Maybe Alonzo isn’t here for Jesse, but he is here for me.
Then I had to convince Mila, Hannah, and Natalie that we’re a family and they had to come too. So they rearranged their holiday—twice, actually. Since I bossed them into this party at the Bossy and my mother bossed them into the wedding in Vegas.
It was a lot of work but it felt right.
It still feels right.
But will Jesse agree?
Johnny withdraws his hands from Jesse’s shoulders and I bite my lip, waiting for Jesse’s reaction. And when he looks at me I say, “Surprise!” in a small, unsure voice.
He takes a deep, deep breath. Then he smiles and points his finger at me. “Well, played, Mrs. Boston. Well played.”
I let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. But”—he holds up his hand—“you’re not gonna win this one, you know.”
“Win? What?”
“The one-up Christmas game. Because lady…” He steps forward towards me, turns and places both his hands on my cheeks, and kisses me. And in this kiss he whispers, “I got you a present money can’t buy.”
I giggle into our kiss. “What’s that, Mr. Boston?”
He takes a step back and snaps his fingers. Then Joey is in motion. He darts over to the tree, fishes around for a present, and holds it up like a prize. “Got it!” He beams a smile at me as he hurries over to Jesse to hand it to him.
Jesse takes it. It’s a beautifully wrapped gift. I can’t figure out if it’s a wedding gift or a Christmas gift. The paper is silver with blue bells on it and that could go either way.
Jesse holds it up. “Emma, I only have one regret. Just one. I wish I could’ve been there for the thirteen years I missed with you. And I wish you could’ve been there for the thirteen years you missed with me. So I made you this.”
“Actually,” Huck says, holding up a finger, “this was my idea.”
“Shut up, Huck,” Jesse growls.
Huck puts up surrender hands. “I’m just saying.”
Jesse glares at him. But then he says, “We”—as he looks around the room at our family and friends—“we did this. For you. And me too. So… I hope you like it.”
He hands me the gift, which is about the size of a shirt box you’d get from a department store.
“But you have to sit down,” Maisy says, pulling on my hand and leading me to the couch where my parents are sitting. They move over and make room for Jesse and me. And now I’m like… super excited. What could possibly be in this box that could win the one-up game? I mean, this Bossy surprise is pretty fuckin’ fantastic. This is my yacht on the one-up dream date. This is the moment that Jesse realized I was the boss.
We sit down between my parents and everyone in the room starts rearranging chairs or sitting on tables, so they can see the present when I open it.
Then it all happens at once. I pull the blue satin ribbon off the present, lift the lid off the box, and push the tissue paper out of the way.
Inside is a photo album. And on the front it says, My Life with You, Uninterrupted.
I open it and right from the first page I know.
I know.
He won.
Because this is a picture of me at my high school prom. But I’m not with that date my mother bossed me into going with.
I’m with Jesse Boston.
“What the hell?” I laugh.
And then the whole story of the photo album comes spilling out of Joey’s mouth, Huck interrupting at regular intervals, Wald adding his two cents. They explain how they needed to fake out Michael Conner to get custody of Maisy and how they hired people all over the world to fake social media pictures of them. And how Jesse wanted so badly to get a second chance with me, he asked if they could make a fantasy life. One where we were never apart.
My mother gave him baby pictures of me. And even though Jesse only has one single picture of him as a baby and his face is Photoshopped—badly, in most of them—onto every single one of me during my toddler years, I don’t care. In one, we’re in a little plastic pool together as infants. And we celebrate our birthdays together. All the birthdays. Someone used age-progression on Jesse’s baby picture, you can tell. But some of them are real and even Jesse is surprised when he sees these.
And prom night, of course. And pictures of me standing next to Jesse for every one of his yacht wins. And pictures of Jesse standing next to me, Mila, Hannah, and Natalie as we opened our first cosmetics shop. When we got our awards. There’s even fake magazine interviews with our faces on the covers.