Epilogue
I walked into the front door of Gabe’s very nice house, box in hand, setting it on the counter like all the others. I looked around the kitchen and living room. It was a California Bungalow, updated but not super recently, so it wasn’t all gleaming chrome and exposed brickwork. Instead, it looked like . . . home and that sat a little weirdly with me.
“God, Ash, you’ve got too much shit,” Jez said, dumping a box near the front doorway. “Can’t you just Marie Kondo this into a skip somewhere?” She came over when I didn’t reply. “What’s up? The whole place isn’t filling you with joy?”
Did it? I’d love not having to face grumpy old Mrs Hughes in the morning, especially when the bedroom gymnastics had gotten particularly enthusiastic. This time, if we broke the bed, the only people we would inconvenience were ourselves.
Tess came in next. “I think this is all your cutlery and cups,” she said, putting the box on the floor beside the pale-grey coloured kitchen cupboards. “What’s happening?”
As Jez filled her in, my view of the place dropped away, my chest beginning to tighten and my breath coming in shallow. Tess slipped her arm across my shoulders
“No,” I said in answer to Jez’s forgotten, flippant question, “I think it’s just the opposite.”
“Group hugs and we’re only one load in? I take it all back, boss, I’m glad you roped me into this,” Shane said, dropping the box with a disturbing crash and surrounding the lot of us with his arms. I huffed at this, wriggling to get out of his grip, reality crashing back in. I did have a lot of shit, having lived in my flat since my uni days and we had a lot more to move. Tess was trying to do the same and Shane just made revolting noises as we tried to fight our way free until Jez kidney punched him.
He staggered back and she said, “The only harem I’m interested in is the reverse type, so unless you’ve got a group of extremely good mates you don’t mind crossing swords with, think again.”
Gabe shook his head, obviously having arrived soon afterwards. His arms slipped around me, pulling me back against the hard wall of his chest, his lips grazing my neck. “I’m a little scared of how things are going to end up with those two.”
“Yeah, but if there were ever two people who were resilient enough to bounce back, it’s them.” I patted his arm, “We’ve got to let the chicks fly the nest at some point.”
“Particularly as we are sharing a nest now,” he said, turning me around and smiling. “Is it too early to tell them to go home so we can christen the bed?”
“Gabe, we’ve got a truck full of shit outside and another at home . . . at the old place, plus we’ve already christened the bed here, vigorously,” I replied.
“Who said anything about the bed?”
“Tess, I have finished vomiting. Please tell me I will not be required to fly around in another of those damnable machines again.” We looked up to see Miazydar the dragon dog had appeared, somehow looking cute and fluffy as well as imperious.
“Um. . .”
“Well, he’s not going in my car,” I said. “I’m still trying to get the smell of regurgitated kibble out of my upholstery.”
“If you’d pulled over when I said,” Miazydar said.
“We were on a freeway, dog. It was either keep going or cause a car accident. We nearly damn well did, when you refused to hurl out the window,” I said.
“You forget, I knew neither what a window was, nor had the opposable thumbs required to wind down said window,” Miazydar replied.
“OK, OK, I’ll see if I can get us an Uber when we’re finished,” Tess said. “Maybe a convertible with the top down would make you feel less sick.”
“That’s going to be expensive,” Gabe said. “Have you got your bike license? If fresh air is what works for him, a motorcycle with a sidecar would work. I’ve got one I’ve been doing up back at the shop.”
Yes, yes it would, I thought. It would also get Mum off my case as she had kittens, puppies and ocelots at the thought of her baby girl riding around the big city on a motor bike. Might head off her dumping wedding magazines in my lap the minute I walked in her door. Baby sister had stepped up, kicked butts and taken names in Damorica; she could be my meat shield for once. Speaking of it being Tess’s turn, what had happened to Nan’s spell? Surely, it wasn’t just me who had to suffer through being woken up by romance characters every morning. If there was any logic to it, turnabout was fair play. I gave an evil chuckle as I went to one of my boxes of books, digging out a novel with five glistening hunks surrounding a pretty female MC on the cover, flipping it open to page one as everyone chattered.