Epilogue
NOAH
Two Years Later
“Your hands are shaking.”
“They are not.”
I caught Reid’s left wrist before he could hide it behind his back.
The new wedding band waited on a folded square of velvet in the office safe downstairs. The hand I held was still bare, broad-knuckled, and unmistakably trembling.
“Interesting,” I said. “The evidence disagrees.”
Reid frowned at our reflection in the bedroom mirror.
He wore a charcoal suit that fit his shoulders so well I had lost my train of thought twice while fastening my own cuffs.
His white shirt was open at the throat, his tie still draped around his neck.
Someone—probably Marian—had convinced him to let a barber trim his beard instead of attacking it himself with the workshop clippers.
The result was unfair.
He looked like the kind of man a sensible person would avoid staring at in public.
I had never been especially sensible around him.
“You’re the one who should be nervous,” he said. “You’re giving a speech.”
“Vows.”
“In front of people.”
“People we know.”
“That makes it worse.”
I released his wrist and straightened his collar.
“Caleb has seen you cry over a seized propeller.”
“It was a custom shaft.”
“Owen saw you fall off the loading dock.”
“I stepped backward into empty space.”
“Marian has your bank passwords.”
“That is deeply upsetting when you say it aloud.”
I smiled.
Reid did not.
His gaze met mine in the mirror, and the humor left me gently.
“You’re really nervous.”
“A little.”
“About marrying me?”
His expression changed so fast I regretted the question.
He turned, catching my waist with both hands.
“Never about that.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
I touched the line between his eyebrows.
It remained even when the rest of his face softened.
Two years had not erased his habit of preparing for catastrophe. He was better at naming it now. Better at admitting fear before it hardened into rules. Better at allowing other people to carry parts of the life he had once insisted on holding alone.
But weddings apparently brought back his belief that everything could go wrong if he failed to watch every door.
“Tell me the list,” I said.
“What list?”
“The disasters you’ve imagined.”
His mouth tightened.
I waited.
“The weather changes.”
“The ceremony is inside.”
“The power fails.”
“We own generators.”
“You get a headache.”
“There’s a dark room set up in the office.”
“You tire halfway through.”
“We take a break.”
“Marlowe eats the cake.”
“We ordered two.”
Reid’s eyebrows rose.
“Why did we order two cakes?”
“Because Marlowe exists.”
From the living room came the unmistakable sound of an elderly dog attempting to climb onto furniture he had been forbidden to use since the day he came home.
Reid glanced toward the door.
I caught his jaw and turned him back.
“What else?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
“You change your mind.”
There it was.
The one fear beneath all the others.
I let my hands settle against his chest.
His heart beat hard beneath the expensive shirt.
“Reid.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I know you want this.”
“Then why are you imagining me leaving?”
“Because I spent a long time wanting you while believing wanting did not guarantee I could keep you.”
The words carried no accusation.
Only history.
There had been a police officer at the yard door.
A hospital bed.
My eyes opening without recognition.
Months of building a relationship from pieces, boundaries, and choices made one day at a time.
Even now, with my engagement ring on my hand and half the county waiting downstairs, some part of Reid still expected love to be taken from him without warning.
I reached up and cupped his face.
“I changed my mind about the flowers.”
“Yes.”
“The food.”
“Repeatedly.”
“The chairs.”
“Marian threatened to resign.”
“She enjoys threatening you.”
“She does.”
“I changed my mind about suits, music, and whether Owen should be allowed near the microphone.”
“He should not.”
“But I have not changed my mind about you.”
His eyes shone.
“I chose you when I didn’t remember why I had loved you the first time. Then I chose you after I remembered enough to understand what it could cost.”
My thumb brushed the edge of his beard.
“I chose you on good days. I chose you after the hospital. I chose you when fear made me difficult. I chose you when your fear made you worse.”
“That seems unnecessary.”
“It was a demanding period.”
His mouth finally curved.
I leaned closer.
“Today isn’t a test. It’s paperwork and promises and too many people taking photographs.”
“Romantic.”
“It’s also me standing beside you and saying in front of everyone what I have already said in every way that matters.”
“What?”
“That you are my family.”
The tension in his hands eased.
He rested his forehead against mine.
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
“Are you sure about the dark green tie?”
“Completely.”
“Marian said black.”
“Marian also called your old filing system a moral failure.”
“It was functional.”
“It contained receipts from 2018 in a box labeled winter gloves.”
“They were dry.”
I picked up the tie and looped it around his neck.
His fingers came up automatically.
I slapped them away.
“I’m doing it.”
“You tie them crooked.”
“I have recovered many skills.”
“Not this one.”
“Stand still, Captain.”
He did.
The years since the accident had restored things I once believed might be gone forever.
I no longer needed a cane unless a headache or a long day disrupted my balance.
I could climb the apartment stairs without counting them.
My left shoulder had regained nearly full strength.
I drove again, though not in storms and never when tired.
The crew vehicle left the yard with two technicians, every tool restrained and every route logged.
I worked mornings as Callahan Marine Works’ technical lead.
Marian had invented the title after I objected to being called a part-time electrician. It sounded inflated enough to make me complain and accurate enough that she refused to change it.
I diagnosed systems, trained apprentices, inspected difficult repairs, and designed safer work processes. On good days, I stayed until midafternoon. On bad ones, I went upstairs without turning rest into evidence against myself.
The headaches remained.
So did cognitive fatigue.
Crowded rooms could still take language from me if I ignored the early signs. Stress could make my thoughts narrow and repeat. I saw Dr. Mercer monthly, Dr. Whitcomb twice a year, and Priya whenever she decided I had become careless with my exercises.
I had not experienced another shutdown.
Not because life had become gentle.
Because we had learned how to leave before pain became a locked door.
I never recovered all six missing years.
A few memories returned without warning. Reid asleep beneath Mercy’s console during a rain delay. Emma at four, feeding Marlowe crackers under the table. Owen accidentally setting off a marine flare during what he insisted had been a controlled demonstration.
Most of the blank places remained blank.
I stopped treating that as a sentence.
Some lives were remembered from beginning to end.
Mine had sections washed pale.
I still owned the book.
Reid finished adjusting my cuffs.
“You look beautiful.”
I glanced at the mirror.
My suit was deep navy rather than charcoal, cut to accommodate the slight difference in my right hip.
The tailor had added an invisible stretch panel so sitting through dinner would not become punishment.
My white shirt fit close at the shoulders.
The ring Reid had given me two years ago rested on my left ring finger, its blue enamel catching light whenever I moved.
A faint scar remained near my temple.
I no longer styled my hair to hide it.
“Beautiful?” I asked.
“Dangerously.”
“That’s better.”
He kissed me.
The first touch was intended to be brief.
It wasn’t.
His hands slid around my waist. Mine moved beneath his jacket and over the warm strength of his back. His mouth opened against mine, and for several seconds the wedding, the guests, and the carefully written schedule ceased to exist.
A knock struck the bedroom door.
“Absolutely not,” Marian called from the hallway. “We are nine minutes behind because neither of you understands the phrase final fitting.”
Reid’s mouth remained against mine.
“Go away.”
“I have legal authority to enter.”
“You do not.”
“I have the apartment key.”
That was unfortunately true.
I laughed and drew back.
Reid’s eyes had darkened.
“You started that.”
“I plan to finish it later.”
His grip tightened once.
“Promise?”
“Husband privilege.”
He went completely still.
The word had not even become true yet, and it had already reached somewhere deep in him.
“Say it again,” he murmured.
“Later.”
“Noah.”
I smiled and opened the door.
Marian stood outside wearing a dark red suit, a headset over one ear, and the expression of a woman who had successfully organized a wedding for two men determined to avoid being organized.
Behind her, Leah leaned against the hall wall in a soft blue dress.
Emma and Clara stood on either side of her, both taller than they had been at the start of my recovery and both pretending not to cry.
Marlowe sat in the center of the hallway wearing a green ribbon around his collar and looking offended by formalwear.
Leah looked from me to Reid.
“Oh.”
Her hand rose to her mouth.
“What?” I asked.
“You look…”
“Dangerous,” Reid supplied.
Leah blinked away tears.
“I was going to say happy.”
“I’m also that.”
She crossed the hallway and hugged me.
Not gently because I was injured.
Not cautiously because I might break.
The hug of a sister who had spent two years relearning when to worry and when to let me be.
“You’re really doing it,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“I thought I’d cry later.”
“You began at breakfast.”
“That was allergies.”
“In November?”
“The flowers are aggressive.”
Emma wrapped her arms around both of us.
Clara joined from the other side.
For several seconds, I disappeared into a knot of perfume, hair, and damp eyes.
“Uncle Reid too,” Clara ordered.
Reid submitted.
The group hug became less structurally sound.