“Menace,” I murmur, brushing my mouth against hers. “I love you.”
I say it soft, almost lost in the noise, but she knows. She always knows. And I will spend every day for the rest of my life making sure she never forgets it.
EPILOGUE
ELLIOT
Six MonthsLater
“You’re doing a cookie order?”Sam asks as he wanders into the kitchen.
Busted.
I rarely take custom orders anymore. Not since my lawyers and I settled with Shawn out of court last year. He was ordered to assume responsibility for the remaining debt he’d racked up in my name and to stay at least fifty feet away from Sam and me for the next two years. According to my legal team, his new father-in-law relocated him out of the province entirely. I’m not asking questions. I’m just grateful he’s someone else’s problem now.
“I couldn’t say no to this one,” I tell Sam. “It’s a special pup-doption day celebration.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch his hand sneaking toward the cooling rack. I intercept it with lightning speed.
“Hey,” I scold. “Pawsoff.”
He surveys the spread of dog-themed cookies with exaggerated longing. “But there are so many,” he groans.
“Sorry, pup. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Seriously?”
“Fur real.”
“Mom.”
“I mean it. Stophoundingme.”
“Mom.”
“I know, I know. It’sruff.”
“Mooom.”
“Okay, fine,” I concede, selecting a perfectly iced, bone-shaped cookie. “But only because you’re so paw-some.”
He rolls his eyes so hard I briefly worry they’ll get stuck that way. They don’t. He takes a massive bite, chews thoughtfully, then slips up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist.
“You’re paw-some too.”
“Really?”
“I Shih Tzu not.”
“Sam.” I attempt a stern tone, but the laughter bubbling out of me completely undermines the effort.
“Not a curse word,” he says, stepping back and taking another bite of the cookie. “I’m not contributing to the swear jar.”
The swear jar in question sits in the centre of the kitchen table. An old, repurposed pickle jar, it’s stuffed with an assortment of bills and coins. At least 90 percent of it is from Arthur. Not surprisingly, after spending his entire adult life as a bachelor, adjusting to family-friendly language has been an ongoing process.
Still, that’s been the only real hurdle in the past eighteen months. And considering how much construction we managed to cram into such a short span of time, I’d say that’s a very good sign.
Arthur moved into the other side of the duplex shortly after Boston beat the Otters in the Eastern Conference Final. After nearly a year of living as next-door neighbours, we bought the house from my landlord. Arthur offered to purchase it outright, but thanks to my financial freedom from Shawn’s debt, I was able to contribute my share of the down payment. Some days, I still can’t quite believe the house is mine. Ours.
