“Cole,” Dane says, his voice deep, his gaze never leaving the woman in his arms. “Get over here and help us.”
Usually, I’d fight him if he told me to do something like that. But this is different.
“Yeah, Cole,” Lucy gasps, her hands clutching at Dane’s forearm as Nico eats her out. She turns to look at me, eyes blown out and lustful, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop thinking she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. “Comehere.”
Stripping my shirt up over my head, I step into the room and close the door behind me.
Epilogue | Lucy
“She wasjusthere!” Aunt Ruby’s voice echoes throughout the empty gallery, bouncing off the walls and making the place feel haunted.
“Don’t worry, Auntie,” I say, reaching fruitlessly for one of her fluttering sleeves as she rushes past me, “we’ll find her.”
I started the day anxious, breathing hard in bed, heart beating fast. The guys had to rally, bringing me hot tea and encouraging me, practically dressing me in my chosen gallery opening outfit.
Maybe Pudding going missing should make me feel worse, but it’s actually helping soothe the nervousness. I’m not thinking about the people who will show up soon, or the fact that it’smypaintings hanging on the walls. All I’m thinking about is the spoiled Burmese surely hiding under one of the tables in this room.
“I’ve never seen her like this,” Nico whispers, his drink held against his chest like he needs to protect it from my aunt, who’s still walking around the space, rubbing her fingers together and cooing to her cat.
“She lost herbaby.Have a littlerespect,” Julian hisses, following in Aunt Ruby’s trail, ducking down to look under tables.
Aunt Ruby races around the art gallery, jewelry clanking as it swings around her neck. With each step, she passes in and out of the spotlights, which just makes her look more dramatic, the shadows playing starkly on her features.
“We’ll find him,” Dane says, already on the phone. He also looks dramatic—and handsome—in his suit, surrounded by my artwork. He stops Aunt Ruby with a single hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry.”
“Pudding is alady,” Aunt Ruby mutters, hardly paying Dane any mind. Dane snaps onto the phone, calling people out to look for the Burmese, and though he doesn’t look it, I can tell he’s still trying to figure out how to get Auntie to like him.
“Pudding is a very intelligent animal,” Cole says, in his normal dead-pan manner. He’s dressed up today, wearing a button-down and a pair of slacks, his curls tamed and cropped shorter on his head now. I miss running my hands through them, but I can’t deny that he cuts a handsome profile like this. “She’ll come back.”
This is the first thing that’s stopped Aunt Ruby in her hastening around. She pauses, blinks, puts her hand to her chest and says, “You are so right, Cole. I can trust her to come back to me.”
Dane shoots Cole a jealous look, and Nico laughs from behind his glass.
Then, there’s a rustling from the back of the room, and Augustus appears in the suit Dane got for him, holding a sleeping Pudding in his arms.
“Oh, thank heavens!” Aunt Ruby throws her hands up and rushes across the room to my brother, who looks bewildered.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, as Aunt Ruby scoops up a surprised Pudding and hugs the cat to her chest.
“We’ve been looking for her,” Julian says, brushing off his leather pants and shooting my brother a look. “You can’t just… catnap!”
“Pudding was the one taking a nap,” Auggie shrugs, and I can’t help it—I laugh. We’re ten minutes from the official opening of my first gallery as an independent artist, and instead of throwing up from the nerves, I’m laughing.
“Okay, okay,” Julian says, sidling up next to me and picking up my hand in his. His fingers are cool, while my palms are sweating. “Let me see it.”
I blink at him until I realize what he’s talking about—the ring glittering on my finger. The one the guys presented to me last weekend on a trip to the Louvre as a celebration for this opening.
Smiling, I raise my hand to the light and watch as Julian tilts his head, admiring it. Then, he turns to me with a smirk and asks, “Shouldn’t there be three?”
I give him an equally smug look and point to the ring, “Threediamonds.”
He laughs and rolls his eyes, then slings an arm around me, tugging me in close. I’ve made more friends since starting my art program—young people who love painting and museums like I do—but Julian was my first real friend in the city. He’ll always have a special place in my heart.
I’m graduating from my program in one month, and I’ll have my master’s degree in hand. After that, this summer, we’ll have the wedding.
Everything feels new, wide-open with possibility. For the first time since meeting one another, the guys are taking a break from business-building. Nico is going to sail around the world in his boat. Cole is heading up a foundation for fledgling scientists and under-supported causes.
And Dane has been fully consumed with reading parenting books, studying what it means to live life with an infant. He’s tried to keep it from me, surely not wanting to pressure me in either direction, but he should know by now that it doesn’t work. I’ve known about his desire to be a father since the day his own passed away, nearly a year ago.
