Epilogue

EPILOGUE

ROWE

“Babe, the estimated income to you from the sale of Daisy Chain is in the billions ,” Bash told me for the thousandth time. “Can you please tell Lea to find someone else to deliver burritos on your birthday? I’d like to take you out. Hell, I’d like to take you to the Caribbean, honestly. But I’d settle for a nice dinner here in the city.”

He looked up from his phone with an accusatory glare.

Seeing him sitting at the rough wooden picnic table in my parents’ backyard was still a mindfuck. I couldn’t believe we were here in Linden. My parents seemed to like him, even though they took everything he said with a grain of salt. Apparently, rich folk from the big city were known as big talkers. All husk and no kernel, if ya know what I mean , my father had said with a knowing nod after Bash had bragged about how big Daisy Chain was going to be in the market.

I knuckle-punched Bash’s arm. “Stop saying the word ‘billions,’ or I’m going to puke all over you. You know how that much money makes me feel.”

It had been three months since the fiasco at the Innovation Awards. Three months since the Sterling Chase legal team had discovered clear evidence of Austin’s conspiracy to commit fraud in three other projects at the company. It had been enough to negotiate a settlement along with his silence to ensure the company and its owners would be protected.

Thanks to the legal team’s efforts, spearheaded energetically by Bash, we’d been able to move forward with Project Daisy Chain at lightning speed. I was thrilled with the result but completely overwhelmed by the realization of what it all meant for me personally.

My life as I’d known it had changed in the course of one summer. I’d gone from a dead-broke Burrito Bandito to a rich-as-god tech startup entrepreneur almost overnight. My parents didn’t believe any of it. Bash had offered to fly them to New York to show them around the office and talk to them about the project’s future, but they’d refused.

My father had claimed he couldn’t take the time off work, and my mother admitted to not wanting to miss the summer craft fair season where she sold the handmade crocheted items she’d spent all winter making.

Instead, Bash had flown us to Linden. The plan was to spend a few days decompressing after our whirlwind visit to Wheaton, Illinois to enjoy the annual all-night flea-market Saturday night. I wasn’t sure which part of the weekend had been the bigger culture shock for him—shopping for antique home furnishings while eating fried dough and listening to a Backstreet Boys tribute band, or meeting my parents and driving through Linden’s single stoplight on the ride from the airport.

Either way, the shock didn’t seem to faze him much. Bash was still determined to have me officially move in with him in the city, which was something of a joke since we hadn’t spent a night apart since the original Hamptons trip.

During the summer, we’d spent almost every weekend at the Hamptons house, soaking up the sun, sand, and each other with more passion than I ever could have imagined. But since Bash had finally convinced me to take the interior design class I’d been eyeing for weeks and Constance Baxter-Hicks had a year’s worth of design clients lined up for me, I had a feeling our lives were about to become much busier this fall. Knowing I’d come home to Bash each and every night to ground myself made all these big changes feel exciting rather than scary.

“Who told you about that shift?” I asked. “Are you texting with Joey?”

Bash nodded and tapped on his screen. “He said you’d promised him the use of the beach house during Labor Day weekend and that if he goes, you’ll have to work his shifts.” He looked up at me. “I thought he worked for that events place. Whatever happened to that job?”

I grabbed the phone out of his hand and typed out a message.

Bash: stop blabbing to my boyfriend.

Joey: your boyfriend, my cousin? Blab about what?

I rolled my eyes.

Bash: this is Rowe. If you want me to work your Burrito shifts, you might not want to piss me off by getting all up in my shit.

Joey: Sorry, bro. He wanted to plan a surprise thing for you. I had to tell him you were working.

I looked up at Bash. “You were planning a surprise for my birthday?”

Bash pursed his lips in annoyance and grabbed the phone back. “Give me that. Stop reading my messages.”

“That’s so sweet!” I began to climb into his lap to give him proper appreciation when my mom walked out of the house through the sliding doors. I scrambled back onto the bench. Bash snickered.

Mom set a plastic tray of brownies down on the table before handing Bash a tall glass of icy lemonade. “What’s so sweet?”

“Thanks, Mrs. Prince.” Bash smiled before taking a deep sip. “This hits the spot.”

“Bash was going to plan a birthday surprise for me,” I said. “But Joey ruined it.”

Mom shook her head. “Typical Joseph. Takes after his father. Impulsive. Doesn’t think before he acts.”

Dad came out of the sliding glass doors and set a cold beer in front of Bash. “Because Laura isn’t impulsive in the least, taking off on the back of a motorcycle when he came through town all those years ago. Pfft.”

I looked at the noticeably empty area of the picnic table in front of me. “Where’s my beer and lemonade?” I asked.

Mom lifted an eyebrow. “I would imagine it’s in the kitchen where it lives.”

Before I could stand up to go serve myself, Bash slid the beer over to me. “You take this one. I’m keeping a clear head for later.”

“What’s happening later?” Dad asked, pulling brownies out for each of us and setting them on paper napkins.

“I’m taking him on a tour of Linden,” I said with a snort.

Mom let out a huff of laughter. “Don’t blink, Sebastian, or you’ll miss it.”

Bash squeezed my leg. “He’s taking me to meet Daisy. Would you two like to come with us?”

Mom’s eyes filled, and she clapped a hand to her chest. “That’s so sweet. Oh! He’s a keeper, Rowe. What a sweet boy. And you should have seen how he reacted to seeing your portrait.”

I whipped my head around mid-brownie-bite. “What portrait, Mother? What. Portrait.” It hadn’t been easy to convince my father to hide the embarrassing photos of me before we arrived home, but I’d done it.

At least, I’d thought so.

Bash’s eyes danced while his mouth turned up in a cocky grin. “Li’l… diaper—”

I clapped a hand over his mouth and glared at my father. “You are a failure as a wingman. You are fired from any future winging. You have failed your son and heir, and this will not be forgotten.”

Bash’s arm came around me, and he managed to pull my hand away enough to whisper in my ear. “He sold it to me for a dollar. It’s going over the fireplace in the penthouse.”

If his voice in my ear didn’t override all of my brain cells with want cells, I might have argued with him. Instead, I let out an embarrassing sound and inhaled the familiar scent of him. “Gotta go. We… gotta go…”

When I pulled away from Bash, my parents were howling with laughter. “Gotcha,” Mom said, pointing at me. “You’re so predictable.”

When Dad finally caught his breath, he walked over and squeezed Bash’s shoulder. “Thank you for including us, but we’re going to let you boys go on your visit without us.” He turned to me. “Be sure to drive him out past Luna Farms. There’s something out there I want you to see.”

“What is it?” I asked, standing up and gathering the napkin and crumbs from my brownie.

Dad shot Bash an enigmatic look. “You’ll know it when you see it.”

I grabbed Bash’s hand and led him through the house and out to the driveway. “I think he wants me to introduce you to Apple Butter. Apparently, my father doesn’t mind sending me to revisit childhood trauma.”

Bash leaned over to press a kiss to my temple. “Poor baby. I was thinking we could buy Apple Butter so Starlight would have a friend.”

My heart went all goopy when he used “we” like that. He was doing it more and more lately, and it made me both nervous and excited for what our future held.

“You’re a sentimental sap,” I accused. “Sticky sweet and super sappy.”

Before we reached my mom’s minivan, Bash pulled me into his arms and smiled down at me. “You make me that way. Silas says it’s disgusting. Zane thinks it’s sweet. Dev still can’t believe there’s actually a soft side to me, and Landry hasn’t said a word. He just struts around in a T-shirt that reads the purest soul . As if I needed reminders of my giant cheesy love declaration, considering I did it in front of two hundred industry peers.”

“Wasn’t cheesy,” I said. “It was everything.”

“You really are the purest soul,” he murmured with a soft kiss.

“And Kenji?” I teased. I already knew Kenji was the leader of the Rowe Prince fan club. He’d started prioritizing all Daisy Chain tasks above Bash’s other stuff and came to me for decisions now before involving Bash.

“Kenji’s not allowed to speak your name aloud,” he said, losing his smirk. “He’s on P-Rowe-bation after having the audacity to tell me that he spent my Fake Sterling Chase Escape Fund money on Taylor Swift tickets for the two of you.”

I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him. “You don’t like Taylor Swift. Besides, there wasn’t enough money in the fund for three tickets, and you know how much of a penny-pincher I am.”

Bash’s eyes widened. “Were the tickets that expensive? Jesus. Are they made out of diamonds?”

I nodded excitedly. “Front-row ones are. With backstage VIP passes and custom merch packs.”

“Give him several billion,” he mumbled, pinching my side and shoving me away from him, “and he thinks he’s the freaking queen.”

We hopped in the van and started the three-minute trek through town. I showed him my elementary school, the post office, the Depot Museum, the pizza place, and the church. When I pulled around to the cemetery, we got out and walked together through the wide-open space. The air was August-hot and heavy with humidity. When we finally arrived near the shade of a large tree, I let the peaceful surroundings ground me.

“There,” I said softly, pointing to her large granite headstone. The town had come together to raise money for it, and it always made my parents proud with the memory of how many people had been affected by Daisy’s death.

Bash knelt down and ran his hand across the shiny surface. “Elizabeth Daisy Prince,” he read. “Beloved daughter, sister, and friend. And a heckuva ballplayer.”

He let out a soft laugh and looked up at me. I shrugged. “What can I say? She was known for it. It’s one of the things that helps me sleep at night. She died doing something she loved.”

Bash closed his eyes for a few moments while the hot air moved past us in a gentle breeze. My sister wasn’t there in that cemetery, but it was nice having a place to come to like this to remember and honor her.

When he opened his eyes, he still faced the stone. “You’d be so fucking proud of him, Daisy. His hard work and dedication is going to change the world. His idea is going to save lives. And… and I’m going to love him until the day he leaves this earth. I promise. If he’ll let me…” His voice broke. The emotion was enough to bring me to my knees. “If he’ll let me, I’ll spend my life trying to make him happy.”

I grabbed him and held him tightly, nearly knocking him into the freshly cut grass. His arms tightened around me. “I love you so much. I wish she was here so I could meet her. I hate that a part of you is missing.”

I shook my head and pressed a kiss into the warm skin of his neck. “It’s not. She’s with me. She’s been with me all along. And now I have you. I’m so fucking lucky. So thankful.”

We stayed like that for several more moments before I decided it was time to go. Daisy wasn’t here. And I could remember and honor her just as well on the beach in Southampton or at my favorite Indian place on West Fifty-Sixth Street.

“Time to meet Apple Butter,” I said, wiping my face with shaking fingers. “Prepare thyself for an epic confrontation with evil.”

Bash stood and laughed, grabbing my hand and squeezing. “I shall faithfully defend you from all the evil butters, apple or otherwise. I promise on my life.”

We hopped back in the van and made a beeline to the ice cream shop for our second sugar snack of the afternoon. Once we were back in the van, I drove out past Luna Farm.

And saw a riot of daisies in full bloom all along the roadside for at least a mile. “What’s this?” I murmured, slowing down and taking it all in. “There were never flowers here before.”

Halfway down the long stream of flowers was a small wooden sign. I pulled over to get out and read it.

In glorious celebration of the memory of Daisy Prince and the life of Rowe Prince. ~ The Brotherhood

I looked back at Bash, who was ambling over more slowly, holding his phone up like he was taking a video. “The Brotherhood? Your brotherhood? That’s the only broth—”

Bash nodded. “They’re your brothers now, too. If you want. They wanted to make sure you knew that while they’ll never take Daisy’s place, they’d be honored to be your family now if you’ll have them.”

A tinny voice sounded from his phone. “Turn us around, dammit. We want to tell him ourselves.”

I recognized the voice as Silas’s. When Bash turned the phone around, five little windows appeared, each full of one of Bash’s close friends.

“We love you, Rowe,” they said in a jumble of voices. “Welcome to the family!”

I laughed through the tears that inevitably came roaring back at the incredibly kind and loving gesture. “Who says I want you assholes?” I asked with a watery sniff.

“Bash,” Landry said. “Give the man a hankie. He’s leaking all over.”

Bash handed me the phone so he could pull something out of his pocket.

It was a green silk hankie. Connected to a yellow silk hankie. Connected to a red silk hankie…

And just like that, I knew I’d finally found my people. And especially, my very own prince.

* * *

Want to see what happens when Joey finally confronts the Sandwich Shark? Visit: https:// www. subscribepage. com/ polbonus for a bonus scene. It may or may not leave you with an ear worm. Don’t say you weren’t warned.