Epilogue

EPILOGUE

LAKE

Seven-hundred-and-two bobas later … (haha, fine I’ll take it easy on you: that’s about two years in boba-time)

Kaycee’s wedding dress is beautiful, this short, lacey summer dress with a slip underneath. She added a white ballcap and white sneakers with lace ties and a dash of glitter. It makes her look like a pop star which, you know, is acceptable.

We have a lot of famous pop stars in the Frost family, pop stars who believe in real magic.

I’m standing beside my brother’s soon-to-be wife while she checks over her appearance in the floor-length mirror in my bedroom. The wedding today is being held in the backyard, under the redbud tree that only blooms if it’s a particularly clear night with a lot of stars. Otherwise, it’s barren but beautiful the rest of the year.

“I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to get down the aisle,” Kaycee murmurs, glancing over at me with a raised brow. I lift up my own hand, graced with a wedding ring, and I at least have the common decency to look guilty.

“Sorry, but Tam is persistent.”

“And Joules isn’t?” Kaycee asks, but she asks it with a smile. “This is better. We took our time, and we didn’t rush it. You and Tam died together, so it makes sense that you’d tie the knot first.”

“I love that you know about the curse,” I tell her, and she laughs, letting me grace her cheek with a kiss. You would never know that just a short time ago, I was gunning to steal this woman’s boyfriend. Instead, we made an exchange, and she got my grumbly, growly brother in Tam’s place. “Meet you downstairs?”

“Hell no. I’m ready now.” Kaycee adjusts her ballcap and we head downstairs to find both Tam and Joules waiting for us. “You’re lucky I even got this dressed up,” she tells Joules, and he scoffs. But his eyes? He’s smitten.

It’s honestly gross.

“Can you eye-fuck your new bride after the ceremony?” I ask, nodding with my chin in the direction of the screen door. After this, Tam and I will go with Joules and Kaycee to an undisclosed location for some time off. Tam hasn’t had more than a handful of days away from work since we got married the year after the curse was broken.

Oh, and also we have a dog.

I reach down and give his silky ear a scratch. I named him Jet because we have a lot of J names in our family. It seems to fit. He’s black-and-white and beautiful.

“I’ll eye-fuck your sister instead,” Tam quips, and Joules grits his teeth.

“You’re not invited to my wedding,” he growls out, but then he’s turning and holding his arm out for Kaycee to take. Joules softens toward her, goes all tender in the face. I pretend to sigh in irritation, but he ignores me.

While Joules and Kaycee have their moment, I turn to Tam.

He’s watching me from hooded eyes, hands tucked in the pockets of his black slacks. His dress shirt is a pale pink, and he’s got gray suspenders and matching boots on. He’s about this close to being in a music video. In fact, there’s a chance that the suspenders are from the last one he did.

“I can’t believe that we’re here together, right now,” I tell Tam, and the edge of his lip quirks in a smile. “That we survived. Joules survived. Even Allison.”

But Joe didn’t, and I still have to deal with that every day. There’s a peace there that grows with each breath that I take, with each boba that I slurp down, with each Tam Eyre concert I attend.

I am a massive Tambourine now. I can even repeat the catchphrase—Cute, Confident & True to Ourselves—without bursting into laughter. Maybe Tam’s music is just pop, and maybe it doesn’t mean anything when compared to stars and redbud trees and Heart Nebulas, but it brings people happiness. It draws them together. It’s a light in a sometimes-dark world.

Maybe there isn’t a lot of magic in this place, but there’s a little bit, and if we learn to listen and look for it, we can find it. In the pattern of a snowflake. In a sunset. In the stars on a clear night. In Tam’s eyes as he gazes down at me.

“Against my better judgment, I believed that what you were telling me about the curse was real. I saw a tree bloom on the cusp of fall and then die just as quickly. I saw a daytime sky turn to stars, and I saw the woman I love die in my arms.” Tam pulls in a deep breath, but he doesn’t move. Not yet. “I saw your family fall in unison, and wake in unison. Lake, there is nothing about us that’s believable. We’re exceptional together.”

My breath catches, and I step a little closer to him, weaving my fingers into his strawberry hair.

“Thanks for loving me, so that we didn’t die,” I say, with all due seriousness.

“Aw, you’re so very welcome,” Tam teases, wrapping me up and kissing me again. We have a house here, but we don’t visit as often as we’d like. Tam’s career keeps us on our toes, and Kaycee’s has a hold of her and Joules. So, whenever we come home like this, I swear that Tam must taste all of that bittersweetness on my lips.

“Can I please get married or are you two going to fuck right here in Mom’s living room?” Joules snorts, and Kaycee laughs. Tam and I just give each other a look because we already did what Joules is suggesting last night.

We head outside for a simple easy wedding on a summer day in northwest Arkansas.

The air smells like flowers, and the entire world is in bloom—everything but the unpredictable tree.

Joules marries Kaycee, and I wear a ring on my finger that I got in a boba tea shop. Tam and I sit with our dog on a folding chair, and we hold hands as we look up at the sky.

We take our vacation with my brother and his new wife, and then we hop right back into a new world tour.

Tam Eyre is fucking amazing, and I won’t rest until the whole world knows it.