Page 115 of The Roommate Lie

I’m not sure what to say to that. I stutter and stumble before finding my words. “Things could get complicated,” I admit, my voice breaking, and he cradles my face in his hands.

“Whatever happens, will you still be Alice?” he whispers. “Because she’s kind of my favorite.”

I nod, tears stinging my eyes, and he keeps going. “Then we’ll figure it out, Carrots. When you love someone, you just figure it out.”

I lean to kiss him again, softly and sweetly, and he traces his thumb across my cheek when I pull away. “Does this mean you’re staying?” he asks, his voice as soft as a prayer.

“You’re kind of my favorite too, Blythe. I’m not going anywhere.”

I lose track of time after that. He kisses me again, my body still leaning halfway over his as he lies sprawled on the grass. His hands cradle me so gently, and it feels like we’re making each other promise after promise. Sacred vow after sacred vow.

Who knows how long we’re out there before footsteps thud behind us. Three Old Birds travel down the sidewalk, and the swish of their tracksuits echoes through the quiet neighborhood.

I wait for them to tease us, but they don’t. All I hear is Dottie’s delighted voice as she coos about one of the town slogans I’ve heard her mention before. Her favorite town slogan.

“See?” she says. “I told you this is a great place to fall in love.”

Epilogue

CHARLIE

Spotted:

It’s the first day of school for our favorite (newly married) kindergarten teacher.

How did so much change so fast?

I have the first-day-of-school jitters, but not the bad kind. When I get down to the kitchen for breakfast, Alice is already there making French toast, and I have no idea how she got here so fast. Or how she learned to make French toast.

Probably Lydia.

Before I hopped in the shower, she was tucked in her office, my old room that I used to share with Tyler a few months ago. He helped me renovate it before the wedding, and I could hear her clicking away on her lucky red Olympia, hard at work on the bonus epilogue for her book. The one about Constance Bright that our book club is going tolove.

But now Alice is here.

Standing in our kitchen and wearing my shirt, like every Married Life daydream I’ve ever had. Except for the part where I have to leave.

My favorite picture of us is on our fridge—the selfie we took in Carl’s car the first day we met. Both of us making faces for the camera after she snapped that stranger-danger mug shot. There are other pictures on the fridge around it. Candid shots of my family and hers as we packed up Alice’s condo in Dallas. A smiling photo of Nicki and Emma at Terry’s Bistro now that they’ve moved to Ponderosa Falls.

There’s even an entire collage of our whirlwind engagement and the wedding we had a few weeks ago at my uncle’s flower farm. Maybe we didn’t have to get married quite so fast, but that’s just how life works sometimes. Meet the perfect girl?

Lock.

It.

Down.

Apparently, that’s the Roscoe way. I smile as I glance at a different picture on my fridge, one from our wedding day, my sister and Tyler smiling beside Alice and me. Roxie always swore she’d never move back here, but she hasn’t left town since…

After breakfast, Alice meets me at the door to kiss me goodbye, looking every bit like my dream girl. Just as beautiful as the first day she rolled into town—except even cuter. Because she’s wearing one of her outfits.

As much as I love it when she wears stuff like this, I know she didn’t dress up for me. She’s working a shift at the Old Ponderosa Museum today, living out her history-loving dreams in the old general store, but I pretend it’s for me. My wife looks a little too adorable when she goes full historical.

“You’ve got this, Blythe,” she says as I hug her close, and maybe she’s right. Maybe with her beside me, I could do just about anything.

It isn’t until I’m finishing up in my classroom for the day with my mom (the world’s best teacher’s aide) that I notice theenvelope on my desk. An envelope that definitely hadn’t been there ten minutes earlier.

Inside, there’s a handmade ticket for something called Tramway Tours by Carrots.

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