Page 35 of The Sunday Brothers Novellas

EPILOGUE

THEO

The Following May

Watching Porter walk across the stage in his cap and gown was surprisingly emotional for me.

My colleagues had insisted I be the one to hand him his diploma and shake his hand.

It had been several months since the dean of the college had learned of our relationship, and she assured me that she saw nothing untoward about my involvement in Porter’s commencement exercises.

I’d kept the information secret, however, so seeing the look on his face when he stepped up onstage to accept his diploma was a gift.

“Congratulations, baby,” I murmured as he stepped forward to take the folder from me and shake my hand. “I’m so incredibly proud of you.”

His cheeks turned pink, but his huge grin was enough to make me mirror it like a besotted fool.

And I was a besotted fool. Since getting together at the end of the last semester, Porter and I had been inseparable.

His new apartment had only been used on the nights we’d decided to stay close to campus for bad weather.

Most nights, we’d slept together at the cabin.

As soon as the weather warmed up enough to start our cabin addition project, we’d spent even more time there working to get the new bedroom finished as quickly as possible.

It was finally done, and the two of us would be hosting his family for a graduation cookout this afternoon after the ceremony.

What Porter didn’t know was that his brothers had already moved his stuff out of his apartment earlier this morning and deposited it at my place before turning in the keys to his landlord.

We were officially living together as of today, and something about the official-ness of it made a weight lift off me I hadn’t known I was carrying.

I love you , he mouthed before winking and heading toward the other end of the stage to let the next student approach.

It wasn’t the first time he’d officially said the words, with no disclaimers.

It was more likely the thousandth. He’d first told them to me on a moonlit night full of stars when we’d gone outside to search the trees near the cabin for a hooting owl.

The hush of the winter air and thick snow all around us had made the setting feel otherworldly.

He’d turned to me and stepped into my personal space until our cloudy exhales mixed together.

“I’m madly in love with you,” he’d breathed.

I’d closed my eyes to memorize the feeling of being love-drunk with him. “I love you, too. So very much. Stay with me, please. I don’t ever want to let you go.”

We’d kissed for hours that night, until our hands and toes felt numb with cold and our noses were bright red. It was a memory I carried close like a secret, even though my love for Porter Sunday was anything but.

I was open and free with my feelings toward him.

The department knew it, his friends and the parents and kids at the Hub knew it, and he’d even met my family on a weekend jaunt to New York in February.

Meanwhile, the Sunday family had welcomed me with open arms—literally—the first time we’d met, each of them enveloping me in a bear hug before demanding to know my feelings on romance novels, heirloom apple varietals, processed foods, and… cows.

Now I had a forest full of Sunday brothers set up in giant tents and an oversized RV parked beside my house to celebrate not only the graduation but also the acquisition of a new building just off campus to house the Hub program.

Thanks to an incredible marketing campaign Porter had begun in Hannabury and the two nearest towns, he’d managed to get several local companies to pledge recurring donations to support the upkeep of a building donated by a government grant he’d won for the program.

His family had shown up to spend several days working on the building to finish minor repairs and much-needed painting before the program could officially move into its new digs. The plan was to have it done in time for the Hub’s summer programs next month.

Even though Porter hadn’t been upset to discover my family foundation was the one behind the Hub’s original endowment, he still refused to accept any additional money for the program from us.

Instead, he’d thrown himself headfirst into applying for grants—he even let me help write the proposals—and had been thrilled when some began coming through.

Thankfully, several of the program volunteers had offered to help his fundraising efforts, which had included introducing him to some of the wealthy families in town.

Once the commencement ceremony was finished, we all met outside for pictures in the gorgeous Vermont sunshine. I congratulated several of my other students before making my way to the large group surrounding Porter.

“It’s about time you finished your degree,” I said in my sternest professor voice .

Porter turned to me with a grin. “No thanks to you.”

I shrugged. “You’re welcome?”

He launched himself at me, nearly bowling me over into the grass as I grabbed him around the waist to keep from falling. He kissed me hard on the mouth before moving his lips to my ear. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Theo. I hope you know that.”

“I do. And I can’t say I disagree. Thank you for not giving up when I discouraged you last year.”

He pulled back and cupped my face. “Never stop teaching me how to use my words to make a difference. Thanks to your advice, I was able to convince my boyfriend to take a chance on me.”

“Please.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m just a sucker for an angry sonnet, Sunday.”

I kissed him again before letting him pull away so he could return the well-wishes from a nearby classmate. I turned to his uncle and shook his hand. “Congratulations, Drew. You raised a fine man.”

The older man’s eyes sparkled with humor. “Didn’t do much, actually. He’s always been his own sort. But thanks all the same. I’ll take your gratitude out in that brisket you’ve been smoking since yesterday.”

Porter’s sister, Emma, leaned in. “And you can thank me for my role by making sure nobody bothers me when I take a long, hot shower in that fancy outdoor setup you have.”

My cheeks heated at the mention of the outdoor shower. Once I learned we wouldn’t be able to do the bulk of the addition work ourselves due to our schedules and building codes, I decided to do a very different project to add to our enjoyment of the house.

I’d built a large outdoor shower set away from the house to better see the night sky without light pollution. Porter and I used it embarrassingly regularly. It had seen quite a few white-hot moments in the few months we’d had it. I didn’t dare picture his sister in the damned thing.

“Me too,” Porter’s brother Knox said. “I find the idea of that shower very… inspiring.”

His boyfriend, Gage, nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll join you. You need a back-scrubbing assistant, baby, and I volunteer as tribute. It’s a public service, really.”

“You’re a giver, Goodman,” Knox agreed in a voice that made Gage shiver.

Drew’s partner, Marco, weighed in. “Fill out the sign-up sheet on the clipboard at the cabin. I believe there’s an opening tomorrow morning at six.”

I buried my face in my hands as Porter poked me in the ribs. “Pervert,” he said happily. “I told you it wouldn’t stay our little secret.”

“It’s not even in sight of the house!” I said. “How do they know about it?”

Porter gave me a teasing grin. “I mean… you did pass around tequila shots last night. And you know what tequila does to me.”

I laughed. Of course I did. That was why I’d passed around the shots.

Everyone continued to give us hell the entire way up the mountain to the cabin, where three long picnic tables had been placed near a large gas grill.

Camp chairs sat out around a fire ring further away from the house, still set up from the tequila-soaked night before when my friends and Porter’s friends had welcomed the other Sundays to town.

It turned out that my colleague John and his boyfriend, Teagan, were already friendly with Knox and Gage, which was a crazy coincidence…

the kind I’d gotten used to since having Porter Sunday in my life.

For the first time ever, I felt like part of a large, loving family. I glanced around the clearing and realized how happy Gramps would be to see so much joy and laughter, love and energy filling the land he’d claimed for our very own.

Porter had been right, all those months ago, when he said there was something I’d still been searching for, despite having my dream job and living in my dream place. Now I also had a man I loved—and a comfortable sofa where the two of us cuddled nightly—and I finally felt truly content.

“Thank God the rest of the Sundays are all sleeping outside,” Porter said when the two of us moved inside to our brand new bedroom to change into casual clothes. “Even with twice as much space now, I’m thrilled we only have one bed.”

I grabbed his wrist and yanked him into my arms to kiss his cherry-red lips. “Just think. If I hadn’t had just the one bed, you might have been safe from me all those months ago.”

He kissed me long and hard before pulling away. “Nah. Even if there’d been twenty beds, I still would have ended up in yours.”

We changed quickly, but before Porter could open the bedroom door, I caught him around the waist and pressed my lips to his ear. “Same code word tonight?”

“Twenty-seven.” He laughed and pressed back into me. “I’m starting to refer to it as the ‘old man sonnet’ in my head, you’ve used it so often lately. And it’s not even about sex.”

“Forget Shakespeare, then. I’ll pull out some Edna St. Vincent Millay. ‘ And lust is there, and nights not spent alone .’ How’s that for old man?”

I felt Porter’s entire body shudder against mine. “You give good poem,” he admitted in a low voice.

“There’s more where that came from if you just say the word…” I teased the side of his neck with my mouth and tongue.

“Sonnet twenty-seven,” he breathed. “Please.”

“Mm. Methinks not, fair squire. We have a million Sunday lumberjacks outside who demand fresh meat. ”

Porter groaned and pulled away. “You can’t hand me a softball like that and expect me not to tee it up, Theo.”

I followed him outside, where music was blaring from speakers and a couple of the guys were setting up a cornhole game that Gage and Knox had brought along.

The boards had been painted with caricatures of truly manic-looking cows because Knox claimed they helped Gage aim.

I was curious to know what that was all about, but I was confident that I’d hear about it in short order.

“Hey, Porter!” his friend Nolan called from a group of fellow classmates taking up one of the picnic tables covered in shared dishes. “Did you ever remember your angry sonnet so you could recite it for Doctor Hot… I mean, uh… Dr. Hancock?”

Beck let out a whoop. “Oh shit. What about the love sonnet? Surely you told him that one.”

I stared at my life partner, the man I held no secrets with. Or so I’d thought.

“You wrote me sonnets?” I asked. “Original ones? Of your own pure brain? Oh my God. I need to hear these.”

His eyes widened, and he clapped a hand over my mouth. “No. Nope. I’m not sharing, even if you torture me. Trust me when I tell you it was mostly tequila doing the writing?—”

“Mmm. I seem to remember we argued about you trying to rhyme ‘sex me’ with ‘wrecks me,’” Toru mused. “Though, I can’t remember whether that was the angry sonnet or the romantic one.”

“See, I remember gems like ‘cockblock’ and ‘Hancock,’ and I personally feel like we achieved some greatness there,” Nolan said with an enthusiastic nod.

“Everyone’s a critic,” Porter complained. He gave his friends a narrow-eyed look. “Zip it, or I’m calling you a ride home. I’ve got Steve on speed dial.”

They howled with laughter and began answering Porter’s brothers’ interrogations. I listened to every detail and saved my own interrogation for later.

Porter might claim he wouldn’t give up his sonnets under torture, but I knew better.

I’d have him reciting them for me—and maybe coming up with a few more—before the night was over since the torture I had planned for Porter Sunday was long and drawn out, detailed and excruciating.

And just like every moment with Porter Sunday, I planned to enjoy it to the fullest.

Somehow, despite my best efforts to circumvent it, the universe had brought me exactly where I needed to be and given me the perfect man to share it with. These days, I was more than merely content; I was blissfully happy…

And I didn’t have a bone to pick with fate about any of that.