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“You think so?”
“I do.”
“You do?”
“I really do.”
“And… And that doesn’t mess up your zero-tolerance policy about being lied to or whatever?”
“It’s a stupid policy.”
And at that, I take her face in my hands and I kiss her, long, and hard, on her beautiful, pouty mouth.
“Do you forgive me?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “I forgive you.”
“Really?” I ask. “I want you to be sure. Because, and I mean this, I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t. So, when you say that it’s OK… You really mean it’s OK?”
She takes a long breath, puts her index finger against my lips—I kiss it—then she draws that same finger down to just above her gorgeous cupcakes, and she says, “Cross my heart.”
EPILOGUE – ANDREW
The change of seasons in Colorado is beautiful, I decide. I mean, I don’t really decide it. It just is. But I guess I decide to acknowledge it.
I’ve also decided I’m gonna stay for a while. Which is why I’ve bought this new place. I’m still in the TDH. Which I will never get tired of making fun of. But I like it here. I like that I can walk places and it feels like, I dunno, a community. That sense of community… It’s nice. But I didn’t want to stay in the same place I was in, so I bought a place in another building just across the way. I like it. I can still walk to work and I’m actually closer to Eden.
“I’m home,” she says, walking in the front door.
I’m much closer to Eden. She and I have been in this place for only about a week, but it already kind of feels like home. It’s our place. I tried to just buy it outright, but she insisted on putting down half the money for a down payment and splitting a mortgage. I told her that I would just pay for it and then she could pay me back half, interest-free, if she really wanted, but she said she wanted her name on the deed too and all that stuff. And I get it. So that’s what we did.
And mostly we did it for her. Not me. I mean, I don’t need the mortgage money. But Eden and Zoey made a deal with Pierce to be his social media marketing experts. And, for the first time in her life, Eden has the means to do whatever she wants. And apparently what she wants is to pay her share while living with me. Hey… As long as I get the second part, the first part is fine.
And their skill, savvy, and, uh, sexpertise… has turned things around for Pierce. Because Eden and Zoey decided to hire another similar (although not quite as spectacular) pair of boobies to take over for Eden’s and they gave the Sexpert a real, proper home on the Le Man website. They have a column too. The Sexpert still gives out crazy tips using desserts in the videos, but the Sexpert column in the magazine is more of a Dear Abby type thing. People write to them with sex and relationship questions and then they answer them.
Florent, Pierce’s father, is over the moon because it turns out that women like this Sexpert advice column even more than men, and so, yeah. A whole new demographic of print subscribers just kinda appeared out of nowhere. Seems women actually still read. Pierce says it has something to do with them having a better attention span. Or something. I dunno. He kept talking and I stopped listening.
Also, Eden and Zoey really do have their social media consulting thing going. They currently have five clients. Le Man, Eden’s dad’s bakery, and three new TDH businesses have all signed up. They’re doing so well that Zoey is in the process of moving into her new TDH home. She put some of her Sexpert money down on a little house in a new-build neighborhood for families so my main man, Stevie, can meet other babies on the local playground and also so that she can be in a secure community. It would seem that Stevie’s pop is going to be released from prison soon. (That was the stuff that Eden was “going to tell me about later.”) I’m still not sure what he was in for, but it’s clear that Zoey wants to make sure there are lots of people around when he resurfaces.
And me? Still climbing. Both literally and not. Figuring out how to trust more. How to just sort of stay in one place, stick with one thing, and know that things are going to be … okay. I even started playing around with a new idea for an art installation. I want to build a permanent thing on top of one of the range peaks. Something that will welcome anyone who makes the attempt to scale the face and reach the summit.
