- Epilogue
“Samantha, you are going to have to actually carry some of your own things up these stairs, we aren’t going to do it all for you,” I yelled at my sister as I tried to get her to help with the boxes of things we were bringing to her dorm room.
“I just did my nails, Abby, you can’t expect me to mess them up over some boxes. Plus, you and Bailey are much stronger than I am,” she said with a childish grin.
“It’s amazing to me how she can get out of doing absolutely any work,” Bailey said.
“I don’t actually mind,” I said as we made it to the third floor.
“I’m pretty sure they invented these horrible pieces of furniture as some sort of torture device,” Theo said as we got to the dorm room. “There aren’t even enough screws to hold this damn thing together.”
“Do you need this?” Bailey asked as she handed Theo a small pack of screws that was sitting by the doorway.
“God Damnit!”
It was so good to have my sisters in New York and near me. I couldn’t believe we had taken so long to make the decision to have them just come out and have us all be together. Of course, our parents’ business and home ended up getting auctioned off by the bank. But Bailey and Samantha had saved the ten thousand dollars I sent them and used it to pack up all their things and bought a car to drive out to New York.
Theo’s assets were frozen, and he didn’t have access to most of his money while he went through court proceedings for his case. The judge said he was lucky he wasn’t in jail for the rest of his life. But I secretly thought the judge liked Theo. One year of house arrest in Theo’s plush condo wasn’t really something I considered as a punishment. Plus, the judge ruled that Theo could keep his restaurant and his gym.
I stopped working at the dance club and instead took up classes to get my personal trainers certificate and Sunrise, the manager of Theo’s gym, had turned out to be one of my best friends over the previous few months.
“Aren’t we supposed to be at dinner with Jack and Isabella soon?” I asked Theo as I looked at the pile of wood that was supposed to be a bunk bed.
“You’re going to have to go without me, this bed is like a puzzle only an idiot savant could answer.”
“Let me take a look at it,” Scott said as he sat down. “I’m an idiot savant.”
“A hot idiot savant,” Bailey whispered in my ear.
“Shhh, he’s Theo’s employee. Don’t be rude,” I whispered back.
“I said he’s hot. It’s not like I mentioned that he was missing a leg.”
“Jesus Bailey, shut up,” I said, embarrassed that Scott might have heard her.
“Do you want to touch it?” Scott said with a smile as he looked at Bailey.
“Mmm, yeah, I want to touch it,” Bailey said as she sat down next to Scott and touched his metal prosthetic leg.
“I think we are witnessing a budding romance,” Theo said as he stood up and came over to me.
“Do you guys mind if we leave? We are going to be late for dinner,” I said, looking at Samantha and Bailey.
Samantha was on her cell phone texting someone and barely looked up at me, and Bailey was enthralled with Scott and didn’t seem to notice we were even in the room. The moment was so surreal and yet so happy. I felt like life was finally going well for all of us. We couldn’t have planned a single moment of it and certainly couldn’t have expected we would end up where we had, but life was pretty damn good.
“It’s alright guys, I’ve got this,” Scott said as he turned toward us. “I’ll make sure Bailey gets back over to your place when we are done.”
“Thanks,” Theo said as he grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the dorm room.
“Wait, he’s going to bring her home? What do you know about this guy? I don’t know,” I said, following behind Theo.
“She’s a big girl, let her flirt a little,” Theo said as he stopped and pulled me up next to him. “Maybe we will actually have the apartment to ourselves for a little bit this afternoon.”
His lips moved to mine, and I instantly felt the stress of moving Samantha just melt away. Theo did that for me, he had done it from the moment I met him and every second we were together since then.
“What about lunch with Isabella and Jack?” I said as I saw the look of desire in Theo’s eyes.
“Isabella’s pregnant, you know they will already have eaten by the time we get all the way to the restaurant. Let’s just call and cancel. We can go to lunch another day.”
Theo was right; Isabella was three months pregnant and couldn’t stop eating for more than an hour or so. It was so great to see her happy and still with Jack. I never would have thought they would have lasted as long as they had, but something just clicked for them, and they were happy.
That’s all any of us wanted really … happiness.
Well, and shoes, of course.
THE END