Epilogue
Sally
Thanksgiving was upon us once again. The chill was in the air, as was the shouts of people in the grocery store parking lot while people went to buy their birds.
Luckily, Mike and I had recently both gone vegetarian and had opted for pizza instead. One he made himself from scratch, with exactly what we wanted on it. It wasn’t the usual homemade pizza either. He had apparently hacked the database of a chain pizza place and followed their recipe because it tasted it had just come out of a pizza box. Only a bit better, vein topped with all my favorite veggies.
We had decided to do thanksgiving alone. The official thanksgiving that is. We had still gone the ‘friendsgiving’ that time held at Maya’s place.
Everyone was there, as they often were, Derek arriving early, having learned his lesson the year before, but we decided that it had been enough. Besides which we really wanted to spend the holiday with Sherlock who was two months old by then.
We had debated about the name for months, the whole thing coming down to a coin toss. Sherlock had been my choice, Mike going for Marcel. I didn’t really have anything against Marcel per se. It was a perfectly good name in and of itself. It was just that it really put me in mind of a French mime.
“You baked it right?” Mike asked, putting the pizza down in the middle of the table on one of those stands you often see in restaurants.
“Of course,” I said, nursing Sherlock.
“Where did you hide it?”
“That would be telling,” I said.
“Really?” Mike asked, mildly amused.
“Yes,” I said with gravitas.
“Okay, I give,” he said, backing off. I had taught him well since we started living together.
Mike got the pizza slicer and cut the homemade pie into twelve even pieces. Serving up a slice each he poured to glasses of grape juice, both of us having given up wine, though for different reasons.
“Want me to take him?” Mike asked, coming over to my side of the table.
“Sure, thanks,” I said, handing off Sherlock while tucking away my tit.
“Not a problem,” Mike said, cradling our son perfectly.
Mike bounced Sherlock on his knee, as he reduced several slices of pizza to just the crust, which he then put back on the plate like rib bones. He had apparently always had a high metabolism. It made sense with all the exercise he did, his muscles speaking to his effort.
He was honestly built like a boxer and likely could do it if he was interested in that instead of tech. I never asked if he had found a way to hack into On the Go.
Last I checked it was still going so I figured either he hadn’t figured how yet or he had found it and decided not to use it for whatever reason. Going by the fact that I had seen him phone hack a security camera on the way up to a house, I guessed that he had figured it out and decided not to. Maybe he was softening a bit. Having kids could do that, or so I understood.
“I thought you didn’t want kids,” I teased.
“There are many things in life that have surprised me,” he said.
“Like not getting revenge on Jessa?” I asked, making him flinch.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Sorry,” I said.
“I’m fine,” he claimed, though I didn’t believe him for a second.
“Okay,” I said, not wanting to push.
We were having a good time up to that point and I didn’t want to bring us down but exhuming the ghosts of the past. I got a ping on my phone. It was from On the Go.
“Well, speak of the she-devil,” I said.
“Indeed,” Mark agreed, looking at his.
“Looks like she’s really gone of the rails,” I pointed out.
“As she is wont to do,” Mike said, not sounding surprised at all.
The On the Go story was the sort of thing that schadenfreude was made for. According to the story, which was from the app Jess owned so there was every reason to cover it up but they didn’t, Jessa had gone through a major public meltdown, actually throwing a chair through the window of a coffee shop. There was a link to a video of the incident taken by several people in the coffee shop at the time.
“What do you think happened?” I asked.
“Hard to say, I’ve seen her do worse when she didn’t get whipped cream on her hot chocolate,” Mike said.
I suspected that he was exaggerating but couldn’t really tell how much and decided not to push it. There was another ping, this time just to Mike. His face was impossible to read as he looked at the message. I repressed the urge to ask what the message was, figuring her would tell me in his own time, even going over and taking Sherlock back so he could focus on what he was doing.