“Mm-hmm.”
“We should go back to the party.”
“I go where you go, sunshine.”
“But first I want to take a turn in that photo booth.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Epilogue
Teddy Ray Fletcher
One year later
“Someone catch that baby!” yelled Kallum as Grace tore through the greenhouse, leaving wobbling pots and clattering trowels in her wake. He was doing his best to chase after her, but he had little Robin strapped to his chest in a baby carrier, and Winnie was right behind him, Birdie in her arms and a burp cloth fluttering from her shoulder.
Angel lunged, capturing Grace and also managing to avoid the handful of crumpled flower petals and potting soil that she decided to release at just that moment. The three-year-old just squealed and then flung her arms around Angel’s neck, because if ever there’d been a child who’d been so adored and coddled that she assumed every new person she met was a new best friend, it was Grace Lieberman.
“I want FLOWERS!” yelled Grace happily.
“Sorry,” puffed Kallum as he reached Teddy and Angel. “Ever since we told her she was going to be the flower girl, she’s been on a hunt for flowers. Any flowers. All flowers.”
“Nah, she’s perfect,” Angel said, relinquishing control of the squirming preschooler, who was now chattering away. “You know, maybe I should have another talk with Luca. This parenting thing doesn’t seem so hard.”
Kallum looked Angel square in the eyes as he tucked a giggling Grace under his arm. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve playedDark Souls III.”
This apparently meant something to Angel, whose eyes went round with horror. “Oh God.”
“What’s happening?” demanded an electronic voice. “How come all I can see are dangling baby feet and terra-cotta pots?”
“Oh, right,” Angel said, and held up the phone. “Sorry, gorgeous.”
Luca sniffed from the phone. “I can’t believe you’ll talk aboutparenthood, but you wouldn’t let me adopt a shar-pei I found on the internet.”
Angel briefly closed his eyes. “We talked about this. We’re not choosing a breed just because it shares a name with aHigh School Musicalcharacter.”
“But he was only seven hours away from our apartment! And he was so wrinkly!”
“I’m going to wash Grace’s hands and then we need to do a final diaper check,” said Kallum. “You guys all good? Teddy, you hanging in there?”
Teddy held up a hand to check, and it was shaking harder than an off-balance washing machine. “Um, sure. All good.”
“Relax, buddy,” Kallum said. He couldn’t pat Teddy’s shoulder, since one hand was cupped protectively around Robin’s head and the other hand was securely around a still-chatting Grace, so he just turned so he could gently swingGrace’s Mary Jane–clad feet into Teddy’s back a couple of times.There, there, the swinging preschooler’s feet seemed to say. “You want to do this. Steph wants to do this. You’re going to live happily ever after because you’re going to do all the communicating and compromising shit.”
“Which is also as hard asDark Souls III,” said Winnie.
“Babe, you haven’t even playedDark Souls, first of all—”
“Watching you die every five minutes was enough.”
“—and second of all, we compromise all the time! Case in point, the twins. I graciously agreed that you could have the final say on their names.”
“Kallum, you wanted to name them Batman and Robin.”
Kallum made asee???face. “Exactly my point! I compromised!” And then he leaned over to kiss Birdie’s head. “Isn’t that right, Batman?” he asked in a whisper.
“Okay,” said Luca from the phone. “I really have to get back to the bride’s dress, so if I could just sign off on the groom, that would be lovely. Comprenez-vous?”
