“Fourteen million dollars,” Marcel says, and my heart does several somersaults in my chest.
Carson gasps. “So that’s?—”
“More than one point six million dollars,” I finish, doing the math faster. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“I’m not,” Marcel says. “You will, of course, be paying a percentage of that to me.”
“Are you kidding? Take as much as you want,” I say, pulling him in for a hug. “You saved my life.”
“Did you hear that, honey? He said it in front of witnesses. As much as you want!” Jameson laughs, throwing me a wink.
“So it’s really over?”
“Well, you won’t get the money until after the conviction, but from what I hear, Anders’s high-powered lawyers are already trying to cut a deal that would involve a guilty plea. So it’s only a matter of time,” Marcel says. He sits, crossing his leg over his knee and leaning back in his chair with a satisfied grin. “So yes, it’s over.”
“Dan, I just want you to know that if I didn’t have this broken ankle, I would be leaping into your arms right now,” Carson says.
“I’ve got it,” I say, crossing the floor. I pick her up, and as her arms go around my neck and her thighs hook over my hips, I kissher. I kiss her like it’s the first time, not like it’s going to be the last. The first of so many more to come.
“Can’t believe I bagged me a millionaire,” she giggles against my lips.
“How would you feel about letting me buy us a house?” I ask.
EPILOGUE
CARSON
The afternoon sun is streaming into the kitchen through the red and yellow leaves of the enormous elm tree in the backyard. The dappled autumn light makes the lemon wallpaper glow.
We closed on the house just after Labor Day, a charming two-story colonial near campus. Built in 1928, we could afford it because the last family hadn’t updated it since the late eighties. The bathrooms have a lot of teal tile, there’s a black toilet in the powder room, and the wallpaper borders are atrocious.
But I don’t care. I can’t wait to renovate it, room by room, with Dan at my side.
We started with the kitchen, and I was right about that lemon wallpaper. It’s going to be bright even on the cloudiest of days.
I love this house so much that I frequently joke that I’m going to die here. Each time, Dan replies, “Not soon, I hope,” before kissing me.
At the end of the summer, I started teaching at an elementary school a mile from our house. On nice days, I can ride my bike there. On really nice days, I walk.
I decided to wait to apply to the Master of Arts in Teaching program and instead spend this year getting used to my new life,the one I worked so hard to build for myself. I also wanted to see what a full season of roller derby felt like before adding a graduate course load to my schedule. So far I’m loving my rhythm of school, practice, and coming home to make dinner with Dan in our sunny yellow kitchen.
My parents are coming to visit us for Thanksgiving, a trip they arranged with plenty of notice. They were a little freaked out at first when I told them Dan and I were buying a house together. The speed with which we made the decision didn’t bother them; it was more about the order of operations. To them, the proper order is to get engaged, then married,thenmove in together. The living in sin thing was quite the adjustment.
They’re coming around.
And when they express opinions I don’t agree with about how I should live my life, I’m learning how to gently set boundaries with them.
I even got a text from my Mom this morning:
Mom
Kick butt today, honey! Send us pictures!
“How do I look?” I ask Dan, holding my arms out to the sides.
Today the Bloomington Brawlers are playing the Cincinnati Attack Pack, and I’m playing my first ever game with the travel team in my new red-and-white jersey. I turn so Dan can read the name,gluteus maxximus, and my number—four, in honor of my quads. I’ve got stripes of eye black on my cheeks, my hair in long pigtails down my shoulders.
“You look like you’re going to ruin some girl’s life today,” Dan says, his eyes molten as they rove over my body.
