A Toast to the Good Times

Epilogue



“You really can’t have a light saber,” Mila frowns.

She’s wearing sexy makeup and her hair is up in an elaborate set of braids, but she has a robe on because she’s keeping the costume she has been working on like a person possessed for weeks a big, crazy secret.

“Why not?” I ask, flicking my wrist so the plastic columns on the toy jut out. I press the button that activates the light and sound effects, and grin at the buzz.

“You have adamantium claws.” She turns over my gloves, equipped with fairly realistic claws. “Aren’t these enough?”

“You don’t think Wolverine would harness the power of the Jedi if he had the chance? Plus, this isn’t even one of your special light sabers. This is just a toy.” I wiggle my eyebrows at her when her frown gets deep and serious.

“They’re all special. And it’s a prop, so don’t disrespect it just because it’s not as advanced as the other props,” she grumbles. “Anyway, Wolverine wouldn’t be harnessing any Jedi powers through the saber itself. Jedi powers are intuitive. And that’s a red saber, so it’s Sith, not Jedi.”

I wrap my arms around her slim waist and breathe the soft vanilla smell of her deep into my lungs. “So, what’s under that robe, my sexy little nerd? The green stretchy thing?”

She sighs. “Silver Fox is a fine character, but she doesn’t speak to me. And I didn’t have enough time to make an authentic costume just to match yours.” She puts her hands over the knot in her robe that I’m studiously trying to undo.

“I, for one, think you’re missing out." I grab a comb off her dresser and run it through my hair in an attempt to keep it slicked back, but it’s already curling like crazy. Mila comes behind me and runs her hands over my shoulders, down my chest, and to my belt buckle.

I watch her reflection in the mirror and feel a little jolt when she hits waist level. “More? Already?”

“No, horny boy. I got my fill of you before.” She kisses my temple. “Though there’s no guarantee I won’t want more again later.”

“You always want more again later, and I am a very, very lucky man.” I pat her butt.

She pinches my cheeks. “It’s just because you’re so irresistible, Landry. You’re a looker. A real looker, kid.” She flounces across the room and sits on her bed.

Our bed.

We moved into one room so she could have a study while she goes back to get her PhD in library science. She’s a brainiac, big time, and there’s nothing I love more than coming back from a long night at the bar to find her curled up in her leather chair, a book on lap and that faraway, dreamy look in her eyes.

I follow her reflection as she pats her hair and rifles through her drawers. I glance up behind her mirror and see the cartoon I gave her last Christmas, now framed and hanging prominently in our room. I love that it’s the first thing, after Mila, I look at every morning. I reach out and press my fingers to it, over the scene where the two lovers are kissing, the woman’s hands full of the daisies the man gave her.

I stick my hand in my pocket and run a finger over the cool metal, just making sure it’s still there.

“So, one whole year with me. Sick of my face yet?”

It’s a joke. But it’s also not a joke.

I can see her face open up like a flower in bloom when she smiles. “Negative. Now that you’re mine, all mine, I’m not letting you go anywhere.”

“And you’re not too weirded out by my family? Because they can be a lot.” I watch her dump out a bag of hair things and pick through them with her delicate fingers.

“Are you kidding me? They were the family I needed when I had no one else. They treated me like their own. Especially since Aunt Jenny...” Mila presses her lips together, and I practically kick the chair over getting to her side.

I put an arm around her and press her head on my shoulder. “Shh. I’m sorry, babe. I know it’s hard.”

“She was just so young, you know? Mom, too. My family doesn’t seem to last long.” She’s trying to be funny, failing, and tripping and choking over the words.

I run a hand over the bumps of her braided hair, my gloves snagging pieces that I then try to carefully untangle. “It’s okay. You’re healthy and fine and you sort of have to stay that way indefinitely. I need you around.”

She wipes away tears and laughs, a wet, rattly sound. “Oh really? That’s very sensitive, Landry. I’ll be sure to stick around just for you.”

“Good.” I get down on one knee. I had bigger plans, fancier plans, but I love the coziness of this room, our room, where we first fell apart and came back together and now spend every night folded in each other’s arms.

She presses my hair back. “Do you want me to get more gel? I think it’s wearing off, and you need more to hold it back.”

I shake my head and try to wrangle control of my emotions, which are suddenly encountering epic amounts of turbulence. “Mila, I never want us to be apart.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says, and leans over to kiss me gently.

“I’m committed to you. To being with you. Loving you. Taking care of you.” I clear my throat and rub my hands on my jeans, my palms a sweaty mess.

She turns her head to one side and really looks at me, taking in my one-kneed stance, my nervous stammering, my constant throat clearing. I know the minute she guesses what’s going on, because she throws a hand over her mouth.

“I know we had a rocky start, and I don’t know for sure that that was the worst time we’ll face. What I do know is, good or bad, I want you by my side.” I stick my hand in my pocket and hear her stifled squeal like it’s coming from the other end of a long tunnel.

“Mila Eby, I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life. Will you please do me the honor of marrying me?”

I hold the ring out and she reaches to take it with shaking fingers. She turns her wide eyes at me. “Landry. I can’t. This is your mom’s ring. The one your grandmother left her.”

I cup my hands around hers and look her right in the eye.

“I went to my parents to ask for their advice, and my mother insisted that I ask you to marry me with this ring. It’s the ring my grandfather proposed with, and she wanted me to ask you with it. I had some slight alterations made.” I tilt the band, and she looks inside.

“‘Morning without you is a dwindled dawn,’” she reads, her voice breathless. “And the daisies etched inside? It’s Emily Dickinson and the comic. Landry.” She waves her hand in front of her eyes and croaks out, “Damn it! I just put on all this makeup and now I’m going to bawl it all off!”

“So, can I take that as a yes?” I ask, my heart kickboxing in my chest.

“Yes!” She throws her arms around my neck and kisses me on the mouth.

The only thing I want to do is drop her on the bed and roll around naked with her for the rest of the night. But she’s been planning our costume themed New Year’s party for months, so we can’t miss it.

When I pull back from her lips, she’s still clutching the ring in her fist. I uncurl her fingers and take the tiny band, sliding it on her ring finger. “Perfect.”

She holds her hand out and admires it. “Landry. Landry, I love you so much!”

I’m unknotting her robe for purposes other than seeing her costume, but when I catch sight of it, my breath gets stuck squarely in my throat.

“Uh, you’re gonna be cold as hell in that.” I have a hard time stopping myself from stammering.

“Do you like it?” She lets the robe shimmy down her shoulders and turns around, first left, and then right, modeling a costume that’s not much more than a few chains and small pieces of cloth expertly tailored to cover only the most essential bits of her very sexy body.

“What guy didn’t have a serious Leia slave-girl fantasy growing up?” I hold her at arm’s length and ogle her to my heart’s content, chauvinistically satisfied that she’s mine to ogle, mine to come home to, mine completely. “Just when I think you couldn’t possibly get any hotter...Maybe I should have gone as Han Solo?”

She shakes her head and shimmies on my lap, her skin hot everywhere my hands touch.

“I’ve always loved the idea of Leia and Wolverine...together. Don’t you think it could be fun?”

“Oh, I know it will be,” I assure her.

And I kiss my future wife, the girl of my dreams, the girl I overlooked, undervalued, and learned to fight harder than I ever thought possible for, and the last little shred of world-weary bitterness melts out of me and is replaced with the gorgeous ring of her laugh and the promise of more good times to come.