Epilogue Part One - Gianni

Thursday, December 18, 2025

I ’m not sure I’ve ever been as happy as I am in this moment, though I’m nearly certain the feeling I’m about to experience in just a few minutes will be twice as good as this.

Butterflies are flying rampant in my stomach today as I lead the love of my life into a quiet bookstore. A bookstore I’ve managed to rent out for the evening.

As we enter, the owner waves at us from behind her desk but quickly disappears after greeting us.

Lark looks like she’s moments from taking off down the aisles like a woman on a mission, and her giddy excitement fills me up inside.

“Calm down,” I joke gently. “It’s just a bookstore.” It’s anything but .

Her mouth drops in shock. “ Just a bookstore?! Are you kidding? There’s no such thing! Besides, this bookstore only sells romance, which automatically brings it to the top of my list.”

I remember not so long ago, a time when there was an entirely different kind of list she was adding items to. And we haven’t stopped since we crossed off all that she started with. Now that is my favorite kind of list.

She tugs on my hand, leading me toward an aisle I’m keenly familiar with after this morning. “Not so fast, little red. I have a surprise for you,” I tell her.

Her wide eyes meet mine, and a smile tugs at her lips. “I love surprises!” she shouts. Once upon a time, I hated them, but seeing how goddamn excited she gets about them has easily changed my mind.

Not that that’s a surprise to anyone.

I lead her toward a pile of books in the center of the room and grab the first one on the stack of orange illustrated books, handing it to her. She stares at it for a moment, and finally, she opens it up to the first page, where a note is handwritten inside for her.

She reads it aloud .

“Dans l'ascenseur, nous montons,

Appuyez sur le bouton, lancez la tendance.

Où les repas sont préparés et les c?urs se réjouissent,

Suivez-moi dans une piéce si lumineuse.

Pas à pas, nous glissons à travers les portes,

Vers un espace où la chaleur réside.

écoutez bien, la bouilloire chante,

Trouvez l'endroit où le confort s'accroche.”

In the elevator, we go up,

Press the button, start the trend.

Where meals are prepared, and hearts rejoice,

Follow me into such a bright room.

Step by step, through the doors we slide,

Toward a space where warmth resides.

Listen carefully, the kettle is singing,

Find the place where comfort clings.

“Okay,” she says. “Well, this book is Elevator Pitch and the riddle is talking about an elevator and a kitchen. So maybe the next book is about cooking?” she asks me.

I smile at her, extending my arm forward. “ Lead the way.”

She rolls her eyes, dragging me along down the aisles. She spots a doorway with dark wooden trim that leads us into another part of the store. She pulls us through it, similar to what the riddle had suggested. As soon as she sees the tall floor lamp lit up in the corner with a table and another stack of books beneath it, she sprints over to it. She grabs the book Desserts for Stressed People and opens it up, quickly reading the next poem.

“In pages sweet, where sugar weaves,

A tale of love in frosting leaves,

A hidden path begins to show,

To fields where passions freely flow.

From cakes and pies, a love divine,

To where the heart and sport entwine,

Find the romance, kick and score,

Where love and soccer meet once more.”

Her eyes meet mine. “A soccer romance?” I nod, and she pulls me to the sports romance section. I watch as she trails her fingers along the spines of the books. They stop the moment she sees it.

A paper crane sits on top of a book called Scoring Wilder . She flips through the pages, and instead of a poem, a Hockey Smut Book Club bookmark falls out from the center of the pages. It’s from someone my mom met online who runs her own smutty book club. Hopefully, this one will be pretty self-explanatory.

“A hockey book…” she says, trailing off. She turns around, looking through the hockey section and snags a book off the shelf with a maroon cover that looks sort of out of place amongst all of the blue, purple, and pink books.

“ Quiver? ” she asks, opening it up and finding another message written inside the cover, this time in Spanish. This one she stares at but doesn’t read aloud. “You’re gonna have to help me out here. I can’t read this.”

I chuckle. “Oh, come on. Lucia and Josie have been teaching you Spanish for months now.”

She rolls her eyes at me. “Yeah, months not years. I’ve got something about goals being scored and hearts. That doesn’t really help me.”

I take the book from her, reading it in Spanish first and quickly translate it to English for her .

“In the game of ice and fleeting chance,

Where hearts may glide, and sparks can dance,

A love story starts where goals are scored,

But shifts to dreams of a star adored.

From skates and sticks to guitar picks,

A second chance in life’s grand mix,

Where a rock star’s tune calls hearts to play,

Find your love On The Rocks today.”

Her eyes go wide, and my favorite smile spreads across her lips. “I know that one!” she shouts, running toward a display labeled “Rock Star Romance.”

She picks up the first book in the display, On The Rocks, a second-chance romance. This one simply reads, “Find the one that makes you Quake with need and emotion.”

And again, she’s off, sprinting back down the sports romance aisle. When she gets there, she can’t seem to find it. Her frustration seems to grow, as does how goddamn adorable she is .

She lets out a huff. “I don’t see it,” she tells me. That’s because this one has the spine turned toward the shelf.

“Look again,” I tell her, nodding my head toward the end of the shelf where the book can be found.

Finally, she realizes which one it is.

This is it.

She pulls it from the shelf and grips it tightly to her chest as she spins around to meet my gaze, but I’m already on my knee beside her.

Faint music trickles in around us, and my whole world stops.

Her plump bottom lip juts out in shock as she takes me in, and the moment she sees the ring tethered to the bookmark inside Quake , she falls to her knees in front of me.

I can’t help the laugh that rumbles through my chest at her completely ass-backward reaction to this.

“Lark, baby, what are you doing?” I ask.

Her eyes shimmer with moisture. “We’re equals. We should be eye level for this,” she squeaks out.

I shake my head gently, taking the book from her grasp and dislodging the ring. “Whatever you say, ma petite rouge .”

I set the book aside, and the moment I do, she scoots into my lap, her face just inches from mine. I have to fight hard to keep the laughter from my words as I profess my undying love to this woman for what’s probably the ten thousandth time since May.

“Before I met you, I never quite understood what it was like to love someone with every ounce of your being. To feel so connected to another person that it seems absolutely ridiculous to be apart for even a moment.”

Her eyes are already welling with tears. My sensitive girl .

“I’ve been surrounded by people who love not only me but each other my entire life. I’d thought I had at least some grasp on what it all means,” I say with a chuckle. “But god, I was so wrong. ”

“You came into my life when I least expected it, and while it definitely wasn’t on an elevator, I can wholeheartedly say that your moving into my apartment building was divine intervention. As strange as this sounds, I kind of have myself convinced that Alex may have told that crow to toss Pickles that bone just so I could meet you,” I tell her, and her lips crack into a smile. “And when that didn’t work, he made sure you moved in so close to me that we couldn’t escape this invisible string tethering us together.”

She kisses the tip of my nose, laughing lightly on a watery half sob. “And then, that day when you invited me over and actually let me cook for you, I should’ve known right then that I was a goner,” I say, shaking my head. “As much as I’ve always enjoyed soccer, I’m so fucking thankful that it brought you even further into my life, as did my mom’s love of hockey romance and her ridiculous smutty book club.” Lark snorts at that.

“And finally, when you became such an essential part of my day, allowing me to enjoy music again and encouraging me to be better for myself rather than for anyone else. That was really when I knew I’d gone too far. There’s no turning back for me now, little red. I love you so much; it feels like I’ve lived every lifetime with you, and if there is an afterlife, I wouldn’t want to explore it with anyone else. And hell, if there’s not and we get reincarnated, something tells me we’ll be together then too.” I smile.

“But…” She snorts. “What if we’re slugs or something?” she asks, and it only widens my smile .

“Then I’ll love every moment of being a disgusting, slimy slug with you, ma petite rouge . Though, I sincerely hope that slugs live very short lives so we can get back to being human again,” I tell her, my chest shaking with laughter.

She hums against me, wrapping her arms around my neck and bringing her lips to mine, pressing a soft kiss to them.

“Lark?” I ask softly, her body officially melted into mine.

“Hmm?” she says, completely content to just sit here with me on the floor of this bookstore.

“Lark, baby, are you gonna marry me or what?” I finally ask.

Her eyes snap up to mine, and finally, she pulls my mouth to hers for a kiss that has my soul skyrocketing with joy. “Yes! In every lifetime and on every planet, yes. I love you more than words could ever express,” she tells me, those beautiful hazel eyes swimming with so many emotions as she meets my gaze.

“And I love you more than any song or poem could ever convey,” I tell her earnestly as I take her hand in mine, pressing a kiss to her knuckles before placing the ring on her finger, exactly where it belongs.