Epilogue
Becky pulled into the driveway and smiled. She did that every time she pulled into her driveway. It was totally sappy, but she couldn’t help it. She had a house. It made her happy.
It didn’t have a white picket fence, but it did have a fenced-in backyard that Starr enjoyed exploring. She had identified several favorite outdoor napping spots for when she wanted a change from napping on the back of the couch.
Becky still couldn’t believe it was hers. She still didn’t quite believe it, no matter how much Miranda insisted. Miranda had given her the down payment. Had forced it on her, really. She’d even somehow wired it into her bank account after Becky refused it the first time. Miranda had plenty of money, she insisted. She wasn’t going to use it all.
It hadn’t led to a traditional sisterly relationship. Miranda still seemed to struggle with how to talk to people when it wasn’t about chromosomes or molecules. They were never going to get pedicures or go to brunch or gab about their sex lives. But Becky understood that the money was Miranda’s way of showing Becky that she loved her and it still felt weird, but, well, she loved the house.
She unlocked the front door and hip checked it open; it was an old house with all kinds of quirks. “Honey, I’m home!” she shouted, because Foster had mentioned something about working from home today.
Because he was still Foster, and he still worked too much. But now he worked for himself, having set up his own practice that specialized in defending scientists in intellectual property cases. The money wasn’t great yet—it would never be Polak & Glassmeyer money—but he was making enough now that his pride didn’t hurt so badly, living in a house that his girlfriend’s sister bought them.
She heard him in the kitchen, singing badly to the radio. She stopped by the couch to give Starr a scratch behind the ears, then followed her nose and her ears to see what her man was up to.
He was cooking. The smells could have told her that. They couldn’t, however, have told her that he’d be standing in front of the stove, stirring a pan wearing an apron.
And nothing else.
“You’re early!”
“You’re naked!”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“Well, I’m definitely surprised. What is all this?”
The table was set, there were flowers in a vase, and her boyfriend was at the stove, naked.
He pulled her toward him and kissed her hello. She may have reached down to enjoy his nakedness a little. He may have growled into her mouth.
“It’s been a year and a half,” he said when they came up for air.
“A year and a half?”
“A year and a half since you picked me up from that crappy sports bar and ravaged me.”
“I remember it being a pretty mutual ravaging.”
He kissed her again. “We didn’t get to celebrate one year because of Dakota and Bullhorn’s wedding, so I thought . . .” He hoisted her up on the counter.
“You thought you’d surprise me with naked dinner?” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him closer.
“That was the idea.”
She tilted up her head and he kissed her again. His mouth moved down her neck, kissing a path while his hands worked on the buttons of her blouse.
“Why didn’t you finish cooking, then get naked?”
He stopped kissing. “Hmm. I see your point.” She smiled, but she didn’t say anything. She loved it when he admitted she was right. It was almost as sexy as his butt.
And then he went back to her neck and her buttons, and she forgot all about being right.
“You’re very sweet,” she said softly. He kissed her and started to pull her blouse off her shoulders while she shivered.
Then the front door opened.
Then Maddie screamed.
“What are you guys doing?”
“You’re supposed to be at a barbecue!” Foster shouted back at her as he tried to cover both Becky and his nakedness.
Maddie was living with them for her senior year, under the condition that she follow their rules. The summer had been great, and Maddie was celebrating at a last-day-of-summer barbecue at a friend’s house—a friend with parents who had a strict no-controlled-substances rule and who would be present the entire time.
But she wasn’t. She was standing behind the front door she had just slammed while Becky buttoned her shirt and Foster ran into their room for a pair of shorts.
Starr let out a halfhearted bark from the couch.
“It’s OK now,” Becky called once Foster was dressed. Maddie peeked her head around the door. “Are you sure?”
“No, we’re playing a hilarious joke where you see me naked,” Foster said. “Come inside. Why aren’t you at the party?”
“I had to stop by the shelter.”
Once Maddie had finished her horse-farm rehab, as she called it, she’d begged Dakota to let her volunteer at the shelter again. Dakota had refused, but she’d hired her as a part-time animal technician with the understanding that any hint of funny business would result in her being banned for life.
“Big payday?” Foster asked as he walked toward the door to usher his sister inside.
“Sort of.”
“What the hell is that?”
Maddie came in, followed by an absolutely enormous dog on a leash.
“It’s a dog,” she said helpfully.
“Are you sure? It looks like a horse.”
“It’s an Irish wolfhound.”
Starr hopped off the couch and came over to investigate. Becky held her breath—Starr wasn’t great with other dogs—but the giant horse-dog bent her head down and let Starr sniff her nose and it seemed fine.
“Her name is Rosie,” Maddie explained. “She came in as a stray yesterday. The vet says she’s around six years old, which is pretty old for a girl like her.”
“That’s great, but what is she doing in our house?”
“Well, they don’t really have a big enough cage for her at the shelter, and Dakota was trying to find a foster . . .”
Starr barked once, then trotted over to the couch. She got halfway, then turned around and barked again. Rosie lumbered after her.
Becky watched as Starr hopped up on the back of the couch and barked again. Rosie sniffed the cushions—which were shorter than she was—and climbed on. Starr walked in a circle and curled up with a sigh. Rosie put her head on the arm of the couch and sighed.
Becky put her arm around Foster’s waist. He was staring in a daze at the canine takeover of their living room, but he put his arm around her shoulders anyway. “They seem to get along,” she said.
“It’s just fostering,” Maddie said hopefully.
“As long as it’s only temporary,” he said, and despite Maddie’s protestations, Becky leaned up and gave Foster a big ol’ kiss.