44. Epilogue

44

Four Years Later

Coen

" L ook at you, all grown up," Shilo exclaims, sweeping Echo into a fierce hug. "Thank you for coming."

"I saw you last summer, Shilo." He grins when she gives his ribs a poke.

"For about five minutes. You and Byrd holed up at the cabin the whole time you were visiting. Very antisocial of you."

"Blame it on Coen. He doesn't like to share."

I give him my own poke, and he dances away, eyes wide with feigned innocence.

"That was a busy year," I explain, very reasonably. "Echo started his minor studies, and I was on tour all spring."

"What he means is, we barely saw each other from January to June, so when we got here, we had a lot of catching up to do."

"Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Wicked humor sparkles in her gray eyes. "I hope you wore this old man out. "

"Please don't encourage him. I get enough of the old-man jokes at home."

But when he sidles back up to me and slips his arms around my waist, I can't help laying my hand on the back of his neck to steal a little of his warm exuberance. "And you better be careful," I warn him, pressing my thumb against his pulse. "Twenty-five is halfway to thirty. You'll be as old as me before you know it."

His scoff tickles my shoulder before he nips it.

"Worried I'll outgrow you?" he teases. "Now that I'm a college grad?"

"Speaking of college grads, I know it's not my place to be proud of you, Echo, but I hope you're proud of yourself for all you've accomplished," Shilo says, then gives my arm a fond squeeze. "And I know this one thinks the world begins and ends at your feet."

Because it does.

We're grinning at each other like lovestruck teenagers when Shilo shakes her head.

"Enough of that. Go say hi to Josha, Echo. Let the grown-ups catch up."

"You just said I was all grown up. Make up your damn minds." But with a roll of his eyes and a kiss on my cheek, he heads off toward his friend.

Shilo watches him go, her amused expression fading to wistful melancholy.

"Have you heard from Gem lately?" I ask, sympathy stealing into my voice. The new lines at the corners of her mouth suggest the answer, but I'd be a bastard of a friend if I didn't ask.

"Not since Hals had to bail him out of the Chico lockup back in February."

"Shit. Any idea where he is now? "

She shakes her head. "It was almost a relief when he first took off, you know. The year after he lost his place at ENC, he was a nightmare to be around. Drinking too much, snapping at everyone who offered anything resembling comfort or advice. I felt so helpless, seeing his pain and self-loathing and then being forced to watch it turn slowly into rage. Hals was lost in his own anger, and poor Milla didn't know what to think, so when he left, life got a little easier." She sighs. "But he's my first baby. It's unbearable some days, not knowing what he's doing or if he's okay."

"I can't even imagine. You know how sorry I am. We both are."

"I know."

We share a moment of useless silence.

"For what it's worth, I believe he'll come around eventually. He's always been a fighter. One day, he'll realize your love is stronger than his shame and be ready to accept help."

"I hope so." She leans her head briefly against my arm, then gives herself a shake. "Enough of my depressing shit. Are you ready for tonight?"

I glance at Echo, elbows resting on his knees and dark head bent to Josha's ginger one. Whatever he's saying coaxes a reluctant smile from the younger man's lips.

How much do I owe to a similar sight?

But there's no trace of flirtation now, and the only feeling stirring in my chest is pride.

"He's a good man, your Echo," Shilo observes, following my gaze. "And a lucky one."

"I'm the lucky one."

"You are so fucking gone," she laughs. "We need ice for the party. Go and get him out of here for a few while we finish setting up. "

"How's Josha holding up?" I ask once Echo and I are out on the road.

"He's worried about Gem, of course, and hurt, but mostly he's pissed. Shilo and Hals—all of Big Top—they're his family, and he doesn't understand how Gem could just abandon them because he made one mistake. I don't think Josha's ever given up on anything in his life. So he can't relate."

There's a note of self-deprecation in his voice that has me glancing over to study his profile. "And you can?"

"I know what it feels like to be convinced something's been taken away from you, and you can't see your way through to getting it back." His eyes are on the manzanitas sweeping past outside the window, but his hand clenches reflexively in his lap, faded silver scars stretching beneath the ink. Taking his other hand, I squeeze all the comfort of my unflagging love into his strong fingers to banish his restless ghosts. A wry smile tugs at his lips as he squeezes back.

"I don't tell you enough how grateful I am that you never gave up on me. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for you," he says.

"You would have found your way eventually. All I did was give you a safe space to try."

"You reminded me that I had wings, and you made me love them again, even though they had scars. You showed me that they could still take me where I wanted to go. You made this"—he raises his wrist to flash his tattoo—"something strengthening instead of shameful. Something to overcome rather than hide behind." He turns toward me, pulling his leg up onto the seat so that his knee brushes my thigh, and fuck, I don't want to be driving right now. He should be wrapped in my arms for these confessions so I can spill my sorrow for his struggle and my gratitude for his strength into his sable hair .

"You loved every fractured piece of me. How could I do less?"

"Falling in love with you was never a choice," I assure him. "And your pieces always fit together flawlessly from where I was standing."

We've hit the stop sign at the end of Little Lake, thank god, so I tug him across the console to claim his mouth before his defenseless beauty makes me weep. He comes willingly, surrendering to the urgent sweep of my tongue, and his lips curve in a smile beneath mine.

"You were always right about me going to school," he says when I reluctantly release him to make the turn toward town, and his voice is lighter now, touched with the self-aware amusement of battles long won. "I wouldn't have been able to compete at Cirque du Dumain if I hadn't gone to Cici, and Terry Crane would never have hired me if I was only the tagalong boyfriend. Now we get to spend next year touring with the premier rope company in the country. Together, because of you."

I'm not about to argue, although I'm pretty sure Acrobatic Conundrum would have taken him in a heartbeat, with or without his NCC diploma.

"It goes both ways, baby," I say instead. "I wouldn't be touring at all if you hadn't pushed me out of my comfortable self-pity and given me something to go after."

"For our next gig, maybe we can come back and work for Big Top? I like the idea of doing a season here, where we started. I wanna develop some of the duo stuff we've been working on and create a new act. Something hot as fuck and hopelessly romantic that will make the audience fall in love and want to fuck us at the same time."

"You mean the duo stuff that always ends with us naked?"

"Whose fault is that, Mr. Baardwijk? "

To be fair, more often than not, I am the one who loses focus and drives our private training sessions into the bedroom—if we even make it that far. Partly because being restrained in a basing wrap with Echo's lithe body climbing all over me is more than a little distracting, but also because there's something intoxicating about the level of trust involved—that his faith in me extends to my grip on the rope when it's the only thing between him and another fall. Seeing him grow beyond his wild potential and mature into a dynamic, confident artist makes my heart pound and my dick hard. From his sassy, delicious mouth to his bright grace to his honest vulnerability, it's only grown harder to keep myself from claiming him at every opportunity.

And the smartest thing I ever did was stop resisting.

Echo

It takes us an extra half hour to make it back to Big Top with the bags of ice because Coen insists on a detour to the Navarro overlook, where he proceeds to wreck me in the backseat with one of his out-of-body blow jobs. Which means of course I have to return the favor .

By the time we get back, the Edison lights are glowing like mammoth mutant fireflies under the twilit trees, and laughter spills out of the open tent flaps. A wave of nostalgia hits me, and my fingers twine with Coen's in the gloaming.

"Good graduation gift?" he asks with a soft smile.

"The best. Is it weird that I lived here for less than four months, and it still feels more like home than the house I grew up in?"

"I think we rewrote the definition of ‘home' when we found each other."

I guess we're both feeling a little sentimental tonight.

"Sap," I tease, even though I love this side of him. I love all of his sides—every layer peeled back as his guard came down over the last four years, revealing another piece to enchant and ensnare me.

Like his surprising competitive streak at PvP video games. Or how he loves to mother hen the shit out of me when I'm sick but turns into a miserable, cranky toddler if he gets so much as a cold.

And the way he still goes all growly and possessive every time we hit a club, only to become sheepishly attentive as he tends to my bruises in the inevitable aftermath.

Twining my arms around his neck, I part his lips with a warm swipe of my tongue and kiss him until Shilo comes to find us.

They've put together a private show to celebrate the end of my four years at Cici. It's small and intimate—just the family taking turns on stage while I sit on a bench piled with cushions, holding Coen's hand. Milla, seventeen and striking on the silks. Shilo and Cheyenne with an almost whimsical duo hoop routine. Hals and Josha making everyone gasp with a knife-throwing act that's only slightly less terrifying than it is impressive .

"Didn't want to join them this time?" I whisper to the man at my side.

"Just wait," he replies, and I'm still gaping at him when he disentangles himself from my arms and starts to unbutton his shirt.

"What are you doing?"

"Giving you your present."

The opening chords of Pink's "Glitter in the Air" fill the tent, and with a last wink, he vaults onto the stage, all feline prowess and masculine grace.

Fuck. Me.

It's the same routine from the first time I saw him, swimming to the surface of my screen in black and white. But this time…

Coen Baardwijk, shirtless on the rope in living color, dancing through the ether above a dark stage.

For me.

The final move is a slow wheeldown into a flared dismount that leaves him kneeling at the edge of the mat, eyes locked on mine. I'm standing rapt at the edge of the stage, hands poised for an ovation that never comes, because the music fades and he starts to talk.

"Baby, when you found me, I was lonely and lost. I'd let the people I thought I loved put me in a cage and convince me I deserved it. Then you crashed into my life and showed me love could give more than it takes—even when it's messy and complicated—and taught me to see myself through your eyes. You set me free while rebuilding yourself, and even in the midst of your own pain, you never tried to clip my wings. You're an absolute miracle, and I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life learning to deserve you.

"Will you let me be your husband, Echo Wash, and fly off into the sunset with me? "

In the breathless silence of the dark tent, his words hit my chest like a fucking sunrise.

"Yes, Coen. Fuck, of course. Yes, please." I'm laughing as I leap onto the stage and launch myself into his arms. "Every word for yes."

Milla darts from the wings to place a small velvet box in his hand.

"I get a ring?"

"You get everything." He slides it onto my finger like a promise made real—I'm his, and he's mine, and I can shout it to the stars for the rest of my life.

The platinum band sparkles in the stage lights, inlaid with onyx and aquamarine. The colors of a young man fighting his way back from the brink of destruction. The colors of the tattoo over another man's heart.

Everything goes a little surreal after that—a whirlwind of congratulations and excited hugs, toasts and drunken speeches and questionable choices on the rigs. Basically all my favorite things about a Big Top party. My joy surrounds me, vibrant with friendship and family and love .

We're both cruising comfortably in that hazy place between a little drunk and not-quite-tired by the time Coen and I are finally alone.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I ask, dropping my head back onto his shoulder.

"Like what?" He's leaning against the edge of the stage with my back pressed against his front, and I'm not sure who's holding who up at this point.

"Like you're expecting the other foot to drop, and you want to gobble me up before I disappear." I snap my teeth at him. "Afraid I'm gonna change my mind? "

"It's shoe. And you better not." He pinches my lower lip and gives it a tug. "I'm just waiting for that sassy mouth of yours to make some comment about my biological clock or second trophy wives."

"I would never spoil one of your perfect romantic gestures like that."

"You thought it was perfect, huh?" His eyes twinkle.

"Everything about you is perfect. Besides—" I tilt my chin to give him my best sassy grin. "I've always wanted to be a trophy wife."