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“Me too.”
“That mean you’re gonna keep tryin’ to get me and Kim to do yoga?”
“Absolutely.”
We chuckled before Brian pulled back and looked at me. “Move in with me. We can get another place if you want. I don’t care about that. I just want to come home to you every day and go to bed with you every night. I want home to be ours, something we have together.”
I smiled. Everything this man did wrecked me. “I’d be happy to move in, and I guess it’s a good thing you asked…because a piano is getting delivered next week.”
“Sounds perfect to me.”
EPILOGUE
Brian
Three Years Later
“Let’s see if I can get my husband to play one more song for you guys tonight,” Charles said from his spot at the piano at Rowdies. This wasn’t something we did often, but we liked to come on their open-mic nights. Charles and I did mostly covers, but we’d started playing around with writing our own songs, and occasionally we’d play one.
“Do it!” Kim called from the audience. She and Raya were there, along with Sutton, Jasper, Emerson, Sam, Rhonda, and John. Charles’s parents had sold their vacation house in Pennsylvania and purchased one in North Carolina, spending a few months out of the year here with us.
“Can’t really argue since it’s your birthday, can I?” I told Charles playfully because I didn’t want to argue. I still didn’t do a lot of talking onstage. I didn’t do a lot of talking in most situations, but it worked for us. We still joked around that Charles could speak enough for the both of us. I knew who I was and accepted those things about myself, knew I wasn’t broken and that Charles loved all my pieces too.
“My husband loves me.” Charles winked as a round of applause came at us. Everyone here knew us, no one blinking an eye at him calling us husbands twice. We’d gotten married six months ago, with just the eight people in attendance with us tonight watching on.
Sutton and Jasper were married too. They’d tied the knot before us, Jasper having asked Sutton at the end of Charles’s first summer in Ryland. They’d gotten married at their place, their ceremony a big party compared to ours.
“What are we gonna sing?” I asked, though I knew what he would say.
“‘Against My Skin,’” Charles replied. It was a song we’d written together.
I started it off, a soft guitar melody that was soon accompanied by Charles’s fingers on the piano, before Charles started to sing. When it was just the two of us at home, I’d join in, but using my voice in a song with this many people around wasn’t my thing. My anxiety had gotten better over the years, with the help of both medication and therapy, but there was also no changing who I was. I would always be quieter than most, didn’t like the spotlight, and was comfortable letting him take the lead on things like that.
I didn’t know what was different about tonight, maybe because it was his birthday, but when we got to the chorus, talking about how good it felt to be close to your person, how much I loved feeling him against me, I opened my mouth and let my voice join his. Charles looked over at me and smiled with so much love in his expression, it filled me up the way it always did.
The crowd clapped and cheered for us when we finished, me with my head down, studying my guitar. Charles wrapped an arm around me, kissing my forehead before hamming it up for the crowd.
The next band came onstage as we left, Charles and I heading over to our friends and family.
Sutton gave me a smile and a nod of support when I sat down beside him.
We stayed for about an hour after that, everyone talking and laughing, while we listened to the other band.
Raya Sunshine was doing well, Charles and Raya thriving together. He loved being at the studio, and while I did go there sometimes to do yoga, I preferred to do it with him at home.
“How’s your mama doing?” I asked Jasper. He’d lost his daddy a few months back. It had been real hard on him because his father hadn’t ever accepted him for loving Sutton, but Jasper knew that wasn’t on him. What he and Sutton had was beautiful, and it was Bob’s loss that he hadn’t ever been able to see it.
“She’s doin’ good. Aunt Carrie is moving in with her. They’ve gotten even closer lately,” Jasper replied. Sam’s mom, Carrie, was doing well too, still holding on to her sobriety.
Sam and Emerson talked about the farm, which was prospering. Sam had also gotten his furniture-making business off the ground, all of us happy and living our lives.
