Page 48 of Never Say Yes To Your Fake Husband

Right here, right now, in this bed, and every day going forward in the future. If this is an experiment in making it work, then every single day, I’m down to find out what it takes to do exactly that.

Chapter twenty-three

Weland

Epilogue

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Beaaaannnssssss—”

“Happy we picked this day out of the blue to make it your birthday, happy approximately ten years old, or so the vet says. At any rate, happy birthday to you.”

I do my best glary glare at my brother, but he just laughs. My dad lets out a big guffaw, and my mom joins in with her much softer laughter. Sterling slips his arm around my waist and kisses my cheek. No one bats an eye. They’re used to our PDA. We’ve been unabashedly mushy for two years now, so I think the shock factor wore off long ago. If there ever was a shock factor. My family might have doubted Sterling just the slightest bit at first, but they lost that pretty quickly too. They realized he was in it for the long haul, and he’d never do anything to hurt me. I’m also an adult, and he’s my choice. I chose him, and I chose thisrelationship, and because of that alone, they were supportive, even through their doubts during those first few months.

Really, after that visit, where we ate waffles and scrambled eggs and hatched the plot to switch companies, my whole family has been team Sterling, even my brother.

Right now, they’re team Beans, and rightfully so. “It’s not just any day,” I protest. We’re all sitting around the table in our new house, Beans included. It’s a big table. Round solid wood with big solid chairs. Beans fits perfectly on his chair, and the arms keep him from sliding out or jumping off. We tried sticking a party hat on him for a picture, but he wouldn’t accept it, even for a few seconds. Right now, he is looking longingly at the dog cake my mom assembled. “This is the day I got him.”

It’s a horrible mishmash of crunchies, gravy, gelatin, and tuna, all mashed up into a ring-like mold. Think nineteen-sixties cookbook gelatin meatloaf overnight in the fridge horror stories here.

“The day you were given him by the world’s best lawyer,” Sterling clarifies.

Smitty turns a right shade of red. “Goodness. It was just what Weland needed. And what Beans needed. They needed each other.”

“I love that Beans’ gotcha day is right before the day we met,” I say, staring up at Sterling with a regular amount of hearts and mush in my eyes.

No one groans, not even when Sterling turns me in his arms and kisses me full-on. Mom just cuts the dog cake and serves Beans a slice. We have regular cake for the rest of us. I’m so happy Smitty took time out of his crazy schedule to come down here for Beans’ birthday. He wasn’t able to make it last year, but this year, we booked him in advance.

Sterling and I bought a house together not so far away from my parents, but then, we bought them a house too. And mybrother, as well, just down the block. It makes it easy to be together this way but still have our privacy. We’re busy now—now that Bryan has finished college, and we made it so my parents could retire. Now that we’re busy traveling and seeing the world. Beans too, of course. He doesn’t get left behind. He’s on his way to becoming one of the world’s best-traveled dogs, I’m sure. My parents have been busy seeing the world as well. Sometimes, they come with us, but other times, they do their own thing.

Sterling’s company is doing amazing. Best of all, it’s safe. It’s given us an amazing life full of opportunities I wouldn’t have and things I would never have seen. It’s made it possible for my mom and dad to stop working and live their dreams. It’s also made it so my brother doesn’t have to worry about student loan debt hanging over his head or a mortgage that he’d have to work way too hard to pay off. It’s given us all a beautiful life, but it’s given us more time with each other, and that’s always going to be the best part.

His company has also made it possible for so many of my songs to make their way out into the world. Other people have sung them and made them famous. It still stops me in my tracks when I hear one of them on the radio. I love that they’re sung by other people. I never needed to give them my own voice. I just wanted them to find their way into other people’s hearts and lives to make a difference, and they have.

Another thing Sterling’s company has done is make it possible for healing within his own family. Last year, we went to Switzerland to be with his uncle for two weeks. A few months after that, he went down to Texas and celebrated the birth of his first nephew, or at least kind of given that his cousins were more like brothers, in a way, with said cousins. Yes, the terrible trio are now uncles and a father, and it’s changed them. Babies often bring so much happy change. I think they’d mellowed out,and it was just time. Sterling couldn’t have been more shocked to have gotten an invite to the christening. We went, a little edgy about the whole thing and wondering what kind of traps and tricks might be set and prepared, but there were none. No traps. No tricks. Just a good BBQ, and even a few half-embarrassed handshakes as a way of apology at the end of it.

Toe-Toe didn’t even get mad when his brothers called him Toe-Toe the entire time. So yeah, things have changed. In really great and awesome ways.

I have one other change to tell Sterling about, but I wait until after the party, until it’s just us and Beans. After a long walk, he’s passed out on the couch—his favorite spot in the whole world, throughout the whole world. We kept this couch just for him when we moved. It’s his, and we will never rehome it or throw it out.

Sterling likes to print out travel plans for the upcoming months ahead of time. Then, we sort through and pick out and make itineraries. We match our travel plans with his business obligations, and we make it work. We haven’t done our scheduling for the next few months yet. We just got back from London last week, and my parents just got back from a month of cruising the Caribbean. We wanted to be home for Beans’ birthday, but really, it’s so we could all celebrate together. I think that’s why he was waiting before booking anything. He wanted to talk to my parents first and be here in Detroit if they were going to be here at the same time. We’re all busy, but we always make time for each other. Family is always going to be our priority, first and foremost.

“Goodness.” I pick up a few pages where he has our dream trip planned, with stops in Ireland and Scotland and then over to Spain, France, and Italy. We did Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, and Denmark last year. “That’s the trip of a lifetime.”

“I was thinking we could spend the next couple months here the way we talked about because it’s so nice here in the summer, and your parents said today that they’re going to be hanging around too. Plus, your brother is here, of course. We could go in the fall. Maybe your parents would join us.”

“And be gone for a few months?” I clarify.

“I think so. We could take our time and do however many months we want in each place and see whatever we want to see. Castles, art galleries, vineyards, the whole lot.”

“Ooh, castles!” I love castles. We’ve seen a few already. “What about those hairy cows? I really want to see hairy cows!”

Sterling takes my hands in his. “Whatever you want to see, my love, we’ll make it happen. I will get you all the hairy cows in the world if that’s what your heart desires.”

“I think I’d just like to see them. Maybe take some photos!” I say excitedly.

“Then hairy cows we shall see and photograph!”

“We might have to make sure we’re back by January at the very latest, though.”

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