Despite the strange turn of events, I’m anything but scared. So I give her the smile I haven’t been able to keep off my face around her lately. “Not even a little bit. Tell him thank you, from me.”
She eyes my lips. “I’ll tell him later,” she murmurs. “Right now I need you to kiss me, Drew.”
My smile widens and I’m so fucking high on this woman, this life, that I can barely stand it.
“Don’t have to tell me twice.”
So I kiss her. And I don’t know how, after all the kissing we’ve done today, but with learning that I’m truly free, and truly part of her family now, it feels different. It feels like the beginning of something amazing.
Epilogue
DREW
CJ was right. But then, that’s not surprising. My girl can see the future, after all.
More specifically, here we are again, at her aunt and uncle’s house one year later. But what she doesn’t know is I’m about to plant the kiss of a lifetime on her under that same mistletoe.
And what a fucking year it’s been. It started with Matt deciding to shack up with the model he’d been dating just as I was finding a new place. So CJ and I agreed to go for it, and we got an apartment together.
Living with her has been a dream I didn’t know I wanted. With my schedule especially, it makes everything so much easier, and we’ve gotten closer every day.
Unfortunately, Matt figured out not long after that the model had also been dating that fitness guy — Nash Murphy, a douchebag name for a douchebag dude — from the dinner that brought CJ and I together. So that went kaput.
To make him feel better, CJ hooked him up with Anna. What she didn’t tell me was that she’d had a vision of them after they met at our housewarming party. One where they got married. Yes, that’s right, within six months, they were hitched. I mean, I’m happy for them and all, but man did that feel like pressure to pop the question.
But I resisted, knowing it had to be right for CJ and me. And I had plans by then to open my own restaurant. Something I managed to pull off this fall. And it’s still on shaky ground, but it’s looking good. I couldn’t have done it without CJ.
Or, you know, the millions of dollars awarded to me in a civil settlement against the Fishers. Money I most certainly didn’t ask for, but I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
As we expected, Amber’s sentence was light in her criminal case. All she got was probation and community service for a year. Since technically she’d never been arrested before. And technically nobody was seriously hurt. So she had to do some therapy and pick up some garbage from the side of the highway, but that was all.
Also unsurprisingly, as soon as she was free to leave the country, her mother shipped her to France where she married her French fiancé-slash-guardian. It was a picture-perfect event that got the Fishers all the good press they love so dearly.
However, in a surprising move that I still have mixed feelings about, Amber committed suicide on her wedding night. Just goes to show that picture-perfect image they work so hard for has nothing to do with reality.
Unfortunately, it also hit CJ hard. I think she felt like she should’ve seen it coming, like she should’ve done more to make sure Amber got the help she actually needed, not just the help that her mother was willing to get her to keep flying under the public radar. Heaven forbid she tarnish her reputation with a seriously mentally ill daughter.
At the same time, given what I went through with that family, I’m hard pressed to feel any responsibility for it.
No, I’ve got my own life to worry about. And that extends to the family I want to make with CJ.
Which brings me back to the mistletoe. The Roberts invited my parents too, so it’s CJ’s aunt and uncle, Matt and Anna, CJ, my parents, and me. The perfect crowd that includes all of the people we love. And of course every last one of us are wearing the ugliest Christmas sweaters we could find. It’s so ridiculous I’m starting to understand the tradition. It definitely lightens the mood and makes it seem like we’re all a family. Which I guess we are, or we soon will be anyway.
Anna and CJ have just polished off their second pieces of peppermint bark cheesecake, and the rest of the family are talking, drinking, and laughing.
I soak in the mood of the room for a minute as I build myself up. It’s hard to believe I went from career-obsessed bachelor to surrounded by a new family in just over a year. I could get used to it.
I rise, standing under the mistletoe and clearing my throat. Everyone looks up expectantly, CJ included. I gesture for her to join me, and she does, looking up at me anxiously.
“I just wanted to take a minute,” I start, tearing my eyes from CJ to look around at everyone, “and tell you all how honored I am to have been welcomed into the Roberts clan like I’m one of their own.”
Meg and Chuck raise their glasses and beam.
“But I especially want to thank this beautiful woman next to me. I didn’t know what I was missing in my life until I met her, and now I can’t imagine a future without her. That being said, I want this to be our last kiss under the mistletoe …” I look to CJ, who looks back, perplexed, “as boyfriend and girlfriend.” I give her a brief, chaste kiss, then sink to one knee, revealing the ring box clutched in my hand. I open it and watch as CJ’s eyes start to sparkle with tears. “Will you, Catherine Jane Roberts, do me the incredible honor of becoming my wife?”
She clasps her hands in front of her face. And I swear, the whole fucking room sucks in its breath at once.
The tears in CJ’s eyes spill over and she nods, drops her hands, and screams, “Yes!”
I can’t help laughing as I rise to put the ring on her finger. Everyone claps and cheers. But I have one more mission today. Our first kiss as future husband and wife.
I stroke my thumb down her cheek, taking in her expression. Once I do, I pull a face.
“You knew, didn’t you?” I accuse her quietly.
She puts a hand over her mouth, but it doesn’t stop the laughter that spills out. “I did,” she admits. “For months. You’re not as good at that whole not thinking about the future thing anymore, as it turns out.”
I pull a mock grimace and shake my head. “Well, thanks for playing along anyway,” I tease.
She runs her hand over my cheek this time. “Just kiss me, Drew.”
A huge smile spreads over my face. “Don’t have to tell me twice,” I murmur, dropping my lips to hers. And I don’t give a fuck that everyone is watching, I lose myself in her the way I only can with CJ. The skin-tingling, mind-bending connection that we share washes over me as our mouths meld together. And I don’t need to be psychic to know that I’m going to love this woman for the rest of my life.
THE END
A Note From The Author
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