Page 55

PERRY

FIVE YEARS LATER

Everything turned out perfectly.

If you leave perfect up to interpretation.

So, I did need to take Elle’s money, but I haven’t missed a single week of repaying her, and I think, maybe five years later, my sister is starting to see me as a whole grown-ass adult.

Which is just in time, too, because St. Clare marrying me would have been a tad creepy otherwise. Well, that’s if he says yes. I’m proposing tonight, in front of all of our family and friends, because everyone knows that public proposals are impossible to say no to.

Peer pressure and all that. I’m not too proud to stack the deck if it gets him tied to me for life.

I’m almost confident he’ll say yes though. Mostly. At least … sixty-seven percent chance.

I lean over and press a kiss to Margot’s bulging tummy. “Sure you’re not in labor?”

“Nope. Now, stop shitting yourself and get the ring—I can’t goddamn reach anymore.”

“I could really use a baby to snuggle while I do this.”

She blinks at me, that perfect storm of a heavily pregnant woman past her due date and her annoying brother nudging her along. “Sure,” she snaps. “That’s why I’m having this kid. For you.”

I grab both her shoulders. “You really are the best sister ever.”

“I can’t wait to be back to my usual self so people— you —will take me seriously when I threaten to kick your ass.”

She can too. Well, not pregnant, she can. I’m going to have to remember how not to test her daily once I no longer have that safety net.

I reach up into the top of the closet and grab the ring box. It’s been forever since I bought this, and when I crack it open, I get all these little flutters in my gut. “Damn, I’m romantic.”

“You sure he’s not going to be disappointed about that piece of junk?”

I gasp and snap the box closed. “You’re mean when forty weeks pregnant, heavily swollen, tired, constipated, and low on iron.”

Margot hangs her head back on a groan. “Do you and Elle have to share everything ?”

“Yes. And you really should get that lump checked out,” I say seriously.

“It’s the milk!”

“Wouldn’t hurt to confirm,” Elle says, appearing behind me. “I’m very fond of those breasts.”

“Perry’s proposing,” Margot says. “Let’s all go back to focusing on that and not on my tits.”

Elle’s hands fly up to cover her mouth, eyes wide, and at first, I do a rapid remembering to confirm that yes, yes, she definitely already knows this, so why the hell is she so shocked?

The answer comes from behind me a second later.

In a voice I know to my very soul.

“Ah … Perry’s what?”

I think I squeak as Margot’s mouth drops .

“Gotta go do that thing that I have to do,” Elle manages in a strangled voice before she ditches us all.

I lean into Margot’s face and hiss, “ I haaaate you ,” and then, because I’m paranoid the baby heard, I duck down to her belly again. “But not you. If you heard that, I don’t hate you. Uncy Perry loves you very, very much.”

Margot makes her escape, turning to me as she passes St. Clare and mouthing, I’m so sorry!

She ditches us faster than a pregnant lady should reasonably be able to move.

Only then do I realize we’re alone.

Alone .

No, no, no, this isn’t how it was supposed to happen. There’s supposed to be a crowd and staring and lots and lots of pressure.

“Perry?” St. Clare asks, still sounding a little shocked.

And this , I remind myself, is why plans fucking suck.

So instead of the music and confetti streamers and future Mr. St. Clare Nikov banners—we’re workshopping that—it’s just him and me.

I drop onto one knee because that’s how they do it in the movies, and if I can’t give St. Clare all of the pizzazz, I can at least give him that.

I hold out my hand, and thankfully, his slips into mine.

“Hey.” I grin.

“Skip that part,” he says, still sounding like his lungs aren’t working. “What’s happening?”

“Technically, this is your fault,” I say. “It was supposed to be a lot more stressful than this.”

“Noted.”

Before I say more than I probably should, I remind myself that it’s not the most romantic thing to be making fake accusations during a proposal. “Ah, sorry. Scratch that. Start again at the part where I say your name.”

“Okay …”

“Reilly St. Clare, before I say anything else, I want to say that I don’t remember much of what life was like before you, but I remember that I thought I was happy.”

He nods, a tiny, confused line pulling between his eyebrows.

“But I wasn’t. Or … maybe I was, but it wasn’t happy happy. It wasn’t this kind of happy where I’ll be going about my day and then think of you and smile. Or where I’ll open a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and remember the time you got so drunk you tried pole dancing in your own nightclub. Or when you leave for work earlier than me and always spray a little bit of your cologne by my pillow so you’re the first thing I smell when I wake up.”

The confused line smooths, and I swear my steady boyfriend’s eyes get all shiny.

“I have this light in my chest that’s always there, and it’s completely thanks to you. And while we might have started out on a shitty accident, I don’t think it was an accident at all. We were meant to be. We were supposed to find each other. And now, here, I want to do this. I want to be each other’s person. I want to be the Nikov St. Clares—still workshopping—and I really fucking hope you want that too. Even without all our family here to pressure you into doing it.”

Then I crack open the ring box, and St. Clare goes from misty-eyed to full-blown laughing through his tears.

He picks up the gunshot-heart golden charm I had made and put onto a necklace for him. At first, he says nothing, just a whole long stretch of nothing where I sweat through my shirt and silently beg him to say words, any words .

Then he touches his fingertips to the necklace before setting them over the bracelet on my wrist. “We match.”

“Still waiting for a yes here, pookie.”

He’s nodding before he answers. “Yes. A thousand yeses. And you don’t need anyone to pressure me into it. Not with you.”

I push to my feet and kiss him, loving the taste of him and how passionately he kisses me back.

“You know,” I mutter against his lips. “We could skip tonight and hang out in this room. For old time’s sake.”

“You want to miss the opening of our own club? ”

“Seems reasonable.”

Proving he has a thousand times more restraint than me, St. Clare pulls back and hands me the necklace. “Put this on me.”

I’m only too excited to. I clasp it around his neck, and it shines brightly on the brightest man I’ve ever met.

His hand cups my face, eyes still watery, and these days he doesn’t try to hold back from showing me how much he loves me.

“Come on,” he says. “You need to check everyone working knows how to make our drink.”

In honor of my pookie, I did complete my certificate in business management, and I did train in how to make cocktails. The whole drinks menu at our new nightclub was thought up by me.

And for our opening night, the Love at First Shot is five dollars until closing.

I loved being a barista because of the customers, and working a bar is like that but better . People don’t just tell me about their day; I get their entire life story.

This, right here, is what perfection looks like.

Family, friends, his mom and dad, who are my mom and dad. Our head of security and bestie fur-ever, Lars. And the baddie bunch, who set me up on this path and pushed me to get to where I was supposed to be and where I finally belong.

With St. Clare.

With my pookie.

A complete matching set.

Thank you for reading Himbo Hitman!