Epilogue

 

One year later

 

Neal

 

“Closing early today?” Harrison asks, nodding at the sign outside Jetsky’s. He’s brought in his weekly cars that he’s just acquired as trade ins.

“Yeah, it can’t be helped. Veronica and I have to be in court at three.”

“Did you rob a bank, or have you been prostituting yourself again?” Harrison cracks up at his own joke.

“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful, old man.” He chuckles as I go on to explain. “I filed to adopt Aiden, and Veronica did the same for Bailey. The adoptions are being finalized today. We’ll both officially be the legal parents of both kids.”

Harrison beams and shakes my hand. “Well, congratulations! You have a beautiful family.”

“Thank you.”

“And I have a beautiful new SUV crossover that I’m sure you’d all love.” There it is. The sales pitch.

Laughing, I nod. “Actually, Harrison, I am looking for a new vehicle. Why don’t I come in on Monday, and you can show me what you have?”

“That’s what I like to hear! I knew I’d wear you down eventually.” He slaps me on the back.

“Just shy of ten years, man. Killer skills,” I taunt.

Greg, the kid whose job is to drive the cars onto the track, jumps into his last one and pulls it around. “I’d better get moving. I’ll see you Monday.”

“No minivans,” I caution him. “I still have a penis.”

He throws back his head, and I can hear his laughter all the way across the lot as he makes his way inside.

Veronica walks up to me with a smile. “What did you tell him?”

“That we’re shopping for a new car. Made his day.”

“Clearly.”

Two hearses pull in and stop next to the vacuums, and the look of dread on Greg’s face as he approaches them makes me hide a smile. The funeral home is one of our newer accounts. After they deliver the coffin to the graveyard, they come to us to get the dead flowers vacuumed up, and the hearses washed and ready for the next procession.

The kids are endlessly amused by the creepy cars, but Greg doesn’t see the humor. Aiden and Bailey show up just in time to see the hearses pull in.

“Aiden was eager to go,” Bailey explains, as he rushes up to me. Bailey has been watching him at home all day and I’m sure she’s been asked if it’s time to go a million times.

“No problem, these are our last two.” I motion for another employee to put up the cones to block the driveway entrance.

“Are there dead guys in there?” Aiden asks, excited, pressing his face against the tinted glass.

Greg gives us all a look as he quickly sweeps out the back, between the runners where the caskets are placed.

“Nope, no dead guy,” I tell him.

Harrison is waving at me from the front corner of the building, so Veronica keeps an eye on things while I head to see what the issue is.

One of the cars he’s brought in won’t start, so I grab my battery jumper and have him on his way in a few minutes. The first hearse is pulled out by an employee, and the others jump to wipe it down, so I walk inside to see if the other one is about finished.

Now, usually, no one rides through with the car, unless there’s some reason or the owner prefers it, so I’m a little surprised to see Greg sitting bolt upright in the driver’s seat as the hearse is being pulled through the brushes and water. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world.

As I’m watching through the glass, and just as the hearse is reaching the end of the track where it’ll be stopped by a rubber bumper, I see him freak the fuck out. I don’t know what just happened, but the boy is seriously losing his shit, bouncing around the front seat until he finally jumps out and runs away like it’s on fire.

My first thought was that a wasp or bee got in with him and he was getting stung. But when I rush into the garage to see what happened, two different creatures climb out of the back of the hearse, laughing so hard they can’t speak.

“What the hell did you two do?” I ask Bailey and Aiden as Veronica approaches from behind me.

“A-Aiden slammed his hands onto the glass partition and smashed his face against it, growling like a z-zombie,” she gasps, holding her stomach as her laughter intensifies.

Yeah, those would be my kids that climbed into the back of the hearse while Greg wasn’t watching, waited until he was trapped by the brushes with no way to escape, then scared the living shit out of him.

Aiden runs over to Veronica, still giggling. “I scared him good, Mom, did you see?”

“He yelled help!” Bailey snorts. “Like, who was he yelling at?” She sits on the top of a plastic soap barrel, trying to catch her breath as laughter pours out of her.

When I look to Veronica for help, something occurs to me. “Why did he ride through with it in the first place?”

Aiden grins. “Mom told him the man wanted him to.”

I should’ve known she was in on it. When I raise my eyebrows and meet her gaze, her laughter spills out, and she shrugs. “He sprayed us with the hose. Totally had it coming.”

Greg approaches in time to hear her and raises his hands in front of him. “Truce! No more pranks!”

“What did you think was back there?” I ask, trying not to laugh.

“I didn’t know and wasn’t about to find out.”

By the time we have the final hearse dried off and returned to the owner, it’s time to head to court.

We’ve been told today is just a formality. All the papers have been signed. Both Aiden’s biological father and Bailey’s biological mother signed over their rights with no arguments, and neither showed up at the past court dates.

Still, it’s a relief to hear the judge announce that we are now their legal parents. We don’t hear those words alone, not by a long shot. My parents are there, and pretty much everyone from Violent Circle.

Violent Circle isn’t such a bad place to live now. After the threats from the Housing Department and the scathing report by the local news, the new management quickly retracted its former regulations. The money paid by tenants to reclaim the toys and bikes stolen from them was returned, and the owners were put on probation by the Housing Department. The tenants all know how to contact them if management steps over that line.

I was so glad I could help make things better before we moved.  We smile back at the crowd of neighbors, friends, and family, gathered at the back of the courtroom, all so happy for us and our kids.

“I can see you have a very large and loving support system,” the judge says, after his pronouncement.

“Yes sir, one big family,” Veronica replies.

 

THE END

 

Thanks for reading! If you’d like to check out more of my work, I have two books that are always free!

 

Everly, Book one of The Striking Back Series:

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