I lean over and kiss her shoulder. “You don’t play fair,” she says when she finally opens her eyes, and I slide out of her. She stands up to go to the bathroom, and I follow her. “I’m not talking to you.” She avoids looking at me.
“And why not?” I try to hide my smile as we clean ourselves up.
“Because it’s not fair,” she says, taking the hand towel and throwing it in the wash. “You used sex to get your way.”
I throw my head back and laugh. “You didn’t do the same thing two days ago?” I point at her.
“That was not the same thing,” she huffs out. “That was to decide dinner. You wanted Chinese, and I didn’t, hence the blow job until you said pizza.”
“So you don’t want to move in with me?” I ask to clarify, and she just glares at me.
“We already live together.” She throws her hands up. “Half my clothes are upstairs.”
“But I want all the clothes,” I tell her. “I don’t want you to have to go home.”
“Would we live here?”
I shrug. “Do you want to keep your house and have me move in there?”
“You would do that?” she asks me.
“Well, I want to live with you, so I guess wherever you want to live is where I’ll go.” I don't give a shit where we live. Do I want her to move in here? Yes. But that's only because my place is bigger for when we have kids. But that is another subject for another time.
“Just like that?” She folds her arms over her chest, and I kiss her lips.
“Just like that,” I tell her. “Now let’s go celebrate.”
“We just had anal on the counter.” She laughs. “We can’t celebrate more than that.”
I throw my head back and laugh. “Oh, I’m sure we can think of ways,” I say, and she wraps her arms around my waist. “I love you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Her eyes go soft. “I love you, too.”
Epilogue One
Frances
Six months later
“How much luggage does one person need for a two-week vacation?” my cousin, Dylan, asks Alex as he picks up her luggage from the cart. Two more carts come with luggage as we wait next to the parked cars. I fan my face with my hand to try to get some air. “A two-week vacation on a beach. All you need is a bathing suit, six shirts, six shorts, fourteen pairs of underwear, one bra …”
“One bra?” She gasps, standing there in loose beige pants and a white tank top. “What do you think I am, a psychopath? A savage?” She shakes her head, her long brown hair moving side to side. “Unmatched bra and panties,” she mumbles under her breath, and I roll my lips, trying not to laugh at the way she looks at Dylan.
“Do we have to stay the whole fourteen days?” Wilson asks from beside me, and I look over at him. He’s wearing shorts and a polo shirt with slides, and I can’t help but look at him and smile. In the past six months, so much has changed for us. One, we are officially living together after Julia bought my house. He is starting the Brad Wilson Hockey School. Alex not only took it on for her job but she also set up after-school programs and a summer program, which are full with a waiting list. All it took was a little push to make him see that his name meant something. It also helped that he finished the season fourth in points in the whole league. “No one is going to notice if we dip out after a couple of days.” He puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me to him, kissing my head.
I laugh at him, wrapping my arms around his waist. “My father notices if someone isn’t there after an hour.” It’s his first time vacationing with the whole gang. And as much as I’ve tried to prepare him, nothing is going to prepare him.
“But we have our own house, right?” He looks at me with big eyes when I shrug. “Frances.”
“Calm down, everyone gets their own house,” I assure him, kissing under his neck. “It’ll be fun.”
“Fun is me and you in our house with the door locked,” he tells me. “And no one coming over. It was so much more simple when I was a loner.”
“But what fun is it?” I ask. “Without all this commotion?” I turn around in a circle as people are walking off the big charter plane that my father had rented to make sure we all got here at the same time.
“This is much easier,” Cooper points out from beside me, pushing a stroller with his sleeping son in it. “Than when we all travel solo and then meet there.” Erika walks behind him, holding the girls' hands. My mother is behind her carrying Stella in her arms.