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I catch the scent of something burning.
Shoot. Who turned the dial on the toaster up to nine? My preferred toast setting is four!
I pull the toast out, burning my finger, and drop it on the plate, shaking my hand for a second. I’m ready to grab the bread and put new slices in when I feel a presence behind me.
I startle.
“Hey,” Austin says huskily. His lips touch my collarbone and I breathe in his scent. He’s back from his run. He’s sweaty. And for some weird reason, I love that smell on him. It must be loaded with pheromones or something.
“Hey,” I return. “I burnt breakfast.”
“Mm. I see that. And smell that. Are you wearing underwear under this shirt?”
“No,” I whisper. Yes, I’m wearing one of his dress shirts. He gets this look in his eye whenever I do, so I do – often.
“Let’s not let that burnt toast go to waste, then, Miss Sweetheart.” He lifts a piece up in his right hand.
He’s caging me against the counter now, his left hand beside my hip.
He waves it around for a second. “Still too hot, I think.”
He isn’t planning to…
His left hand cups my hip briefly and then the dress shirt I’m wearing is lifted.
He is gonna do this.
No way…
I grab onto the counter, feeling the still-warm, rather abrasive piece of toast against a place it probably shouldn’t be.
Epilogue
Seven Months Later
I’m waiting outside the hospital in Dad’s red Mustang. The top is down. Shane comes outside with Dr. Tamara Lexington. She waves.
I blow her a kiss. “Thank you for everything!”
She blows one back and steps back inside.
I get out of the car and leave the driver’s side door open.
“Shut it!” he orders, and I bristle.
But he’s smiling.
I shut the door as he rounds it and throws his arms around me. “Let me see it!”
I flash my hand and the beautiful engagement ring I got three months ago.
Shane grins and then shields his eyes. “Thanks. Whoa. Flashbang. Now I’m blind.”
“Ha. It’s pretty, isn’t it? And now that you’re out, I wanna ask if you’ll walk me down the aisle.”
“Absofuckinglutely.” He hugs me. “How’d he pop the question?”
I trip and catch myself. “Um, you know. The usual.” My face burns red.
Shane does a double take and then screws up his face. “You need a secondary engagement story.”
“I have one,” I whisper. “But it’s you here…”
He smiles.
Austin proposed to me during sex. Actually, he slipped the ring on my finger while my wrists were cuffed to the headboard.
I’ve been telling people he blurted the proposal in his kitchen, because truthfully he did do that, but that’s not when we technically got engaged. That took a little longer, though he teased me relentlessly telling me it could happen at any place or anytime and to be on my best ‘good girl’ behavior because I could get proposed to at any moment. I love the secret truth about our engagement, and it’s only for us.
But for some reason, I had a total poker face with Shane.
Shane walks around and opens the passenger door, gesturing for me to get in. I do.
He closes it, rounds the hood and then instead of opening the door, he puts one hand on the door and jumps over, Dukes of Hazzard style. I cackle with glee.
We loved watching reruns of that when we were kids. One of the things we actually did with Dad. The three of us would watch it every weeknight at seven o’clock. We watched all the seasons twice before Dad got sick of watching and went back to M.A.S.H.
Dad and Mom’s urns are carefully stored in the trunk. I went through my parents’ photo albums a few months ago when I came back for a week to sort through storage stuff and just like my brother said, Mom had put notes on the back of the photos about the date, place, and occasion. Carly and Adele came to help me and we made a girls’ week of it. I feel so lucky to have such good friends now. It’s hard to fathom how opposite of alone I am now.
In between sifting through the storage stuff, we went for dinners and to a dance club, I got to visit Shane, and we also attended Raven’s first book signing. She went the self-publishing route, but also told her family about her books after she hit a bestseller list with her debut novel. She has a lot to be proud of and tells me her family was shocked but is supportive, which has shocked her in the best way. She has a new beau, too.
Of course we stayed at Aiden’s condo when we were in New York and surprisingly, Andrew still works as a security guard on the night shift.
The guy has no idea that he got Sienna pregnant, though it wasn’t viable. And I have no idea if he’s gotten any more acting jobs, but I do know he looked unhappy when he saw me.
