But then she blinks and her eyes take on a sheen that suggests tears, and I can’t smile anymore. “Sabrina, I’m not laughing at you. I’m so damn glad to see you, and I can’t—”
She clutches my arms. “I kept telling myself you didn’t ghost me to get back at me for Hawaii, that I knew better, but I just didn’t know. And I miss you and I’m not supposed to miss you. I have a heart of iron when it comes to men but you gave Mimi the café. That’s what my grandpa did for my grandma when they got married. He built the café for my grandma because she was so sad that the man she loved had knocked her up and dumped her and she knew Grandpa didn’t love her. She kept telling him she knew she was a burden. But even with his own heart breaking, he didn’t want her to think she was a burden, ever. So he did the only thing he could to make her happy. Do you have any idea how impossible it is to not think you’re every bit the man that my grandpa was when you do the same things he did? When you build something to make someone else happy no matter the cost to you?”
I clear my throat and blink a few times. “I didn’t build it.”
“But you saved it and you gave it to her and then you fucking ignored me and I have a damn title to the building in my name now, and how fucking dare you? Do you know what I have to do now? I have to change it. I have to change it and call it Bee & Nugget and install your beehives in the windows and put your massive, gaudy fiberglass bee on the outside of the building and sell kombucha so that it can be ours instead of mine or yours.”
She sniffles.
Jitter whines and sways between pushing against my legs and pushing against her legs.
“If you’ll come home,” she adds in a whisper. “If you’ll please come home and do this with me.”
Home.
I lean down to wrap my arms around her, squishing Jitter between us so he doesn’t have to choose, and bury my face in those glorious curls, breathing in all of her. The subtle coffee scent. The light, clean shampoo. The lemons. “I want to be home with you. But I wanted to be whole. Not living for revenge. Not doubting my worth.”
“I missed you so much more than I’m supposed to ever miss anyone.”
“I was coming home for Tuesday.”
“Tuesday?”
“Random Acts of Kindness Day. It seemed a better holiday than that fake heart holiday to spend with my Duchess.”
“Stop making me cry,” she whispers.
“I’ll kiss all the tears until I make you laugh again.”
“I’m not supposed to love you but I can’t seem to help myself.”
My heart swells so hard and fast that I should be going lightheaded.
But instead, all I feel is warmth.
Warmth and peace and acceptance and belonging and love.
“I am supposed to love you,” I whisper back. “That’s what life’s been trying to teach me. And I’m ready now. I’m ready to spend the rest of my life loving you.”
“And answering my phone calls,” she says on a laugh and a sniffle.
I kiss her ear. Her cheek. Her nose. “I will always answer your phone calls.”
“No, you won’t, and that’s okay.” Her sparkle is back. “But most of the time. Most of the time, when you’re not hip deep in concentrating on something amazing, you’ll answer my calls.”
“Highly likely.” I brush the tears off her cheeks with my thumb. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I’m so glad you’re coming home.”
Home.
I am.
I’m going home. With the woman I love and her dog and her community, to my grandma and my nibling-slash-best friend and the place where it’s so easy to feel like I belong.
“Bee & Nugget?” I say.
“Zen’s already ordering the sign. Do not test me.”
I smile and pull her in for a kiss, well aware that there are people watching us again, probably recording us for posting somewhere on the giant web of the internet, knowing that it won’t go viral because who cares about two people kissing?
Nothing scandalous here.
“I love you, Sabrina Sullivan. You’ll always be the duchess of my heart.”
“I love you more, Grey Cartwright. And I can’t wait to get you a superhero cape for your next era.”
EPILOGUE
Sabrina
“I’m going to marry him,” I tell Laney, Emma, and Zen over drinks in Emma’s garage in the house she was planning to share with Chandler three weeks after Grey and I get home from an epic road trip of doing random acts of kindness from California to Colorado.
Laney squeals and bounces on her toes, finally free from her cast and now in a boot instead.
Zen grins. “I’m making you sign a prenup.”
“Make sure he gets the café in the event we get divorced,” I instruct them. “And I don’t want a dime of his money. Put that in there too.”
“He proposed?” Emma asks.
“No, but when he does in five years, I’m absolutely saying yes.”
All three of them crack up.
The men bent over what was supposed to be Emma’s wedding gift to Chandler—a ’57 Cadillac convertible that he had apparently been telling her he wanted for years and also apparently knew was supposed to be his wedding gift—all pause and look up at us. So does Jitter, who’s in his happy place in the corner by the garage door.
And Duke.
Yes, Duke. Grey’s dog.
He paid off the bills for his ex-wife’s birthday party in exchange for getting his dog back, and now I’m living with the very best man in the entire world and our dogs, who made fast friends.
“Should we be suspicious?” Theo asks us.
He and Grey have mostly been giggling nonstop since Emma unveiled the car and explained why she invited us over. The triplets got called in for their various levels of expertise with refurbishing and refinishing classic cars. And honestly, they’re giggling too.
“Carry on.” Zen makes a shooing motion. “You don’t need in on the girl gossip yet. Also, I vote for the doors being wings instead of attaching wings. Have you ever seen a bee wing up close? That’ll be epic on the doors when you open them.”
Grey giggles again.
Not even kidding, he’s giggling, and I’m so here for it.
“I’ll give you the door-wings, but there’s not a fucking chance I’m compromising on the antenna,” Theo says.
“Antennae,” Zen corrects. “Two. One on each side of the windshield.”
“But we have to make sure the top will close right,” Jack says.
“I have faith in you,” Lucky says.
Decker’s bent at the back of the car. “If you don’t put the stinger on, I’m tossing you off Marmot Cliff.”
Emma smiles over her ginger ale.
“Is this bringing you closure?” Laney asks her.
She nods. “There’s a lot of good that came out of my destination wedding. You and Theo. The kittens. Sabrina and Grey. The changes at Bean & Nugget. Zen moving here. Mimi moving here. You taking that DNA test.”
I swing around to gawk at Laney. “You took it?”
“Yesterday,” she confirms.
“How do you feel?”
“Relieved, actually. I know it could be hard on my mom if it comes back and says my dad’s their father, but the triplets deserve to know the truth. So no matter what it says, no regrets. It’s not lose-lose, you know? Mr. Super Vengeance Man over there would probably say the truth is always win-win.”
She’s right. Grey likes the truth. “It’s Super Bee Man now, please. I have the cape on order.”
“Oh, I have a mock-up,” Laney says. “Forgot to tell you. Remind me when we go inside to grab my phone.”
“Fantastic.”
“Do your parents know you’re doing the test?” Emma asks Laney.
Laney shakes her head. “Telling them is a decision for another day. The triplets don’t want their dad to know either right now. They’ll decide what they want to do if we find out they’re right.”
Their dad being my uncle, the man who raised them.
“No matter what, you’ll all handle it great,” Zen says. “It’s the Tooth. That’s what you do.”
They’re not wrong.
Grey’s siblings descended on the town not long after we got back from California, claiming to be worried about Mimi’s mental and physical health if Grey was moving her to such a cold and nasty place and finding her a boyfriend, and the Tooth totally Toothed them.