different versions of “Feliz Navidad” and nobody on this strip understood peace on earth.
I stood behind the bar in a red Mrs. Claus sundress, a white-trimmed apron, candy-cane earrings I absolutely hadn’t approved while sober, and glittery flat sandals already losing the war against spilled pomegranate syrup.
My hair was pinned up with a tiny mistletoe clip Carmela had mailed in a box labeled OPEN THIS OR I WILL KNOW.
The drinks were moving fast. Cranberry-pomegranate margaritas crossed the bar with sugar rims and rosemary sprigs.
Coconut-white coladas followed in plastic cups rimmed with crushed peppermint.
The blue holiday specials came last, snowy foam and cherry hat picks making tourists point their phones before they tipped.
At the kitchen pass, Mari slid out a tray of pizzelle snowflakes and rainbow-cookie bites. “If anyone asks whether the cookies are gluten-free, tell them Christmas has boundaries.”
“Christmas has invoices,” I said, and grabbed the next shaker.
Then the crowd near the front door cheered.
I didn’t need to turn.
The man in the red Santa jacket, white linen pants, and hat pulled low over dark hair was six-four, unfair, and carrying a cashout tablet instead of a sack.
Nico Torretti, reformed loan shark, current bookkeeping menace, and my personal holiday problem, had arrived.
He checked the line, found me, and smiled.
“Tell me where you want me, Mrs. Claus.”
“Anywhere that keeps that jacket away from the blender,” I said. “I can’t explain Santa fur in a frozen drink to the health department.”
“It’s not fur.”
“It’s shedding like it has feelings.”
Nico glanced at the white trim on his sleeve, then at the packed bar. “Do you want numbers first or tourist control?”
“That depends. Are the numbers going to ruin Christmas?”
“The blue specials paid for Christmas.”
“Then numbers first. I can handle tourists with peppermint in their hair.”
He slid the tablet across the bar. His big hand stayed on the edge, close enough that I could see the small red bow tied around the wrist of his fancy watch.
I’d put it there before we opened. He’d given the bow nine seconds of wounded dignity, then worn it like he hadn’t threatened men for a living six months ago.
The deposit total glowed on the screen.
I stared at it.
Then I stared harder.
“Nico.”
“It’s right.”
“Don’t use your calm accounting voice when I’m looking at Christmas miracles.”
“It’s not a miracle. It’s sales, margin, payroll discipline, and you making tourists believe blue tequila foam is a holiday necessity.”
“Don’t make my genius sound like math.”
“Your genius is expensive, profitable math.”
I picked up the tablet and kissed the screen before he could stop me.
Nico’s mouth twitched. “That’s not best practice.”
“I’m the owner. I invent practice.”
“Clearly.”
Behind him, Taryn guided a group in blinking holiday necklaces toward the patio. Her red visor had tiny antlers clipped to the top, and she wore the bright customer-service smile of a woman one bad seating request away from weaponizing joy.
“Two tables are hunting for a shark mascot,” Taryn said.
Dusty drifted by with a tray of ornament-shaped coasters and a red hat hanging off one sun-bleached curl. “Emotionally, aren’t we all the shark mascot?”
Mari leaned through the pass. “No. Some of us are professionals.”
Shay set four blue-and-white specials on the service mat, each one wearing a little cherry hat pick. “Professionally, I need somebody enormous to stand by the patio rail before the bachelor-party guy in the beard tries to climb the reindeer.”
Nico turned to me.
I pointed toward the patio. “Go be enormous.”
“Yes, boss.”
He took two steps, then turned back.
“What?” I asked.
He tipped his hat toward me. “You’ve got cranberry sugar on your cheek.”
“I own a mirror.”
“You’re not near one.”
“You’re not either, and yet the outfit happened.”
He laughed and walked away.
I shoved ice into the next shaker a little too hard.
The thing about Nico trying to become respectable was that he’d become annoying about it.
He kept clean books for Bite Me now, and three mornings a week he worked beach safety down the strip in a red lifeguard shirt that should have been illegal on public sand.
Miami had given the former collector a whistle and expected him to keep swimmers away from rip currents, jellyfish, and anything too eager to circle tourists.
It was terrifyingly wholesome.
My phone buzzed under the counter.
CARMELA:
Answer FaceTime or I’m telling Baby Jesus you ignore your mother.
My family didn’t believe in subtlety.
I hit accept and propped the phone against a stack of holiday napkins.
My mother’s face filled the screen, framed by blinking lights and the kind of red lipstick she wore when she wanted the world to know she wasn’t accepting questions. Vinny crowded in behind her wearing a sweatshirt that said SANTA’S FAVORITE SECURITY SYSTEM.
“Antonella,” Ma said. “Why is your bar full of people in bathing suits and Santa hats?”
“Because Florida is a cry for help with palm trees.”
Vinny squinted past me. “Where’s Santa Jaws?”
“Do not call my boyfriend Santa Jaws.”
Nico appeared over my shoulder as if summoned by bad judgment.
Vinny pointed at the screen. “Now I see him. You taking care of my sister?”
Nico slid one arm around my waist, warm and steady over the white-trimmed apron. “Yes.”
“Good,” Vinny said. “Because if she gets hurt, I’m showing up with tools and volume.”
“Nobody is weaponizing family airfare,” I said.
Nico’s fingers flexed once at my waist. “I’d expect nothing less.”
Ma sighed dramatically enough to move tinsel somewhere in New Jersey. “I like him. He answers properly.”
Nico went still for half a second.
I reached down and squeezed his hand.
Vinny nodded. “He looks like he can lift appliances and apologize. That’s progress.”
“It is,” I said.
Nico’s phone lit up then, tucked in the pocket of his red jacket. He pulled it out, read the screen, and went quiet. His thumb paused on the edge of the phone.
“What?” I asked.
He turned the phone so I could see the photo.
A little shark ornament sat on red tissue paper, painted with a tiny red hat and a crooked grin. Under it, a card read: Merry Christmas. You picked right. The Torretti side that still gets invited to dinner.
Sal wasn’t in the message. No one mentioned threats or debt. Someone in his family had chosen a side.
I pressed one hand to my apron and picked up the shaker with the other.
“That ornament is hideous,” I said.
Nico’s voice came low. “It’s going on the tree.”
“It can go near the back.”
“It’s a shark.”
“It’s tacky.”
“It’s family.”
That shut me up.
My mother watched us through the phone, and her expression gentled. “Good. Both families. That’s how Christmas should be.”
I swallowed once. “Ma, I’ve got to close out the rush.”
“Fine. Kiss the shark for me.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then kiss him for yourself.”
She hung up before I could win.
By ten, Bite Me was sticky, loud, and triumphant. By eleven, Shay capped the peppermint syrup and slid it behind the grenadine. “The next man who says he can taste colors gets water.”
Taryn pointed two fingers toward the patio. “Closed to blinking antlers with intent.”
Mari packed the last cookie tray with the exhausted satisfaction of a woman who had defeated the holiday by force. Dusty taped a paper star to the reindeer’s chest.
“This reindeer needed growth,” he said.
After the staff left, the bar settled around us in glowing red and green. Outside, the boardwalk kept humming, but softer now. Nico locked the register while I wiped down the service mat.
“Upstairs,” he said.
I lifted one brow. “That sounded suspiciously like an instruction.”
“It was a request wrapped in hope.”
“Better.”
He carried the cashout tablet, the ugly ornament, and one box of cookies Mari had labeled FOR NELLA ONLY, which made Nico read the lid twice and wisely say nothing.
Our apartment above Bite Me looked like Christmas had arrived, panicked, and dropped its purse.
A half-decorated tree leaned near the window overlooking the boardwalk.
My mother’s mistletoe clip box sat beside Nico’s spreadsheets.
Cookie tins, unopened ornaments, ribbon, and one lifeguard whistle covered the little table we both pretended wasn’t a desk.
Nico set the ornament on a branch near the front.
I moved it two branches to the side.
He turned to me.
“What?” I said. “Your family ornament needs humility.”
“It survived my family. It has humility.”
I took the paper star from the table and reached for the top of the tree. At five-two, ambition wasn’t a ladder.
Nico came behind me and lifted me by the waist.
“Nico,” I said, laughing. “If you drop Mrs. Claus, Christmas is canceled.”
“I’d never drop Mrs. Claus.”
I set the star crooked on top. “Perfect.”
“It’s leaning.”
“So are we. It’s thematic.”
He lowered me to my feet but didn’t let go. For a second, we stood in the window glow with Bite Me shining below us and the ocean moving beyond the lights.
Then Nico stepped back.
He took off the hat.
The joking line of his mouth disappeared.
My fingers tightened around the ribbon in my hand. “Why do you look like you’re about to do accounting at me?”
“I’m not.”
“That’s good, because I’m emotionally unavailable for spreadsheets after midnight.”
He went down on one knee on my cheap rug, still in the ridiculous red jacket, with the bow on his watch and my cranberry sugar on his sleeve.
I stopped breathing.
Nico opened a small black box.
The ring inside caught the tree lights, bright and simple, with a tiny blue stone tucked beside the diamond like the ocean had gotten involved and demanded credit.
“This isn’t about Bite Me,” he said.
My eyes burned. “Good, because my bar rejects hostile holiday takeovers.”
“I don’t want to own your bar.” His voice went rough.
“I want to come home to you. I want the life we have in this place: your loud family, my complicated one, receipts on the table, customers who should be supervised by federal law, and every morning when you tell me where to stand. I love you, Nella. Marry me.”
I held his gaze through the blur.
Then I pointed one finger at the red jacket. “You wore this to propose to me?”
“You approved it.”
“I approved it under peppermint pressure.”
“Nella.”
“Yes.”
He exhaled.
“Yes,” I said again, and my voice came stronger. “Yes, you ridiculous shark. Get up before I cry on the cheap rug.”
Nico stood, slid the ring onto my finger, and kissed me hard enough to bend the crooked star farther left.
He brushed his mouth along the side of my neck, right over the place he knew too well.
I shivered.
He smiled against my skin.
“Careful,” I whispered. “I still have to call my mother.”
“After?”
“After.”
Below us, Bite Me glowed red, green, and ocean-blue. The tree leaned. The ornament flashed from its branch. Nico kissed me under the crooked star, and I kissed him back with my ring catching the tree lights, my bar below us, and his arms around me.
***