He was wildly successful, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt more proud of anything or anyone in my life before. He worked so hard and loved every moment.
I’d become a private violin instructor and worked out of the sunroom in our home. It was mostly kids, but there was the occasional teen or adult. I even did virtual lessons, which was an interesting adjustment. Sometimes Dakota would just stand in the doorway and try to distract me when I did those.
With his slutty jockstraps, the horny bastard.
Sometimes he would get lost in his work, and I would just stare at him. And the longer I looked, the more beautiful he became. Sometimes I couldn’t believe that he’d chosenme. Sometimes this all felt like a dream, like I’d wake up and be all alone again.
Sometimes I had nightmares, but he was always there to chase them away.
Sometimes I thought about Tagerton and Timothy Hatford and the sequence of events that had led to me being transferred. Sometimes I got the urge to find him and thank him, because I never would’ve met Dakota if he hadn’t been such a godawful prick.
Funny how one moment can change your life for the better. All it takes is a single second for things to go right. For everything to slip into place.
And he was no longer Dakota Voss. No, now he was Dakota Walker.
He’d taken my name, and so had Val.
I had a family again.
I had love.
I had happiness.
I had a million little moments, memories that I could hold firmly in the palm of my hand, memories that wouldn’t fade.
Like this one.
Dakota brushed the tip of his nose along mine. “You can eat me alive now,” he murmured, pressing his smile to mine, giving me all his joy.
There were some moments I knew would stay with me forever: the day I first met Dakota…and every second of the rest of my life with him.
THE END
