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After all that had happened that day, I hadn’t thought I could get emotional again for… God, hours at least. But it turned out I had a fresh supply. I felt so much for the man that it wrecked me, then built me up again in the best possible way. And I knew there was no one I’d rather have as a partner, in Horn of Glory or in life.
I couldn’t possibly compete with the poetry Hux had uttered, so I didn’t try. Instead, I leaned my head on his chest again and closed my eyes with a grin. “Okay… but I’m only doing it because Rodrigo deserves two parents.”
Hux yanked me up and kissed me so hard I almost choked on shower water. We kissed long enough to turn pruney, long enough for Hux to wrap a towel around us both and drag us both to the bed, long enough for him to wrap his strong arms and legs around me… and for Hux to fall asleep, still kissing me.
Before I closed my eyes, I blinked at the lights from the strip that danced across the ceiling. I might have wondered if I’d stepped into a fantasy world, but Hux’s solid weight grounded me and reassured me that I was right where I belonged—in a world where magic didn’t come from health boosters or enchanted swords, trolls or potions, but from the man who’d chosen me, the man I’d chosen, and the beautiful future that lay before us.
It turned out love was the craziest and most wonderful game of all.
And I was playing to win.
EPILOGUE
HUX—SIX MONTHS LATER
I had lived in many places and seen many things over the past thirty years. Broad rolling rivers and endless mountains. Vast, lonely deserts that scorched and froze in turns. Oceans so wide and empty it felt like I was the only creature in the universe, and cities so crowded that it felt like all of humanity was sharing the same breath.
Some of those places I’d loved, and others I’d hated, but not one of them had been mine. None of them had been home. Until the road I’d been traveling had bent, unexpectedly and randomly and not altogether welcomely, and I’d found myself plunked down in this tiny, green corner of Tennessee, where the cows outnumbered the people, and the puns outnumbered the cows, and my soul had stretched and sighed and put down roots.
Because that was what happened when you found the place where you were meant to be. The people you were meant to be with.
And it was, I reflected as I sat atop a long wooden picnic table and let my eyes roam over a grassy field littered with summer dandelions and laughing children, a beautiful, beautiful thing.
“You know, boys,” Buck Nutter said thoughtfully from a nearby lawn chair. “The best part of a Lickin’ is just sittin’ back and enjoyin’ the sensation.” He took a sip of his beer and swallowed with a long, drawn-out aaaahhhh. “Doncha think?”
I ignored him. I’d gotten quite good at ignoring Buck over the past six months of depositions, case meetings, and the random, almost daily encounters that came from living in the same small town. In fact, Kev sometimes said it was my superpower.
“Gonna have to disagree with you there, Buck.” Quinn, who sat on the bench near my feet, leaned over to take a big bite of Champ’s Lickin’ Horn—the HOG-sponsored deep-fried, sugar-dusted ice-cream cone that had become a fan favorite at this year’s Lickin’ festival. “Best part of a Lickin’ is the taste.”
Champ shook his head sternly at his boyfriend. There would be hell to pay when they got home for Quinn’s egregious pun usage, and the impish smile on Quinn’s face said he both knew this and welcomed it. “If you’re gonna make me try one of these,” he grumbled, taking a large bite of his own, “I’m glad we’re doing it with an actual cardiologist on hand.”
Carter sipped from his water bottle and watched in fascination as Riggs inhaled his second hot dog in under twenty seconds. “Pretty sure I’m going to be too busy resuscitating my own husband to save Quinn’s twinky ass. Baby, maybe chew? Just a thought.”
I held up my beer stein and tilted it in Riggs’s direction. “Don’t listen to the haters, Riggsy! Just ten more and you’ll beat Elvo’s record from that Fourth of July in Lejeune.”
Carter groaned and dropped his chin to his chest. “Don’t egg him on. The last time you guys threw down a food challenge, he was up all night crying and trying to pick out a name for his ‘cake baby.’”
Champ snorted. “He wasn’t crying because he ate a whole birthday cake. He was crying because he was another year older.”
Riggs shot Champ the bird without pausing his hot dog consumption.
