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Epilogue

One Year Later

Declan

“You’re serious?”

“Of course I am,” Abi said, rolling her eyes at me as she wheeled her rusty old bike into the guest room. “I’ve always wanted to ride a bike through Central Park, so why wouldn’t it make the move?”

The movers were at my apartment with Abi’s stuff, and each thing they hauled in brought up a new topic of conversation.

My adorable fiancée refused to part ways with any of her things, even though they could easily be replaced with newer, safer models, so the apartment was starting to have an eclectic, very lived-in vibe.

Which I didn’t hate.

The place on Sullivan had Abi all over it now—the smell of her perfume, the cabinets full of noodles, the closet full of stupid T-shirts—and I was fucking pinching myself that we’d made the leap to living here full-time.

We hadn’t planned it, but every time we visited, we hated leaving. Somehow it felt like our place, as weird as it sounded, so when she secured a teaching job at a community college in Westchester after she graduated, it seemed like fate.

Especially when I’d accidentally proposed the week before.

I’d had a lunch meeting with Warren at Immersion, with no ideas of marriage in my head, but then he had to stop in and say hi to Susanna at Jaques.

And while they’d chatted it up about the diamond market, I’d somehow found myself standing in front of the ring Abi had selected at the private event.

I’d remembered how she’d looked in that black outfit as she laughed with the jewelry team and flaunted the heart-shaped diamond ring like we were a real couple.

As I stood there remembering, I’d never wanted to buy any thing more.

So I did.

Totally without a plan.

But when she came home from Benny’s that night (she’d fucking schooled me on the realities of prescription med prices and the absurdities of health insurance when I tried convincing her to quit) and informed me that she’d seen Nana Marian at the store, it felt even more meant to be.

Because apparently my grandmother had always purchased her supplements from Benny’s, which was how she’d recognized Abi the first time they’d met. So we’d been this close to being found out on our very first date, but somehow the stars had aligned and we’d made it through.

I strongly suspected Nana Marian had known all along and chose to simply watch and wait.

She’d barely finished the story when I think I blabbed something like I bought this for you because you became my heart that weekend, and I couldn’t leave the store without it.

I promise if you say yes, I’ll plan a romantic proposal worthy of you and we can redo this whole thing but I just couldn’t wait another minute to give you this.

Whatever embarrassing nonsense I said worked, because she said yes and refused to consider a second proposal.

So now we were engaged, though neither of us were in any hurry to get the wedding planned because we were so damn happy with our new life. Professor Abi was obsessed with her job, I’d finally gotten promoted, and the two of us were disgustingly smitten with the newest member of our household.

“Look who was asleep in the spare room,” she said as she walked out of the bedroom, looking cute as fuck in my tattered old Harvard sweatshirt, leggings, and her hair piled on top of her head.

She was grinning down at the fluffy-ass cat that she adored more than anything in the world, including me. “Little Dexxie.”

I still couldn’t believe, after our massive monthslong allergy-test manhunt to find a pet for Abi that wouldn’t make her wheeze, she’d named her beloved Siberian kitten that . I walked over and scratched his belly while he purred but looked at me like I was an asshole.

“How is it that I love someone who’s such a pain in the ass?” I asked, leaning forward to kiss her forehead.

“You made a deal with the devil,” she said with a grin. “For the price of $40K.”

“No, I made a deal with a devilish maid ,” I corrected, “and it cost me my whole entire heart.”