Page 53 of Hot Four Teacher (The Lawson’s #4)

Epilogue

Michelle

“ W ho the hell gets married on Christmas Eve?” Eve asks, looking at herself in the mirror.

While fixing her hair, I tug on a strand of it. “Hey, be nice. Dylan and Leah agreed to do it today to make sure the whole family was in town.”

“Still. You and I have our long-standing tradition of being impatient and opening our gifts tonight instead of tomorrow. I’d like to get back to that.”

“Eve,” I sigh. “You’re fine. Besides, this is our first Christmas with Dane, and I want to do it up right. We are going to get up tomorrow morning and open gifts…like normal people.”

“But we are far from normal. He’s been around us enough to know that by now.”

“True,” I agree. “But we don’t need to drive home the point.”

Now, it’s her turn to sigh. But hers is much more obnoxious than mine.

I make eye contact with her in the mirror. “Can you please just try to have a good time? It’s a wedding for God’s sake. Let’s party!” I pump my fist in the air and get an eyeroll in return.

“Okay, okay. I’ll be good.”

Ronnie comes walking into the room wearing a dress that says “nightclub” rather than “wedding.”

“You two gals about ready?” She asks.

“Almost. I’m just fixing Eve’s hair.”

Ronnie narrows her eyes at the hairstyle and nods. “Oh, yeah. Looks awful.”

“What?” Eve squeaks while turning back toward the mirror.

Ronnie laughs. “Never gets old.”

A few minutes later, the Lawson clan is lined up to walk down the aisle. Since Leah couldn’t pick just one of us to be her maid-of-honor, we all just drew numbers on who got to walk down first. Ronnie goes first, followed by me and then Liz, Jo, and Eve.

Each of us make our way down the aisle and get situated. Leah, of course, steals the show, opting for a black dress instead of a white one. What else would you expect from a punk tattoo artist? Even though it’s not conventional, she still looks stunning.

While she and my brother begin to go through the ceremony, my eyes drift into the crowd. It takes almost no time for me to spot Dane. Damn, he looks fine as hell in a suit. I can’t decide which I like better–the suit or the jeans and boots.

The moment his eyes find mine, he smiles.

And I’m home.

It’s been a couple of months since we spilled the beans to Eve and everyone in town. I figured the world would fall down around us, but it didn’t. Honestly, no one in town cared too much. I heard a couple of jealous whispers, but no one ever took it any further.

And it didn’t take long for Eve to come around. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, I think she liked having some male energy around for once. He’s there for her when she needs him to but also backs off and lets me handle the parenting.

Much to my surprise, she even wants to ask him to go on her camping trip with her later in the year. She has yet to do it because she’s scared of the answer, and she’s sworn me to secrecy.

For once in my life, things are good.

Okay, it’s not fair for me to say that. Things have been good before.

But with Dane, things feel right.

Any other time in my life, I would have felt self-conscious standing up here with my sisters. Between Ronnie’s curves and Jo and Liz’s lean frames, I would have felt bad about the way I appeared next to them. But Dane looks at me like I’m the only one in the room, and I feel beautiful.

I know it shouldn’t take a man to make you feel good about yourself, but I think he’s helped me find my confidence that was buried deep inside.

Liz leans over to me and whispers, “Ten bucks says the next wedding we are at is yours.”

While I would love that, Dane and I are in no rush.

Hell, we aren’t even officially living together yet.

We’ve made the decision when the time is right, he will move into my place so as not to disrupt Eve and I, but for now, he still has his own place.

Plus, we enjoy using his house as our own secluded fuck pad.

We get to escape there and have some alone time without teenage ears around.

And we take advantage of it.

A lot.

In fact, I wouldn’t mind ducking out of this wedding early to go there and get a quickie in before we ultimately stay the night at my house.

Stop thinking about it, Michelle. Your brother is getting married.

I do my best to pay attention, but my mind wanders the whole time. Thankfully, the ceremony is over fairly quickly, and we all get to the reception.

It’s a small affair–just our family and a few close friends. After we make it through dinner, Dane holds out his hand for mine. “Care to dance, baby?”

I pretend to think about it for a second, but who am I kidding? There’s no way I would say no to that.

He leads me to the dancefloor, and moments later, I’m in his arms, swaying to the music.

“Do you know how stunning you look?” He asks.

“Why don’t you show me?” I tease.

“I can’t very well do that in the middle of the dancefloor.”

“We could go find a coat closet or something,” I say, only half-joking.

“Good lord, woman. You’re going to get us into so much trouble.”

I look over and see Eve watching us. She looks nervous as though she’s trying to get up the nerve to come talk to Dane.

“Hey,” I say to him. “There’s something that Eve wants to ask you, but I think she’s a little scared.”

“I can’t imagine why she’d be scared. That girl has zero filter when I’m coaching her in soccer.” He chuckles.

“I’m not supposed to say anything, so I want you to act surprised, but she wants to know if you will take her on that camping trip they’re doing later in the year.”

Confused, he asks, “She doesn’t want you to go?”

“Well, A, we all know how I feel about the great outdoors, and B, apparently, a lot of the girls decided to take…their dads. She asked Danny way back when, but he told her no, so I think she’s scared that you’re going to say no too.”

“Why would I say no?”

“Well, you’re not her actual dad.”

“Exactly,” he says. “Her actual dad is a piece of shit.”

“I think she’s just scared to get her feelings hurt again.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have talked to him about this before she did, but if for whatever reason he does say no, I figure I can help to soften the blow so that she’s not devastated again.

He stops moving as he looks down at me. “Michelle, I’m all in. I’m all in for you and Eve. You two are a package deal, and I love that. I will be in that girl’s life as much as she will let me, and if she asks me to go with her, I’ll do it no questions asked.”

I feel tears stinging behind my eyes. This is all I’ve ever wanted. Someone to care about Eve and me. Someone to be there because they want to…not because it’s an obligation.

Seeing me in my feelings, he asks, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

I nod. “I just love you so much.”

He pulls me into a hug, wrapping his arms around me and kissing the top of my head. “Back at you, baby.”