EPILOGUE
JANUARY, 2024
The cottage we’ve rented in the south of Costa Rica sits right on the beach, under the shade of palm trees. The water is as warm as he promised. There’s no need for wetsuits, no need to brace yourself before you venture out.
The tide came in a little late today, and we surfed for longer than we should have. The sand is brutally hot by the time we emerge, the sun so strong that it will melt the wax off our boards in minutes if we dump them on the beach. So we run—awkward with a seven-foot board under your arm—laughing at our own cries of pain.
Once we’ve showered, I’ll experiment with smoothie bowls, and he’ll do some work for Emerson’s boss, who’s dying for him to come aboard full-time. And then we’ll surf again and eat dinner on our deck before we retire for the night. With the ocean breeze whipping in through the windows, we’ll talk about our future the way we once spoke about the trip we’re currently on, as if we’re simply daydreaming, though we’re not.
It’s in no way what my mother hoped to see me doing at this stage in my life. Even at my graduation dinner, she was stilltrying to talk us out of this trip—there’s some company in San Francisco that will pay for you to get your MBA at night, apparently, and she thought it was perfect for me.
Even though I’ve got no interest in an MBAoran office joborSan Francisco.
Harrison squeezed my hand beneath the table as my mom talked, and though I appreciated the moral support, I no longer needed it. We’d lived together for the better part of eight months by then, which meant I’d had eight full months of someone I respected saying it was okay for me to be exactly who I am: a woman who loves to cook and surf, who needs sunlight and the outdoors the way someone else needs oxygen and sleep.
I could wind up with a big life or a small life, but the important thing is that it’ll be a lifeIchoose. And for now, we’ve chosen this: a year away from it all. A year for us both to stop leading the kind of lives that didn’t make us happy while we figure out what we want instead.
When we leave here in a month, we’ll head to Cabo for the late March swell, with stops in El Salvador and Panama on the way. From there, we’ll go to the North Shore, renting a house next to Harrison’s friend Luke—Liam’s planning to join us for a week—after which we’ll meet his brothers in Portugal to surf in Nazaré before moving onto the final leg of our trip: two months in Bali.
I’m looking forward to it all. I’m looking forward to what happens after we get home just as much, though I’m not sure what or where that will be. He talks about opening his own firm. I talk about opening a smoothie bowl place, though it’s possible the things I want will be simpler.
I want Harrison. I want to surf for as long as I’m able to. I want to rinse our sandy babies off at the end of a long day, and I want those days to consist of the best parts of his childhood andmine: fresh air, sunshine, freedom, a surfboard stable underfoot for the first time.
He’s insisting we wait for that, though he wants it even more than I do.Years, he said a few months ago. “Enjoy your twenties. We have all the time in the world.”
But I don’t want to wait. The future he wants so badly for himself is the precise one I want too, once this year of travel is over.
I lazily lean my surfboard against the side of the house and head to the outdoor shower. He dutifully remains behind to rinse the sand from his board and mine. I guess some habits—my laziness, his responsibility—can’t be changed overnight.
“Hon?” I call over the spray of the shower.
He cuts the hose and opens the shower door. “Did you need something?”
I pull the tie to my bikini loose and swing it off my index finger. “I do, actually. I just thought we should conserve water. To keep the bills down. I’m trying to be responsible.”
He grins as he steps inside the shower and pulls me against him. Wet skin to wet skin. He’s already hard. “The day I see you worried about saving money is the day I start to question everything.”
I reach between us, pushing his trunks down, fisting him. “You’ve got loads of it. And you never tell me no.”
He kisses me, his lips soft, still flecked with sand. “Everything I have is yours, Daisy,” he says, his fingers tugging at the ties on my bikini bottoms. “Every fucking thing.”
I already know this. Except all I actually want is him, and I already have that.
He lifts one of my thighs around his waist and pushes inside me with a hiss of pleasure.
“You should probably propose one of these days.” My voice is breathless as he moves in and out. “Just to make it official.”
He already has the ring. Oliver told me it’s hiddensomewhere in the house, and that Harrison is refusing to propose yet because he wants me to have my youth. I’ve looked for it everywhere to no avail.
“Fuck,” he says, his body coiling tight. He is possibly the only man alive for whom talk of marriage isforeplay. If I told him I’ve already looked at churches in Portugal, he’d definitely blow his load.
“You’d want that?” he demands, holding me against the shower wall for leverage, pushing hard inside me. “You really think you’re ready?”
His breath is short. He’s already close.
“I do. I’m ready.” I gasp as he pinches my nipple. His free hand slides between us and circles my clit. “Just like that. Don’t stop.”
His jaw clenches. “We should give it a year or two, until you know what you want.”
He hits something inside me and the world explodes. My eyes are still closed as he jerks inside me, his teeth in that favorite spot of his, right on my shoulder.
“I’ve known what I wanted since I was three years old,” I whisper. “Everything else is icing.”
He gave me this life. He made me realize that it’s okay to want the things I want, that I don’t need to live anyone’s dream but my own. He gave mehim.
But that ring he’s got hidden? Those babies he wants me to carry?
I’m more than happy for him to give me those too. The sooner the better.
THE END
