Epilogue:

I’m Not This Kind of Guy

It still ached when I moved my arm in certain ways, even though my body had been mending for months. The summer heat was finally draining away and leaving us with the moderate temperatures of early September, and I hoped that my injury wouldn’t come back to bite me every time it got chilly outside.

Michelle moved in with me.

All it took was being attacked by her next-door-neighbor to get her to agree to live with me.

Not bad.

I gazed across the field of white candles I had lit throughout the entryway and living room of my house. Michelle was due home at any moment.

It may have been moving a little swiftly, but I’d never been married before, and these past two months were the best of my whole life. I’d never been with someone like Michelle. I’d never been so satisfied. I wanted it to last forever. Or, at least, until these little meat machines we were driving finally popped their tires and rusted out.

The front door opened and the tell-tale tinkle of little high heels moved over the floorboards. She didn’t know yet. She didn’t know what was about to happen. She was about to become mine.

I haven’t been able to shake the image of her in a wedding veil since that fever dream I had after getting hit with Chet’s Taser.

The high heels slowed to a stop and I looked up from where I was waiting, in the center of the living room, on one knee.

Michelle stood in front of me in knee-length suede boots, dressed in a conservative, knee-length khaki skirt and a black turtleneck. There was something different about her since she’d moved in here. It started slowly, and then she had coalesced into a new—or perhaps only inner—version of herself. She warmed. She matured. She wasn’t the only one who was happier, I guess.

Her eyes beamed wetly from behind square-framed glasses and she slowly picked her way across the den, lit by the warm orange light of about fifty fucking tea candles. That was a fun trip to Dollar General.

“Michelle,” I greeted her somberly.

Tears of joy were already slipping down her cheeks as she approached, and I knew she was going to say yes.

“Andrew,” her voice warbled sweetly. My heart ached for her. She was too sweet for this world. Too sweet for me.

“You’re—uh—you’re the only woman who finally let me believe in the goodness of the heart,” I told her, trying to remember all the corny, poetic things I’d brewed in my noodle over the past few hours. Maybe I hadn’t thought this all the way through, but damn it, it felt right. I had to say it. “You make me believe in magic. In fairy tales. In the triumph of good over evil.”

I reached out and collected her hand in mine.

“Me, too,” she whispered back.

“You’ve only been in my life for three short months—unless you count that quickie we had in January—” Michelle swatted my shoulder and I winced. She knew exactly where that goddamn Taser gun hit me, and she wasn’t always sweet. “—but either way, it hasn’t been long. But it doesn’t need to be. You know my heart, and I know yours. We’ve laughed. We’ve cried. We’ve made huge, dramatic scenes and walked all the way home from the Baptist church on Route 11.”

Michelle scoffed but didn’t hit me again, even though I braced for it.

I swallowed. “Michelle Clara Harper, will you marry me?”

As she gazed down at me, sparkling tears slipping down her cheeks, I was certain she would say yes. Who cries like that at a marriage proposal and then doesn’t say yes? She was definitely saying—

“No,” Michelle answered, her sinuses becoming clotted from her tears.

“Uh,” I said. “What?”

Michelle sniffled and pursed her lips together. “We’ve only known each other for three short months,” she reminded me. In spite of her tears, she wasn’t as overcome with emotion as I thought. What the hell was going on? “You’re right, I don’t count that quickie in January, jerk.”

“So?” I said. “We’re living together! And every night, I’m excited to come home from work, just so I can come crush you on the couch.”

“I know,” Michelle said. “But we can’t get married, Ace.”

My brow dented with frustration and I staggered up from my knees. “Because why?” I demanded. “You know I love you. You know it! If I don’t marry you, I’m not marrying any-fucking-one. I can promise you that.”

“There’s no reason to rush,” Michelle asserted. “We’ve been living together for eight weeks, Andrew. We can wait another year or two.”

“Or two?” I shrilled. “I’m thirty-two!”

Michelle cocked her head to one side. “Do men have biological clocks?” she wondered.

“You do!” I snapped without thinking.

A half-smile kinked at Michelle’s lip. When we first moved in together, this might have actually spiraled into a fight, but it’s harder to get her to go than it used to be. Now she knows that I just snap sometimes, and it doesn’t mean anything, except that I’m basically a Neanderthal.

“You know that’s not the issue,” she reminded me meaningfully, and a blush actually darkened my cheeks.

I did still come inside her every night. If we were fertile at all, it was only a matter of time. And it wasn’t that we thought it was the best idea in the world, an uptight attorney and her ragged mechanic trying to raise kids together...

But we couldn’t stop.

I knew I couldn’t, and I thanked God that she couldn’t, either.

“Just give me some more time,” Michelle whispered, reaching a palm to lightly kiss against my cheek.

My eyelashes kissed closed and I breathed more easily. If anyone knew how to calm this beast, it was Michelle.

“I do love you,” she reminded me.

I nodded and kept my eyes closed. “I love you, too,” I said. My arms traced over hers and slithered around the back, pulling her to settle into my arms. I lowered my head and nuzzled her neck, relishing the clean aroma of coconut and vanilla and sugar. My baby. I could pick her out of a crowd of ten thousand, blindfolded.

One of my hands fanned into an open palm and skated down to her ass, giving her buttock a tender squeeze. She murmured her appreciation and tilted her face up to mine. Our lips bumped and cracked apart, tongues tangling, and I forgot the candles. I forgot the marriage proposal. None of it mattered, as long as we had this.

“I just want this,” I rumbled over her skin, making all the little hairs stand on edge. I felt her fingernails creep under my shirt and rake my bare abdomen, relishing the muscles there. Her palm flattened and snaked down into my pants, and my member sprang immediately to attention, like he was her puppy dog. I broke our tongues apart and whispered into her mouth, “I just want this forever.”

Michelle exhaled shakily and her fingers wrapped around me, squeezing affectionately. I swallowed thickly. Didn’t she feel this? Did she really think her or I would find it again?

Michelle nudged at my ear with her lips and blessed a lobe with one delicate kiss. “Ask again later,” she whispered. “Don’t forget.”