Epilogue

EPILOGUE

CHRISTIAN

T rinity Meyers loved four things most of all. God, Taylor Swift, The Twilight Saga, and me.

It’s snowing on the beach.

Gibson and I are skin to skin, wrapped in an extra-large sleeping bag with beanies covering our heads as the soft flakes melt on our warm faces. The occasional beam of moonlight peeking through the low layer of clouds makes what would have been magical any minute of any day miraculous.

“You think the fire’s gonna go out?” he asks.

“How would I know? I’m surprised I managed to get it going in the first place.”

“Good thing you’ve got other ways to keep me warm.”

I rub my hand in circles over the firm curve of his ass cheek. “We could always go back to the cabin.”

“No, this is beautiful. I can’t believe it’s happening. Exactly what you wanted. ”

“I keep getting lucky like that,” I say hardening against his abs. “But I feel a little bad for forcing you someplace cold in February.”

“It’s just gonna make us appreciate Hawaii that much more.”

“You don’t seem like you’re hating it,” I say, noting his own erection against my hip.

“Feels a little once in a lifetime.” Gibson turns his face to the sky again, closing his eyes. I watch snowflakes land on his dark lashes and his thick scruff. So fucking beautiful. Best anniversary ever.

“Turn over.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Enjoy the moment, baby. Get in it with me.”

That was the plan, but I hear what he’s saying, and it’s not like I’m gonna want him less in thirty minutes. If three years of marriage hasn’t doused our flame, I’m pretty sure enjoying the snow while it lasts won’t either. But I’m not willing to say the same about the dying fire behind us.

I lean my head against his and watch the sparkling snow hitting the surf and sand of this beach on the Olympic Peninsula, very near where portions of Twilight were filmed. It means something to me that we’re here, creating a moment to smooth over the rough, cracked parts of a memory that was once too painful to keep. Gibson always says he doesn’t care what kind of trips I plan for us, but I know he wasn’t expecting to freeze his ass off on a beach.

He has this idea that I have to “put up with” so much when it comes to our relationship. But really it’s just a slow-moving series of shifts and adjustments and occasional heated discussions about how long it takes for one or the other of us to return a text, or his lack of ability to delegate tasks I could easily take care of for him.

Our worst fight happened when we were newly engaged and I passed out from drinking at Silas’s place with a phone I didn’t realize was dead.

He’d shown up pissed, but let me sleep it off, then really laid into me the following morning about topics that ranged from binge drinking to Silas’s supposed absurd need for privacy to worrying him. I was hungover so I hadn’t taken any of it well, and it escalated into an airing of various grievances until we were both sure we hated each other and started crying.

And then we had the best sex of our lives, convinced it would be the last time, meanwhile apologizing and begging and taking all the shitty words back.

That was years ago now, shortly after the annulment and Marianne’s abrupt disappearance. It was easy to forgive him for being more on edge than usual. He smoothed out some when she resurfaced in Los Angeles and gave him her new phone number.

I still don’t pretend to understand their relationship, but I respect it, and for the most part stay out of it. I have very few complaints.

I tighten my arm across Gibson’s chest and readjust my leg between his. He shivers, and I breathe some warm air onto his ear, which only makes him break out in chills. I smile and nibble his earlobe.

“Do you think she’d be horrified or happy?” he asks.

I understand he means Trinity—if she were looking down on us. “Happy. Without a doubt. She hated being told to hate anyone—especially gay people. The Bible is a very confusing place for a teenager. Love thy neighbor as thyself but stone the queers. Never made sense to her.”

“And you?”

“I figure when Jesus came along with his message of love, his dad was forced to reevaluate some things.”

Gibson chuckles at that as he runs his hand firmly up and down my thigh. I hum, closing my eyes, trying to beat back the desire threatening to take over. The question that pops into my head unwanted does a nice job of making my erection flag slightly. “What do you think my dad would think?”

“Wow.” He looks at me like he’s wondering if I really want an answer to that.

I wait expectantly.

“I mean, he did ask me to look out for you, but I feel like he might think I went a little too far.”

“Do you think he wanted me to be happy?” I ask.

“I know he did.”

“How?”

“Because he said so. I’m sorry you never really got to know him.”

“I don’t think about it much,” I say because I hardly ever do. Maybe I have one or two daddy issues, but my mother and stepfather raised me well to the extent that I’ve always understood his absence in my life was more his loss than mine.

As I’ve gotten older and contemplated the idea of fatherhood from time to time, I believe that’s right. I got the family I needed, and he reaped what he sowed. Not to sound shitty about it—it sucks how he died, and I’m glad he thought about me from time to time, but I always had an incredible amount of apathy regarding him—no hate, but no love either. “It was the way we both wanted things,” I add.

“My dad sure likes you,” he says.

I laugh. His enormous Greek dad who has one of the thickest Jersey accents I’ve ever heard is a wise-ass jokester who likes to prove being seventy isn’t going to stop him from lifting grown men off the floor when he wants to give them a big hug.

The first time I met him, the last puzzle piece regarding what made Gibson the amazing and complex man he is snapped into place. His mom is a talker, and I can give her credit for my husband’s stellar communication skills. The charisma, though—that’s all his father. It surprised me at first—how graciously they accepted me—the man their son fell in love with and left his wife for, because even I can admit he probably wouldn’t have ever left her if I hadn’t come along, despite my reluctance to be the reason he made the break.

But his mom knew what that marriage had done to her son, and she told me I lit him up, which is the best compliment. They’re cool people, and they raised a virtually perfect man.

“Everybody likes me. Except you, apparently,” I say as I rub up on him again.

The hand he’s got on my thigh slides up to my ass, his fingers slipping into the crease. “Mm…you’re very warm here.”

“Think again. Your ass is mine tonight.”

“Don’t be so selfish, baby. We’ll take turns. It’ll be fun.”

I reach for the lube behind me, pumping a few generous squirts onto my palm. I get myself ready while he turns onto his side. “You don’t think you’re gonna come?” I ask, sliding some lube between his muscular cheeks.

“Anything’s possible.”

I can come hands-free seventy-five percent of the time, but for Gibson, it’s more like ninety-nine. Every time it happens, I resent Marianne just a tiny bit more for locking his lust in a cage for all those years. Not that I have a problem with pleasing him. It’s that there’s so much love and desire in him, I can’t imagine how much it hurt to spend himself repeatedly on people he didn’t care about.

He says it’s not the sex that does it though—it’s me. And admittedly, we have different styles when we top.

I inch my cock inside him as I wrap an arm around his shoulder, pulling my body flush to his and pressing kisses to his neck. He lets out a held breath and whispers, “Fuck, that’s so good.”

I shut my eyes and lose myself in the tight, hot grip of him.

His heavy breaths warm the air inside the sleeping bag as I slowly make love to him with every cell of my being and every drop of adoration in my heart .

I worship his body and the feel of joining with it. I rejoice in his moans and the sudden gasps at the way I turn him on. And I pray that our love goes on like this forever, bright and pure and as miraculous as snowflakes on sand.

THE END