Epilogue

ETHAN

A few days before Thanksgiving

“You’re sure you’re up for this,” I say to Lara as we close the doors to the car.

“If I wasn’t up for it I wouldn’t have gone along with it,” she counters, giving me a quick smile. She looks a little pale, but she doesn’t look worried at all.

“Your dad isn’t going to like it, you know that, right?”

Lara rolls her eyes in response to my question, and I have to wonder why I seem to be trying to almost talk her out of what we’re planning on doing.

“He’s made his peace with most of this, so if he can’t handle us getting married, formally making it official, then we’ll just have to deal with that,” she says.

“I just know how upset you were the whole time you had to keep him out of your life,” I point out. We start heading to the front of the courthouse, and Lara slips her hand into mine. I give her hand a quick squeeze.

It’s only a few days until Thanksgiving, and Riley is spending the day at Lara’s father’s house, which is why we chose today to come to the courthouse and get married.

“I am not about to back out at this point,” Lara says, giving me a significant look. I get a little tight feeling in my chest. I’d been suspecting for a few days that there was something up with her, but when she told me the night before that she’d been to the doctor, who’d confirmed that she was pregnant, I’d known that she was serious about what we were about to do.

“And you’re sure you don’t want an actual, real wedding with a dress and all that?” That was the one thing about what we were doing that I thought Lara would actually regret.

“I’m sure. Think of all the drama that would come up for that,” Lara points out.

“Oof, yeah,” I agree, as we get close to the entrance. I stop her there and give her a quick kiss.

“I’d much rather just tell people that it’s already done and not give anyone a chance to try to talk me out of it, including you,” Lara says, before we go in.

There aren’t that many people in line, and before too long we’re in front of the Justice of the Peace, with two witnesses who we managed to scrounge from the lobby while we were waiting.

“Do you, Ethan Parks, take Lara Hampstead, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love, cherish, and honor in sickness and in health for as long as you both shall live?” For just a second, in my mind, I’m back with Alexis, standing at the front of the little church we’d married in, looking down into her eyes, seeing the tears standing there. But the memory fades in an instant.

“I absolutely do,” I say.

“And do you, Lara Hampstead, take Ethan Parks as your lawfully wedded husband, to love, cherish, and honor in sickness and in health for as long as you both shall live?”

There isn’t even a moment’s hesitation from Lara to the question.

“I do,” she says, and I feel her hands squeeze mine.

“By the authority vested in me, I declare the two of you husband and wife. Let’s sign these papers and you’ll be legally married,” the Justice of the Peace says, bending his head over the paperwork.

It feels weird. I put the ring on Lara’s finger. I’d gotten it a few weeks ago, just before we started actually talking about getting married. It’s pretty simple, a white gold band, with a ruby shaped like a heart, because Lara had mentioned to me back when we were first dating in high school that she didn’t see anything special about diamonds.

We sign the paperwork ourselves and that’s it, we’re married. I have to wonder, as we’re walking out of the courthouse together, if Lara isn’t disappointed.

“You’re sure you don’t want a real wedding? This is enough for you?”

Lara smiles at me and looks down at her ring.

“I am damn sure that this is the most beautiful ring I can imagine ever having,” she says.

“It’s technically an engagement ring, you know,” I point out, looking down on it.

“I know, but maybe a year from now you can give me a proper wedding band,” Lara suggests, her eyes sparkling.

“There’s something else I want to give you right now, but I didn’t want to do it in the courthouse. I thought it might bring up too many questions,” I say, thinking about the other thing I’d brought with me, the thing I’d kept hidden in my wallet for over a year.

“What’s that?” We stop at the car and I take out my wallet. I reach into a little pocket along one side of the bill fold, and take out the thing that’s been weighing on me, a little, at least, ever since Lara and I started seeing each other.

“This is Alexis’ wedding band,” I say quietly. I pull the ring out and show it to Lara. I’d taken it off Alexis’ finger at the hospital, before they took away her body to send it to the funeral home. It’s one of the very last things I have of her, other than Riley.

“You want me to have it?”

I look at Lara’s face, she’s not angry, as I’d half-feared, but she does seem confused.

“I want you to have it at least until Riley is old enough,” I say.

Lara nods slowly. “I can see that, I guess,” she says quietly.

“I also… I feel like Alexis would want you to have it, with us getting back together,” I explain.

“You know… I’ve been wondering all morning how she would feel about this. About us getting back together,” Lara says in a quiet voice.

“It’s kinda her fault that we did. She couldn’t be too mad at us,” I point out. We’ve not really talked about Alexis for months now, and I’ve gotten past the point where that fact makes me feel ashamed. I know Alexis would have wanted me to move on, to fall in love again.

“The more I think about it, the more I feel like she kind of meant for it to be this way,” Lara tells me, speaking slowly.

“You do?” This is something that neither of us has dared to really talk about, whether or not Alexis would approve.

“I think she did. I think… I think she thought that if she was out of the way, gone, that things would get better between us, and that we’d eventually end up together. One way or another,” Lara explains.

“I think she took it to heart, how upset it made you. I think… I think that she really believed it was her fault, and mine, that the family fell apart the way it did,” I say. It’s like a weight off me, the same way that it was when I first admitted my part of the fault in tearing apart the Hampstead family.

“I think this was her way of sort of bringing everything back together, and so…” Lara smiles at me slowly, and slips her sister’s ring on the ring finger of her right hand.

“And so?” I put my arms around her and pull her close, pressing her body against mine.

“And so it would almost be an insult to her memory not to get back together, if you really think about it,” Lara finishes. I turn her face up to mine and kiss her on the lips, lightly at first and then more hungrily.

“We need to get home so we get at least a fighting chance at a wedding night,” I whisper to her, barely breaking away from her mouth. Lara murmurs something that sounds like an agreement, holding me tighter in the cold November air.

By the time we get to the house, the idea of having Lara all to myself for a few hours is already enough to have me half-hard. We get into the house we’ve been sharing for most of the year, and I close and lock the door behind us before pulling Lara into my arms and kissing her full on the lips hard and hungrily.

I let my hands wander all over her body, stopping for a second at her breasts, and then at her waist. I remember all in a flash that she’s pregnant, pregnant with my baby, and I hold her even tighter, moaning against her lips as I think of that tiny, microscopic thing that’s made up of her and me both, growing inside of her.

We make our way to the bedroom slowly, taking each other’s clothes off, first each other’s coats and then sweaters, and then I’m struggling to unzip the heavy, thick skirt Lara’s wearing even as we step through the bedroom door together.

I hesitate for a second before pushing Lara onto the bed. I’m almost worried that I might hurt her, that I might hurt our new baby together. But she grins up at me even as she tumbles down among the blankets and sheets, and the next moment I’m on top of her, kissing her again, touching her everywhere.

“If I can’t have a glass of Champagne, at least I can get good sex, right?” I laugh at Lara’s comment, slipping my hand up between her legs, past the fabric of her panties, to touch her, to slide my fingers along the soaking wet folds of her pussy.

“I will give you the best sex of your life,” I tell her, stripping off her panties, leaving her completely naked underneath me.