Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Happily ever after isn’t magic. It’s maintenance. It’s love with a checklist and a thousand tiny improvisations. It’s us.
And tonight, it’s Christmas.
Epilogue
LUCAS
Three months turn out to be the difference between surviving and living. Everett has opinions, a laugh that detonates in the middle like a firework, and a sleep schedule that’s… aspirational. The sticky notes are still on the fridge. The wedge still goes under the door—ugly, effective—but our world is bigger than the apartment now.
Amelia shows up in leggings, a messy bun, and the feral focus of an aunt on mission. “Go,” she orders, already bouncing Ev and fielding the Major’s pleading eyes. “I will text hourly. I will also send pictures you didn’t ask for.”
“Checklist’s on the counter,” I say out of habit.
“You’re still assuming I need a list?” she shoots back with a grin. “We’re good. Go make romance.”
Melanie squeezes my hand as we step into the cold. March has teeth, but the sky is high and clean. I loop us through streets we know by breath. She slants me a sideways look. “You’re not telling me where we’re going.”
“Observation: correct,” I say. She laughs—still my favorite sound—and leans into me across the console.
We roll past the mural alley, the bookstore with the first editions, the coffee shop that knows our order, and then farther north where the houses sit back from the street like they’re listening. The truck eases to a stop in front of a craftsman with a deep porch, a wide yard, and a shape that reads steady. Twinkle lights run the length of the railing like constellations I pinned there myself.
Mel’s breath catches. “Lucas…”
“Come see,” I say, pulse doing its own sprint.
I help her down and take her to the gate. It swings cleanly on hinges I greased myself. The yard is wide, fenced, and already has the beginnings of a raised bed where we’ll try not to murder herbs. A sapling lemon tree—absurd for this climate, viable in a big planter—waits like a dare.
“Two-dog minimum yard,” I say.
She laughs into a hand that’s just started to shake. “Is this—?”
I pull a small key from my pocket, silver on a lemon-yellow fob engraved with Build here. My voice goes steadier than I feel. “Ours. If you want it.”
Her eyes brim, then overflow, the happiest kind of hurricane. “Ask, don’t assume,” she whispers, and I nod.
“Melanie Mason,” I say, stepping closer, letting her see all of it on my face, “do you want to live here with me and Everett and an irresponsible number of rescue dogs? Do you want to make this place our home?”
She laughs-crying, a sound that wrecks me every time. “Yes. Yes, Captain Safety. Yes.”
I unlock the door—smart deadbolt, reinforced strike plate, swings smooth—and lift her over the threshold because some traditions get to be ours too. The house smells like pine and fresh paint and a little like the lemon cleaner I refuse to apologize for. My brain notes camera angles, sensor arcs, egress points. My heart is just… here.
I walk her through: the living room with built-in shelves begging for the lemon ornament and a row of board books; a kitchen with a farmhouse sink and a window that frames the yard like a promise; a small room already painted a soft sky for Ev; an office I’ll claim and never fully tame. On a peg by the back door hangs a tiny hook etched Ev. Her hand flies to her mouth.
“Lucas,” she breathes. “When?”
“Papers closed yesterday,” I say. “ ran point while Ev power-napped on my chest. Dean sent a plant and a note that said ‘redundancy achieved.’” I swallow, and the words come easy anyway. “I wanted to carry you in tonight. I wanted you to see it before the crib and the chaos. Before we fill it with dog hair and lemon zest.”
She turns, loops her arms around my neck, and kisses me the way a person signs a contract they wrote themselves. “Show me the bedroom,” she says, voice low, eyes bright.
“Copy.”
I take her down the hall to the master. The bed’s already made—white linen, too many pillows, a throw she loves. Fairy lights arc along the headboard, and there are candles—battery, because I am still me—glow-warming the corners. I put fresh flowers on the dresser, tucked a lemon sprig in for the joke that isn’t a joke. Music hums low, something without words that sounds like the inside of our life.
She stops in the doorway, one hand on the jamb, one pressed to her chest. “You did all this while pretending we were ‘just going for a drive’?”
“Recon,” I say. “Preparation of terrain.”
“You’re impossible,” she murmurs, smiling as she steps in. “And perfect.”
I close the door softly and face her in the warm spill of light. We don’t rush. We haven’t rushed since the night in the kitchen when we wrote our rules. I reach for her the way you reach for something you already live with: reverent, sure. My thumbs find her jaw, and her fingers slide into my hair, tugging just enough to short out the last of my caution.