EPILOGUE
Cameron
Eighteen months later…
I stood in the dying orange rays of the autumn sun, painting the scene in front of me as the evening breeze began to pick up from the ocean. It wasn’t quite dinnertime, but I’d been working on this painting all day. Squinting at it, I smiled with satisfaction. I’d gotten the color of the sun reflecting on the waves just right. The hue of the sand in shadow was almost exact, and the color of the dune grass was a simple mix of ochre and green.
But I wasn’t sure I’d ever get this woman right.
Her hair was a million different colors, as was the shade of her skin. It suited her personality.
A year and a half had passed since we met, and every day revealed something new and surprising about her. She’d come into my life a mystery, and even now, I was still figuring out what made her tick. We argued, all the time, especially about politics, sometimes well into the night. It was madness, but a welcome, irresistible one, because she still stirred me, even more so now than she had that very first night in the club.
And since we agreed never to go to sleep mad at each other, the make-up sex was hotter than ever.
I watched Brooke toss a stick to Mr. Fluffers, who waded into the surf to catch it. She’d just driven four hours in from Villanova for Thanksgiving break, and we hadn’t seen each other in a week. And by god, if she didn’t get more beautiful every time I saw her. Laughing as the dog bounded toward her, she took the stick and proceeded barefoot up the shore toward me, pulling a heavy fisherman’s sweater down over her bare legs.
“Hello,” she said, climbing up the stairs and kissing my neck. She inspected my latest work, tilting her head. “That’s good. Do I really look like that?”
I shook my head as I turned to her, examining her closely, confirming my suspicions. “Nope.” Truth was, it didn’t do her justice in the least.
She disappeared into the house and returned a few moments later with a bottle of Dom, two champagne flutes, and a large gift bag with colorful balloons on it. She handed me the bag and started to pour.
“What’s this?”
“It’s your congratulations present,” she said as we toasted and took a sip. “Sorry it’s a little late, but I was trying to think of the perfect thing. You know, when we first got together, I was so worried. After all, what do I get the man with a silver spoon up his butt? The man who has everything? But I think I finally nailed it with this one.”
I set the flute down and peeked inside as Mr. Fluffers nipped excitedly at the bag. Then I reached in and pulled out two enormous, white, fluffy unicorn slippers.
She grinned. “Do you like them? I know you’ve always admired mine.”
“Completely,” I said seriously, then wound up and tossed them at her.
She caught them deftly and put them aside. “Actually,” she said, “I have good news. I got an A on my first paper. For Procedure Law.”
“Yeah? Is that the one…”
She nodded. “The one you gave me advice on. Thanks.”
“See? You’re a natural.” She sidled up to me, and I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close. Despite the chilly mid-November temperature, she was only wearing one of my giant sweaters. This sweater and… my hands roamed underneath over her warm, sensuous curves, confirming the fact… nothing else. Ah, fuck, could life get any better?
“Why, Senator,” she said with a wink, her hand brushing over the bulge at the front of my lounge pants. “Is that a post-election erection I feel?”
Senator. Even two weeks after the election, it still hadn’t sunk in.
I’d given up politics for a while, which had done me and my image a world of good. It turned out that a GIF of me loosening my tie and launching off the debate stage with the caption FUCK THIS SHIT became one of the top memes of the year. I couldn’t go on social media without seeing it. I’d suddenly become the figurehead for the person who’d had all he could take and wasn’t going to take any more, and a hero to anyone who’d ever thought of just walking away in the face of extreme bullshit. It was pretty hilarious, actually.
Not only that, though Owen won the state Senate seat handily, the name Cameron Brice was the most written-in name during voting. There’d been a growing movement to elect me, anyway, despite bowing out. I’d actually gotten just under ten percent of the vote. I was incredibly popular, even among the Democrats, especially when word got out about how I’d effectively gotten the developers to delay the building of Hunter’s Hill for a few months, until a habitat had been created for the yellow-horned toads.
So the following year, it only made sense for me to run for United States Senate.
My victory was a landslide, and I’d beaten my opponent by the largest margin in the state’s history.
Now, I was heading to Washington, D.C. And it was because of the woman in front of me. The woman who showed me how to be a human instead of a political machine. The woman who showed me how to inject a healthy dose of humility into my workday. The woman who meant everything to me, and who I’d gladly share the White House with, if by god’s grace, I ever made it there.
I pulled her toward me, letting her feel the bulge in my pants, and her eyes narrowed with confusion. She pouted. “That’s not an erection. And here I thought you were happy to see me.”
I grinned at her. “Believe me, I am very, very happy to see you. Every day. Even when you’re being an insufferable tree-hugger.”
She smiled at me and admitted, mock-begrudgingly, “I suppose I still like you whenever you’re being a douche.”
Brooke never went into the FBI. We argued so much and so well together, it convinced her that she wanted to be an attorney, like her parents. Her time with me had shown her that she did have convictions, and she wanted to fight for them.
“The better to make sure all the toads are safe, my dear,” she’d said.
She also said that she might even go into politics. Last fall, she’d applied to Villanova Law and had started her first semester a couple months ago. Though it was hard, and we’d spent most of the past few months apart due to my campaign trail and her schoolwork, she told me she’d never been happier.
It helped that her parents had eventually come around, and she had them to support her. She’d always been very close to her family, and they hadn’t turned their backs on her, though they were suspicious of me at first, especially when they learned how we first met. Though I wasn’t yet on speaking terms with my father, and maybe never would be or inherit the Brice fortune, her parents had warmed up to me. I’d even gone golfing a few times with her father. Turns out, we had a lot in common. He told me that he thought Brooke would become a great environmental attorney, just like her mother.
Maybe. After all, she’d done her part to save those toads.
Save me.
I took her wrist, holding her in front of me, gazing deep into her blue eyes, which reflected the moonlight. Then I reached into my pocket, and pulled out the hardness she had felt… the tiny velvet box. I thought of all those months ago when this was nothing but a pipe dream that could never come true. I thought of how close I’d come to a very different life, a life in chains, a life of complete damnation. It was enough to make me weak.
And now I had everything I could possibly want.
Everything, except one thing.
I knelt in front of her, on one knee, finally able to propose in the way I wanted, to the woman I wanted.
She was crying before I even lifted the lid on the modest but pure diamond, an oval-shaped solitaire in a plain platinum setting. Both hands flew to her mouth, and she let out a cry of pure surprise.
“You drive me crazy, sometimes, with the things you say and think and do,” I told her, taking her quivering hand in mine as I held the box up to her. “But damn it, I love it. I honestly can’t imagine not having that in my life. You’ve made me a better politician, and a better person. Will you marry me, Brooke?”
For once, I’d put her at a loss for words. She nodded as I took the diamond solitaire and slid it onto her finger. Then she yanked me up off my knees with incredible force and kissed me.
“Yes. Even if you are a right-wing douche,” she said, sniffling and smiling through her tears. “I’d love to call you my right-wing douche.”
We kissed long and hard out there on the patio, in front of the waves. It didn’t take long for me to get hard. I brought her body flush against mine so she could feel how much I wanted her, as if it wasn’t obvious, as if she wasn’t the driving force in my life. Nothing seemed to adequately convey how much I’d always want her, for now, and for the rest of our lives. She was everything to me, and as long as we kept working to find common ground, all I would ever want.
She smiled at me deviously, delving her hand under my waistband. “I think I know how to fix this.”
Yes. I groaned and licked my lips, wanting her hands all over me. Relishing the feeling of wanting her more and more with every passing day, and now knowing that she would be with me. That we would be together, wherever this road took us, whether it be to the White House or somewhere else entirely. “Then don’t keep me waiting.”
Without warning, she stepped away from me. She lifted the hem of the sweater and pulled it up over her head. “Last one in is a rotten egg.”
Then she started to edge toward the surf, giving me a wink as the wind blew her wild hair into her face.
I stared openmouthed at her, at her gorgeous naked body, the now-risen moonlight splaying its adoring white light over every one of her sculpted curves. “You’re fucking insane. It’s November. The water’s freezing.”
“What are you, chicken?” she challenged, both hands motioning me forward. She reached down and tossed a handful of sand at me. “Find the common ground, Senator Brice.”
I drew the string on my waistband and let my pants fall to my feet, then kicked out of them. “You’re dead.”
“Come get me,” she called, racing down the beach into the moonlit darkness.
I caught her halfway there and wrestled her down to the ground. I held her in my arms, our warm bodies chasing the chill away, leaving nothing but the two of us, our two hearts beating in time.
As one.
As we made love on the beach, limbs entwined together under a million stars, she whispered, “I love you, my Apollo.”
“Cassandra,” I groaned as I entered her. “I love you, too, my sweet Cassandra.”
The following morning, when I finished the painting, I couldn’t help it. Maybe I’d never wear those slippers, but I’d learned a lot about compromise. Before I signed my name in the corner with a few simple strokes, I added a tiny green toad, swimming in the surf.
THE END
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