Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Letter from Zelda Turret, formerly Grizelda Watson, to Reginald Cleaves

Hey Reg,

It’s been a while. How’s tricks, kid?

I wanted to let you know that those losers who chased you around all those years somehow found their way to my yoga retreat out here in Napa. (I’m in Napa now by the way. Wild, right???) I don’t know if they’re here because they’re turning over a new leaf from the nonsense vendetta business, or if they’re here to sniff around for evidence they’ll never find (I remain eternally grateful that there was no CSI: Sevastapol in 1872). Either way, everyone in the world is right about how annoying they are.

The good news is they seem to have forgotten all about you. The bad news is now they’re my problem (though I have a plan in place for if they get too snoopy).

Keep it real, friend. If you ever happen to be out this way let me know and I’ll show you around.

Grizzy

ps: Thank you, by the way, for keeping my name out of this mess all these years. You’re a real one.

One Month Later

“Reginald.” Dad’s voice was patient, if not a little patronizing. “It’s okay. No one ever beats me at Trivial Pursuit.”

Dad was dressed for Gretchen’s wedding, sitting on his living room couch wearing the smug look he got whenever he won this game. Which was basically every time he played.

Reggie was dressed for the wedding, too, wearing his new charcoal-gray suit that looked just as gorgeous on him as it had when he tried it on for me last week. I still couldn’t believe Frederick and I convinced him to wear a conventional suit today instead of one of his more eclectic outfits, but it meant a lot to me that he’d agreed.

He didn’t seem to notice I was watching them from the doorway. What he did seem was outraged. He turned on my dad. “You don’t understand,” he said. “The answers on the back of that little card are wrong. I was there .”

Dad stared at him. “You were in Constantinople in 1835?”

That was my cue to intervene. So far, Sam was the only person in the family who knew what Reggie really was. It was important to Reggie that it stay that way, at least until we could determine how my family would react to the truth.

I cleared my throat, and two pairs of eyes snapped to mine.

“Almost ready to go?” I asked.

Reggie seemed to come back to himself, as if my presence reminded him that while he and my dad had gotten on like a house on fire since they started spending time together, spitting facts about the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire was not something that could ever happen.

He sat down in the chair opposite my dad, his posture relaxing slightly. “We’re almost done here.”

“I’d say we’re entirely done here,” Dad said, cheerfully.

Reggie groaned. “Fair enough.” And then to my dad he added, “I apologize for my outburst. I’m a bit of a sore loser.”

Dad chuckled. “Happens to the best of us. That said, even though I won this game—”

“Which was probably due at least partly to your having memorized all the answers over the past twenty years,” I quipped.

Dad gave me a sly, incriminating smile, but didn’t deny my accusation. “As I was saying, Reggie? even though I won, you are very good at the history questions.” He peered at him. “You said you were in tech support for a while, but you must have also taken a lot of history courses in college.”

He shook his head. “I’m self-taught.”

“Self-taught? Meaning, you watch a lot of the History Channel? You read biographies?”

“Uh…” Reggie reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Something like that. Though most of what I’ve seen on the History Channel is overdramatized nonsense.”

Dad was positively beaming now. “That’s what I’ve always said!”

“Like that dumb thing they put on a few years ago about Archduke Ferdinand?”

Dad scoffed. “Trash. If you want, I can recommend you a real documentary about Archduke Ferdinand that will change everything you thought you knew about the start of World War I.”

Reggie looked delighted. He opened his mouth to say something else, and I rushed into the room in case he blurted out something that would incriminate himself and alarm Dad.

“As glad as I am that the two of you are getting along so well,” I said, “we do really need to get going. Mom left twenty minutes ago. And Reggie, you said you’d help me with my makeup.”

Reggie’s eyes widened a little in surprise, as though he’d forgotten all about Gretchen’s wedding. “You’re right,” he agreed. Turning back to my dad, he said, “Any chance we can continue this later? You’re a fascinating conversationalist.”

My dad chuckled at that, eyes twinkling. “If I had a nickel for every time someone said that to me, I’d have a nickel.” And then, to me, he added, in a conspiratorial whisper, “This one’s a keeper, Ame.”

Something warm and lovely bloomed in my chest at his words. And at the realization that my dad approved of someone so important to me.

Later, after Dad had left to finish getting ready himself, I grabbed Reggie’s arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Thanks for making an effort to talk to Dad about history,” I said. “Ever since he retired, he hasn’t had anyone to talk to about this stuff.”

“I know the feeling,” Reggie said, wistfully. “And it’s my sincere pleasure.”

·······

“Hold still.”

“I am holding still.”

Reggie gave me a skeptical look. “You keep jerking away from me.”

“That’s because you keep coming at my eyes with a stick with black sludge on it.”

He chuckled, then set the stick in question down on my parents’ downstairs bathroom counter. “Some people call this mascara. And you don’t have to be so petulant.” He leaned forward, lightly kissing my cheek. “You asked me to do this. Remember?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t wear makeup often. I haven’t had somebody apply it for me since I was in high school, and Sophie and I were getting ready for prom.”

“Then how fitting it is to have your boyfriend do it for you as we get ready for your cousin’s wedding.”

My boyfriend . A pleasant shiver went through me. “I think it will be easier if I do this myself..”

“Maybe,” he said. “But I love doing makeup.”

That shouldn’t have surprised me, knowing Reggie. “You do?”

He pulled out an eyebrow pencil and drew a line just above each of my eyebrows. “I do,” he confirmed. “Doing stage makeup was one of my favorite pastimes in the 1970s.” He set the pencil down on the counter and grinned at me. “There. Now look at yourself in the mirror and tell me that you don’t look fabulous.”

Fabulous was not the word I would have used to describe my appearance. My hair was so teased and sprayed I would have looked more at home in an ’80s hair band than Gretchen’s wedding. And he’d used more black eyeliner on me than I’d worn cumulatively my entire life.

“I look like an electrocuted raccoon,” I mused. “Aunt Sue will lose her shit if I show up looking like this.”

Reggie put his thumb beneath my chin, tilting it up a little so he could examine my face. “Probably,” he admitted. “I’ll take it down a notch. Or possibly ten notches. By the way, I deserve an award for keeping my hands above your shoulders this entire time. It’s unfair that kissing you right now will ruin my work.” He turned my chin again so that I had to look into his eyes. “Incidentally, do you have any idea how brilliant you are?”

It didn’t matter how often he’d said it to me by that point. My face warmed at the genuine affection in his voice as though it was the first time. I reached up and tangled my fingers through his hair because I knew he liked it when I messed it all up.

“Tell me again?” I asked.

It was the only incentive he seemed to need to lean in and brush his lips against mine. “So brilliant,” he said. “The most brilliant. There are no words.”

When he pulled back to run a washcloth beneath the faucet, I stilled his hand. “We still have a little time, don’t we?” I wanted to kiss him properly before we left for the wedding.

“A little,” he agreed. “But not enough for me to do what I want to do to you.”

He caught up my mouth in another kiss, this time with more heat behind it. “What do you want to do to me?” I asked, already breathing hard.

He sighed and rested his forehead against mine. “I want to skip the wedding and get you back to my apartment.”

“To do what?” I asked, innocently.

He gave me a wicked grin, then pushed me back until I was pinned between his body and the wall.

“We don’t have time for this,” I laughed. Reggie kissed up the column of my throat, undeterred, inching up the skirt of my sky-blue sheath dress until it bunched at my waist. I swatted playfully at his shoulder. “You’ll get my dress all wrinkled.”

“I don’t care. Let’s take it off.” He slipped a hand between us, pressing the heel of his palm against the sensitive place that in only a month’s time he’d already come to know so well. He’d been insatiable ever since we got word his pursuers had gone into hiding. So had I. I writhed against him, unable to help myself. “Do we really have to go to this thing?”

His fangs were out; I could feel their faint impression against my throat. I groaned with renewed desire. He’d bitten me a few times by that point, shocking me with how much I enjoyed it.

With how much I craved it.

But we didn’t have time for this now.

I pulled his hand away from my body, then laughed breathlessly at his forlorn sigh. “Yes, we have to go to the wedding. This wedding was why I asked you out in the first place.”

“You asked me out to show your family you weren’t single,” he said. “We’ve already done that.” He dipped his head again and began worrying at my clavicle with his tongue.

He’s right , I thought, as I gave in to sensation. Not only did my family know we were a couple, but my parents liked him.

But we couldn’t bail on Gretchen’s wedding. That would be wrong, even if in the moment I couldn’t remember why.

I pushed at Reggie’s shoulders until he relented and took a small step back. “I promise we can do this after the reception,” I managed. “We can even leave early.”

Reggie pouted like a child whose candy had just been taken away. God, he was adorable. “You promise?”

“I promise,” I said. I wanted this as badly as he did. “Now let’s get this makeup off my face, and then head to the ceremony before anyone wonders where we are.”

·······

“Ready?”

“I’m ready,” I said, smiling up at Reggie from where he stood just outside my car. “Let’s go in.”

When I’d gotten the invitation to this wedding six weeks ago, I’d initially rolled my eyes at Gretchen holding it at the same country club all our cousins had used. But Reggie couldn’t go inside any sort of Christian church without, apparently, bursting into flames. ( Inconvenient , he’d said, when he told me.)

In hindsight, I was grateful for Gretchen’s lack of originality.

Aunt Sue had done a great job with the decorations. She and Uncle Bill must have spent a fortune on the flowers draped over the bannisters and all the guests’ chairs. The space had been so elaborately done up that if I squinted I could almost pretend I hadn’t been to five other family weddings in this exact location over the past two years.

“We should sit near the back,” Reggie murmured, once we were inside. “That way I can slide my hand up your leg and whisper filthy things into your ear when I get bored.”

He winked lasciviously at me.

“Behave,” I warned, though I was trying not to laugh. The string ensemble from the high school where my mom had taught was playing a passable version of Pachelbel’s Canon . I willed myself to focus on the music to distract myself from how brilliantly the sunlight streaming in through the windows brought out the blue of Reggie’s eyes.

“I do what I want,” he countered, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “I’ll behave if it suits me.” But he sat beside me in one of the back rows without further comment, taking my hand in his.

People began filing into the room in greater numbers, and it wasn’t long before I saw relatives I hadn’t seen since the last family wedding. Several of my mom’s siblings sat towards the front of the room, casting warm smiles at Aunt Sue. Sarah, the cousin who two years ago had sent her wedding invitation to my office instead of my apartment, sat a few rows back, her husband on one side of her and her father on the other.

I couldn’t be sure, but Sarah looked about five months pregnant. If she was, that meant a family baby shower invitation would be coming in my near future.

Most of my relatives smiled when they saw me, a moment before their eyes slid to Reggie. If he noticed their appraising glances, he showed no sign of caring. He was busy murmuring a quiet running commentary into my ear. He had a lot to say on everyone’s outfits, the flowers, and the musical missteps of those poor high school musicians who were definitely just doing their best.

“When will parachute pants finally come back into style?” he mused quietly, as my cousin Elaine, who I’d never seen in anything but skintight leather pants, sat directly in front of us. Today’s pair was a deep shade of burgundy. “Now that was fashion.”

As if Elaine had guessed he was talking about her, she turned around in her seat to face us. “Isn’t this place gorgeous?” she asked on a sigh.

“Yes,” Reggie said. But he kept his gaze on me. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

I couldn’t help but grin at him.

A few months ago, being in that country club around so much family and their judgments would have been crushing. But sitting next to Reggie made being here easy. Reggie making me laugh, sitting beside me holding my hand…

It made it hard to focus on anything but him, and how happy I was.

When Gretchen walked down the aisle on her father’s arm some minutes later, beautiful and smiling in her wedding dress, my mind drifted to all the times Reggie had said he’d never demand forever from me. What if later on I’m the one who wants forever? I wanted to ask him now.

I glanced at Reggie out of the corner of my eye. He was still unabashedly looking back at me, not at the bride, with an intensity I would have given anything to parse.

I covered his hand that rested on my leg and gave it a gentle squeeze.

And then the ceremony began, and all opportunity for conversation ended.

·······

The ceremony was lovely.

Gretchen said her vows with the practiced grace her years of voice training had given her. Josh stumbled a bit over his own vows on account of the tears welling in his eyes.

It had all been very sweet. And Reggie had stayed remarkably well-behaved through most of it, aside from the two times he had, as promised, leaned over to whisper such dirty things to me my face turned red.

“It’s a good thing you kept your voice down,” I said as we watched people file out of the room and make their way to the ballroom. “If Dad had overheard the weird sex stuff you just proposed doing to his only daughter, he would definitely retract his good opinion of you.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Reggie said, grinning. “Your dad loves me.”

“He does like you reasonably well,” I teased. A massive understatement. “But he has his limits.”

Reggie winked at me. “Worth it, if any of what I said made you smile.”

The reception was already underway by the time we got there, arm in arm. The ballroom, just like the room where the ceremony had taken place, was bedecked in flowers. Aunt Sue had really gone all out. Lilies of the valley and chrysanthemums trailed along bannisters and railings, and large topiaries were stationed on either side of the ballroom entrance. People were already mingling at the bar with wineglasses in hand as the DJ began setting up for whatever he had planned for the evening.

“Don’t look now,” Reggie murmured, pulling me close, “but one of your relatives is heading straight for us.”

“Who?” I whispered back.

“Here you two are.” My sister-in-law Jess was smiling broadly at us and holding a glass of white wine. “That was such a lovely ceremony, don’t you think?”

“It was,” I agreed, smiling back at her.

“And that dress!” Jess waved dramatically with her free hand. “Gorgeous! You know, I heard she went to New York for it.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Really? Why?” There were plenty of dress boutiques in Chicago, weren’t there?

Jess shrugged and took a sip from her glass. “Who knows?” she asked. “Maybe it’s just a rumor.”

“Sounds like the kind of thing a jealous friend might make up and spread around behind her back,” Reggie mused, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

I playfully elbowed him in the ribs, but I was laughing. “How would you know that?”

Jess watched us with amusement. “You make such an adorable couple. Any chance you two will be next?”

Reggie’s hand froze where it rested at the small of my back.

Oh, god.

Fortunately, my brother Adam appeared a moment later. “Jess,” he chastised. “Leave them alone.”

“I was just teasing,” she insisted. She said more words to that effect, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I’d been expecting this kind of nonsense from somebody tonight, but I hadn’t prepared Reggie enough for the actual reality of it happening.

When Jess and Adam left to go find my parents a few moments later, I turned to him to apologize on behalf of my sister-in-law. He regarded me with an anxious expression I’d never seen him wear before.

“Reggie, I’m so sorry.” And then, in a quieter voice, I added, “This is exactly the sort of bullshit my family does. I should have warned you.”

“Dance with me?” he asked abruptly. His voice was strained.

Of course he wanted to leave where most of the guests were still mingling and get away from my family. I didn’t blame him. “Sure,” I said.

And then, a moment later, the Chicken Dance polka started playing.

Groans and laughter filled the ballroom. People of all ages began tugging reluctant dance partners onto the dance floor. My parents were among them, Mom laughing and trying to fend Dad off as he pulled her from her chair.

“On second thought, let’s sit this one out,” I said.

Reggie looked like I’d just proposed chopping off his arm. “You must be joking,” he said, horrified. He was already making his way to where dancers were assembling, hand around my wrist as he attempted to bring me with him. “I never miss a good Chicken Dance.”

“Are you serious?”

“As the bubonic plague.” I tried to protest, but Reggie was towing me behind him with the kind of excitement I hadn’t seen in another person since we’d taken my nieces to Disney World.

We stopped when we got to the far end of the dance floor, a fair distance away from most of the other dancers. If dancers was even the right word to describe my flailing relatives. Reggie’s eyes were bright with joy.

“Dance with me?” he asked again, hopeful.

I swallowed. “I don’t know how.”

“You don’t know how to do the Chicken Dance?” He stared at me. “Really?”

I shook my head. “I’ve never learned.”

“But it’s easy,” he said. “You just flap your arms and spin around.”

Behind us, my parents, Aunt Sue and Uncle Bill, and many of Gretchen’s friends were already flapping their arms, spinning each other in circles, and laughing uproariously. “It does look easy,” I admitted. “This probably won’t surprise you, but I usually steer clear of dancing at weddings. But…” I trailed off and moved closer to Reggie. I looped my arms around his neck, pulling him close. “It seems like the sort of dance you could teach me.”

“Oh, it is,” he agreed.

Then he kissed me.

I’d seen movies that ended where the main couple kissed at someone else’s wedding. Mostly at Sophie’s behest. The swelling music, the romantic crescendo had always seemed overdone and cheesy. Here, though, with family I knew and people I didn’t flapping their arms and laughing all around us, kissing Reggie felt like the most perfect, romantic thing to have ever happened.

“Promise you will never leave me,” he said, a minute or an hour later. He’d told me recently that he didn’t technically need oxygen, but he was breathing hard all the same. “I told myself I wouldn’t ask anything of you that you weren’t willing to give, and I meant that. But here, at this wedding, with your cousin and her husband promising to love each other forever, and your sister-in-law asking if we might be next…”

The music to the Chicken Dance ended. People were swaying where they stood as a waltz began playing. Reggie and I didn’t move, his arms still around me as my entire world tilted sharply on its axis.

“Reggie…” I began, then trailed off because I had no idea how to finish my thought. I need to think this through and falling for a vampire was never the plan I had for my life were locked in fierce battle in my mind with I always want to laugh as much as I do when I’m with you and I think I might be in love with you and yes, yes, yes .

When I didn’t reply, Reggie began fidgeting. “All I’ve been able to think about this whole time,” he said, “this entire day, is how I never want to let you go.”

“Me, too.” The words were out of my mouth before I could let my brain ruin this. “Me very too.”

He closed his eyes and pulled me close. Slowly, we began to sway in time with the swelling music. “Come home with me tonight,” he said. “We can figure out what our forever looks like together.”

As I let him lead me through the steps of the dance, I knew there was nothing I wanted more.