Page 67 of Kellan & Emmett
Ask Kellan if he wants to teach me how to whistle with two fingers. (Spoiler: he’ll laugh at me.)
Propose to Kellan. Fingers crossed he says yes… though considering he steals the covers, my socks, and half the inn’s dessert stash, I think he already did.
Bonus Epilogue
Another Year Later…
August 21
Two years and three months back in Gomillion, and it still feels like I won the lottery. Well — minus the part where lottery winners probably don’t have to chase a raccoon out of the inn’s dumpster at five a.m. (Emmett swears he’s going to “install a system.” Translation: he’ll curse at the raccoon and then bake muffins like nothing happened.)
Work’s good. I’m teaching P.E. at the high school now, plus coaching football. Turns out, you don’t just get to pace the sidelines and yell about blocking drills; you’ve also got to teach teenagers how to climb ropes without killing themselves. Still, I love it. Watching the kids grow tougher, more confident — that same spark I saw last summer at camp — it grounds me in ways I never imagined.
We just wrapped my second summer program. The kids who came back for a second round said things like, “Coach Kelly, you’re not as scary as last year.” (Apparently, that’s a compliment?) Emmett brought cobbler for the closing day, and I swear half of them signed up again just for the dessert.
Life at the inn is… full. Some guests come back every year, some new ones roll through. They all leave with stories. Like the honeymooners who broke the bed frame (don’t ask), or the poet who tried to pay Emmett in handwritten sonnets. (He accepted one as a coaster.)
And us? We live openly. Folks side-eye sometimes, but I don’t give a damn. I walk down Main Street holding his hand, and it feels like home. Like it always should have been.
We don’t plan on kids — not ours, anyway. But with campers, students, and guests circling through our lives, we’ve got more family than we ever dreamed. Our days are noisy, messy, and good.
And Emmett? He still looks at me like I hung the damn stars. Still grumbles when I steal the last biscuit. Still kisses me like he’s starving. A year in, and I’m still floored every morning when I wake up beside him.
Guess the truth is simple: our life is full. Overflowing. And every day, I get to love the man who has always been mine.
—K
P.S.
I said yes.
[1]List of words I tend to overuse:
1. "Didn't" "couldn't" and "not" to start sentences.
2. cut
3. steady
4. just
5. like
6. warm
7. though
8. back
9. that
10. again
11. still
12. smile
