Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Beck

A month after Sarah tasered me, I finally get to take her to one of my favorite spots in the entire world.

Shipwreck, Virginia.

The quirky little pirate town nestled in the mountains outside Copper Valley always makes me happy. Probably because they have amazing banana pudding, and friendly people who treat me like one of their own and tons of hiking trails through the mountains, and also, my house out here is where I keep my Frogger arcade game.

The one that Ellie and Wyatt beat my high score on a year ago.

I'm still pissed, but I'm dealing. And plotting to get it back, because Sarah's kick-ass at video games and between the two of us, I know we can do it. Eventually. When we get tired of kissing. And touching. And making love.

Huh.

Maybe we won't ever get my high score back, and I think I'm okay with that.

I slide a glance at her in the darkness, watch her features in the dancing firelight, and wonder how much it would take to talk her into handing off the sleeping baby. She's so natural with Emma cuddled up to her, and it's making me want everything .

"You making that one for me, Ryder?" Cash calls, and I jerk my attention back to the second most important thing in my life. Okay, third.

The marshmallow I'm roasting comes after the people who come after Sarah, who are all out here with us this weekend.

My parents, Ellie and Wyatt and Tucker, the guys from the neighborhood, Charlie—yeah, she's family.

Sarah brought Mackenzie, who's adjusting pretty well to the level of celebrity surrounding her. It helps that Tripp's feeling her out on her baseball opinions, because she can talk baseball for hours.

So long as she doesn't realize Cooper showed up a few minutes ago and brought Darren Greene and Jose Ramirez with him, since they're on their All-Star break. Though she's flipping out a little at Vaughn Crawford also sitting across the fire, shooting the shit with Levi and Davis and my mom about something.

It's late, and we're all gathered around the firepit in my backyard, celebrating everything .

Ellie and Wyatt being happy. Sarah and I burning that contract we signed. The foundation launching solidly.

Sarah being Emma's favorite human being in the entire world right now, since apparently baby poop bonds people.

Levi's latest album going double platinum.

Cash's latest movie topping the box office.

Charlie's promotion to Chief Operations Officer for all of RYDE and my subsidiary lines.

Sunny—who's not here, though Sarah video called her earlier—taking like a duck to water at RYDE and running like mad with new ideas, new models, and new opportunities.

Like going into cougar fashion .

She calls it mature fashion , but those marketing ideas she's blowing Vicki and Hestia away with are way more cougar than mature .

Sarah's mortified, of course, but I've assured her I'll only let the most respectful younger men be in commercials with her mom. Charlie's encouraging it all. Judson, naturally, wants to slice my balls off, but he's wrapping his apocalyptic cowboy baseball player movie, and apparently he's lined up for a romantic comedy role next, so my manhood might be in less danger soon.

"S'more?" I ask Sarah, pulling a perfectly toasted marshmallow off the fire and sliding it onto a waiting graham cracker before it falls off the stick.

"You should—" she starts, but before she can finish, Cash dives across her and Emma and snatches it from me.

"Aaaah, yeah. Dude. I haven't had a Beck Ryder s'more in years ."

"That's for my girlfriend , asshole. Give it back."

He shoves the whole thing in his mouth and moans. "Ee oos ee oos," he says, which I easily translate to she snoozes, she loses .

"She's holding a baby ."

"That's not right, man," Cooper says.

"We need to take care of him for you, Miss Sarah?" Darren asks.

"Beck can make another s'more," she replies with that amused smile that I love so much. "The first three would've been for him anyway."

"The first one is always for you."

She leans over and kisses me on the cheek, and I get a whiff of sleepy baby, and yeah.

We're totally doing that.

We're gonna make babies someday. And I'll quit everything to stay home and rock the fuck out of being a dad while Sarah saves the world. Whenever she's ready.

"I love you," I whisper.

She smiles again, this time like she knows what I'm thinking, and I get another kiss that's interrupted by a squeal of terror. " Oh my god, it's…it's…AAAAAHHHH! "

"You should've warned her," Sarah whispers against my lips.

"You don't taste like s'mores yet. I need to fix this," I reply.

"Is that the catatonic one?" Darren mutters to Cooper behind us.

"Yep. And this dude still needs to be taken care of for stealing Sarah's s'more."

Cash leaps up and races around behind everyone sitting at the fire, crashing between Charlie and Hank, who are giving each other the silent treatment, which is pretty hilarious if you ask me.

"Y'all are the best kind of nuts," Vaughn tells us all.

And somewhere off in the distance behind the house, someone sneezes a very loud, very feminine sneeze.

"Mother fucker ," I mutter while most everyone around us groans.

"Get a room," Davis yells.

"We didn't need to hear that," Tripp agrees.

"Bless you," my mom calls. Awkwardly. While sharing a look with my dad.

Oh, fuck .

I gape at them. " Seriously? "

Sarah snort-laughs so hard she's in danger of waking Emma.

She did a week-long series on weird side effects of sex last week, and yeah, she included the not-so-mythical sneezegasm. And Ellie and Wyatt have disappeared. And everyone reads Sarah's blog.

Also, yes, I did go back to my hypnotherapist, and I'm just fine now.

Most of the time.

But more to the point, most of the guys know about the sneezegasm problem. So we all know what's going on back there in the woods.

Which I'm choosing to ignore, since I have my own plans for lots of orgasm time this weekend.

"I love your laugh," I tell Sarah, because I do, and I don't even care that she's laughing at me, so long as she's laughing.

"I love you ," she replies.

"You really hanging up your underwear, Ryder?" Vaughn calls across the fire.

"If it keeps me home with this brilliant, beautiful lady more," I reply. And I am. I'm slowly handing over control to everyone else, because I do want to be home more.

And I don't know everything the future holds, but I know that between Tripp's plans for all of us to pool our resources to save the Fireballs, and my own itch that I've been getting since talking to Sarah more about science and the world, that itch to maybe try college, and who knows, maybe med school after that—well, one way or another, I'll be more than that retired underwear model who plays video games all day .

His teeth flash in a grin. "Good on you, man. Just don't propose by tweet. Who knows who you'd actually pop the question to."

Everybody gets a good laugh—yeah, it's funny—and I spear another marshmallow to make Sarah the best s'more in the history of s'mores.

"I could live like this every day," I murmur softly to her.

She leans into me with another one of those smiles I love so much. "Me too."

"They're not too much?"

"They're family . And they're yours. And they're perfect. And we're still locking the bedroom door tonight."

"You're utterly perfect, you know that?"

She laughs softly. "Far, far from it."

"But you're perfect for me ."

"Who knew one little tweet could change our entire lives?" she murmurs.

"Clearly, I did."

She laughs again, and Emma startles awake with a cry. I wave Tripp off when he starts to get up, because he's helping Mackenzie breathe. Also, Sarah and I have conquered worse than a fussy baby.

"Trade me?" I hand her the marshmallow stick, and she shifts to let me take Emma.

And then we sit there together, me calming a baby back to sleep, Sarah proving her marshmallow roasting skills surpass mine, our friends and family chattering happily all around us, and yep.

Life is pretty fucking perfect.

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Up next, a smooth-talking baker, the one who got away, and a goat with more matchmaking tendencies than a nosy old grandpa star in Dirty Talking Rival … Turn the page to start reading!