Epilogue

Three Years Later

"Look," I began, laying my hands on the table and taking a deep breath. "You can't expect everyone to operate how you want them to."

"That's not…" one of the newest mentors, Shane, began, but I cut him off.

"It is," I told him, firmly but with a small smile to show I wasn't trying to roast him. It didn't require a lot of emotional intelligence to understand that someone who felt under attack wouldn't hear a word you said. "I've made the same mistake time and time again."

Shane scoffed, looking away. "Yeah? Like when?"

"All the time," I told him, still smiling. "In fact, I've been dangerously close to doing it during this meeting."

"Huh?"

"Getting frustrated because you're not doing something as I think you should be. I don't know about you, but that's just a bunch of circular reacting and probably isn't going to help us much."

I watched him, trying not to look like I was evaluating him while I waited for him to react again. So, instead, I made a point to let my eyes drift around the room. Knowing this was my office never failed to send a flutter of nerves and excitement through me. I'd had it for almost a year, and it had lost its barren, lifeless quality and taken on qualities of me and my life.

There were pictures on the wall from the trips I'd taken with Reed over the past couple of years. There was a picture of us on a street corner in New York City and a picture of us in Vegas, but most of the photos from that trip were not fit for public consumption.

Thankfully, I had been able to use whatever I could buy, so the sterile office setup had been replaced. Reed had found the curved monitor unnecessary but hilarious, and Mona still wondered why I needed a keyboard and mouse that lit up in rainbow colors.

"Hey, most of my life was spent with washed-out, dirty colors, and fun was rare," I'd told her, grinning as I wiggled the mouse to light it up sporadically. "And now I have the chance. So I'm getting goofy shit, and I'm going to like it."

"To each their own," she had said with a shake of her head, but even then, I was pretty sure that woman knew exactly what I meant and on a personal level. Ambition and dedication like hers were rarely born from an easy life. No one wanted to get to the top and stay there like people who'd sat at the bottom for too long.

My fun even extended to plants, though I hadn't gone for anything typical, mostly because I was bad at remembering to take care of them, even when they sat behind me on the shelf under my window. Thankfully, the half dozen Venus fly traps thrived just fine. Then again, I tended to leave the windows open, and plenty of food loved to flit their way into the window after they were done feasting on animal shit.

The place was mine, all mine, and that was a feeling I'd never had before. I'd always had to share spaces, but this office? Mine. Well, not totally mine. Mona was my boss and could come in at any time, but showed me the courtesy of warning me or at least knocking. Well, and in a great fit of irony, it was also the office Reed and I had snuck into, having officially ‘tainted it' from that day.

And had tainted it more in the past few months.

Shane took a deep breath, and I saw the tension leave his shoulders. "I remember you telling me once to treat these guys like siblings, but…you even have siblings? All they do is drive you crazy."

I laughed. "Probably even worse coming from me, of all people. I had two brothers. I was a brother and a father to them, so it's a little messier for me."

"Had?"

"One of them died a few years ago. It was the final push for me to plummet into a complete disaster, and, well, then, I got arrested, sent to prison, and ended up here."

"Oh, sorry to hear that."

"It's okay. I mean, it's not, and I miss him all the time, but Ian wasn't known for his temper. He was one of those guys who seemed to find the silver lining, no matter how thin and fragile it was, and clung to it."

"Wow, that…no offense, but that sounds really annoying."

"Oh, you have no idea," I chuckled. "It could try your nerves sometimes, but he just…that was how he got through our childhood and all the shit we had to deal with. He never wanted to lose sight of hope because losing hope is the only time you ever really lose in life. Everything else is a setback, and you can always keep moving toward something better."

There was an irony to Ian's attitude when he never really got the chance to get to somewhere better. But that didn't mean I needed to let my ass fall even further. I had lost hope. I had failed at the one lesson my brother had been adamant about. The funny thing I'd learned about hope was that it never had to stay dead. It could be brought back and remain at your side as long as you let it.

Shane took another breath, his shoulders slumping, and I had to fight the urge to laugh at his dramatic defeat. "So, show him patience and shit?"

I rolled my eyes. "Look, you already know that if you're too nice to these guys, they'll walk all over you and not feel the slightest bit sorry."

"Yeah, exactly. So what the fuck am I supposed to do?"

"You figure out what makes him tick. Figure out your ‘in' with him."

"How?"

"Gotta get their trust, remember? How many of my lessons do I point that out to all the mentors? Even the experienced ones?"

"Every time," he said in the weary voice of a man who's heard that phrase one too many times.

"Then that's where you need to start. Like I've said, you get these guys to trust you, and then work on getting them to like you."

"You ever feel like you're not the right man for the job? I mean, I know you used to do this shit all the time, and everyone said you were the best."

I sighed, resisting the urge to push away the compliment before it got too close. "Well, actually, yeah, all the time. I still do. I'm going to sit here after you leave and worry that you struggling is a sign that I'm fucking up on my end and not helping you. I'm going to think about all the shit we said and wonder if there might have been a better way to get it across. That and so much more."

"Shit," he muttered, rubbing his mouth. "You sound like me. Don't tell anyone I said that, though."

"Your very human secret is safe with me," I said with a smile.

"How do you get through it?"

"Easy? Find your people and stick with them. They're the ones who are going to help you make sense of shit, and hopefully, they'll also be the ones to shake you when you start to get ridiculous. Let people get close and keep you grounded."

Shane mulled that in his head for a while and then nodded. "Alright. I guess I'll think about it. Maybe try talking to him or something. I don't know, dude's just so pissed off all the time, ya know? I get it, but damn, you can't be starting shit with people, not here."

"One last piece of advice before you leave?"

"Sure."

"Find Reno and talk to him about this. He might be able to give you some insight. And just in case you need repeated insight from him, I'd start soon. He's looking to graduate within the next half a year or so."

"Oh yeah," Shane said as he pushed up, frowning momentarily down at the chair as if realizing it was colored and vaguely shaped like a frog. That had been Reed's idea of a joke, but the joke was on him because it delighted the hell out of me to make people sit in it to talk to me. "I heard he used to have a temper on him."

"I'd bet he still does, but now he mostly lets Elliot chew people out," I said with a chuckle, remembering a few years ago when it had come out that Dom had been one of the ones buying Alice's stolen pills. If I'd thought he was going to lose it when he'd gone after Reno that day, that was nothing. If Reno hadn't been there, Elliot probably would have swung at Dom, and Dom would have let it happen.

"And before you go, try not to come down on yourself too hard," I said with a smirk. "It can be easy to beat yourself up and get frustrated. You wouldn't have been accepted into the Mentor Program if we didn't think you were capable of it. And we definitely wouldn't have kept you in the program if you proved incapable. This new and improved system is my baby, and I'm not going to let someone screw it up by screwing my guys over. So keep that in mind the next time you're wondering if you're fit for the program."

"You should just tell me to suck it up and stop whining. It wouldn't feel nearly as shitty," he said with a shake of his head.

"I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed," I told him.

He groaned. "That's it, I'm outta here."

"Come see me anytime," I said, glancing at my computer. "Well, during office hours. Otherwise, it had better be important."

He opened my office door, and I wasn't surprised to find Reed outside. He knew the only reason I'd have my door closed was because I was dealing with one of my mentors or having an important meeting with Mona.

Ha, my mentors. That was still taking some getting used to.

"Doing alright there, Shane?" Reed asked, looking him over.

"My allergies are fine," Shane muttered as he slipped past, a little faster than before he'd spotted Reed.

I watched him go, motioning for Reed to come in. "What is his weirdness with you? I know some guys get weird because you're Doc and all, but?—"

Pretty much the Doc these days. He'd barely finished his honorary celebratory drink from Mr. Isaiah after graduation before Mona jumped him with an offer to join the medical team. She'd offered to cover the costs of getting his license renewed and all the other things he'd have to do and, thankfully, had let him have a few weeks to ‘think on it.'

Not that he'd needed to think about it. I'd known from the moment she'd asked what his answer would be. After everything with Alice, who was rotting in prison for the next few years without any hope of getting into a program like the ranch, he realized what he wanted to do with his life. He'd accepted her offer when we returned from our vacation in Mexico.

"He may or may not have hit on me while he was high on painkillers after we had to reset his shoulder," Reed said with a chuckle, closing the door behind him. "He swore up and down he didn't remember anything, but it's funny how he never wants to look me in the eyes."

I briefly thought about that and nodded. "Well, that explains it. Do you think this is a closet case thing, or doesn't he want me to find out?"

"A little bit of both, I think," Reed said as he sat close to me on the edge of my desk. "I try to be nice and let someone else see him when he comes in. But that doesn't always work."

I poked his thigh. "You know I hate when people sit on my desk. I don't do it. And I don't even let Mona do it."

"Well, hopefully, you like my butt a lot more than hers."

"Are you trying to use the boyfriend card to be able to break my office rules?"

"No, but as your boyfriend and hopefully soon-to-be fiancé, I'm choosing to ignore your office rules because they don't apply to me when no one else is around."

"You just said I wasn't the boss of you."

"Mmm, but you're not."

The intentional brattiness told me he was probably considering a detour before dinner. Considering our shared cabin was at the furthest edge of the property, near the entrance, in fact, that probably meant he was going to want to sully my desk again.

"You know…" I began slowly and then stopped.

"I know that look," he said with a chuckle, putting his hands in his lap and watching me carefully. "Spit it out. You agreed to share with me when things were bothering you."

"It was something Shane said, well, it was something I said back to him. About how he wouldn't be a Mentor if I didn't think he was capable."

"Okay?"

"You ever feel like Mona wanted one of us badly to work here but knew we might hesitate if the other wasn't here too?"

"As in, one of us possibly only has our position because she wanted the other rather than based on our skills and capabilities?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Other than that, it would obviously be you she wanted badly."

"Reed, you?—"

"No, I've never thought about it. C'mon, she put you in charge of all mentors, including training them, and set you up to eventually be third in command. I'm running everything out of the clinic, but she's waiting until I have a few more years under my belt before trying to push for the promotion. Two very important positions with a lot of faith and trust from her and Mr. Isaiah. That's not something she's going to choose casually."

"True," I said, and then shrugged. "I guess I'm still…me."

He laughed, bending down and kissing me, "And I haven't stopped loving you for being you either."

Sometimes, I wondered what I possibly gave Reed when he gave me so much. He could easily talk sense into me when my doubts got the better of me and knew how to curb those impulsive moments of fancy that could get me into trouble. The man was my rock, and while I wasn't what I'd call a wreck, it was nice to have all the same.

We were the living pinnacle of what the ranch stood for in many ways. Our lives had been given a second chance to get back on track, and we were taking full advantage of it. The younger version of me would have been confused as hell to peer into the future and realize that I hadn't burned out and become a hollow husk as I crept toward my forties. In fact, this could only be called thriving, a job I loved and wanted to do for the rest of my life that provided me with a rather generous salary. The cabin we had might not be technically ours, but we could eventually get one if we wanted to and a healthy, functioning relationship where we were both happy with each other and not resentful or disconnected?

Yeah, the younger me would be so lost. Yet I'd bet Reed's younger self would simply nod in that wise way of his as if to say he knew we'd both get there someday. Then again, I probably wouldn't have made it this far without him. I still believed I would have gotten my life onto some sort of good track, having learned a few valuable lessons without needing him around, but he definitely helped. He wasn't my whole life, but he was the love of my life, and that added color and brightness in places I wouldn't know about without him.

"I do love you," I said, pulling him down for another kiss.

"You're making me feel bad about having dirty thoughts about you and the office chair."

"And they say romance is dead."

He laughed, making my stomach clench pleasantly as he took me by the hand. "C'mon, let's go see what our head chef has for us to eat."

"If Rip hears you call him that, he'll send you plain bread and water," I said with a snort. "He's not fancy enough to be a chef, remember?"

"Well, don't snitch on me," he said with a laugh, pulling me along. "So, what are the chances of me hearing you say you love me again? But with less clothing, more sweat, and right in my ear in that breathy way you do?"

"Hmmm, I guess we'll have to see," I told him as I opened the office door and stepped out into the hallway.

"Yeah," he said lightly but still managed to carry warm meaning and confidence, "we will."