Page 102 of Boss Level

“Me.” Xander wiggled the device, then unlocked the screen.

I did the same, and found a new email waiting from Judith.

“Seven years ago, we marked the start of something new, and we made sure we’d always remember it,” she said as I opened the message. “I love that everyone else who matters has done the same, but this is just for us.”

In the message was an address and a name—the same tattoo parlor Xander frequently got inked at—plus a date and time. The attachment was an intricate Celtic knot, sketched out in fine ink lines. On closer inspection, not easy to do on the tiny screen, I saw our initials were woven into each of the three sides.

“It’s perfect.” This entire morning, everything about it, was amazing. “How did we go without this for so long?” I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“Because you’re dim.” Judith winked.

Xander grabbed her, pulled her into him, and half-fell onto me. “Takes one to know one.” They were both laughing.

This was definitely perfect.

This was the family I’d tried to convince myself I already had, but it had never been this real. I’d never felt this whole. I could trust Xander and Judith. I loved them. I was happy and grateful to dedicate the rest of my life to them, and I knew they would be the same for me.

epilogue 1

onyx

Anyone who didn’t know better might think this wasJohn Hughes the Class Reunion, gathered in Aunt Rosie’s dining room. She wasn’t my aunt, but she was Maddox’s and we’d all called her that for years.

Judith was Molly Ringwald—duh. Xander was Judd Nelson, and Dominic was Emilio Estevez. Alys was Ally Sheedy, but way cuter and currently sporting fuchsia hair, and Maddox was Anthony Michael Hall, but sexy on top of brainy.

“Hey, Cat. Pass the potatoes?” Maddox’s voice and use of my nickname jarred me from the flashback to the eighties.

“Don’t do it,” Xander warned. “You give him too many potatoes and he starts to do things.”

But they were onlyThe Breakfast Clubon the surface.

Claire grabbed the bowl of mashed potatoes from its spot between us at the dining room table. “What kind of weird things? Like… obscene things?” She was new to this group, and pretty in a Joanna-Eberhart-doesn’t-fit-in-with-the-other-Stepford-Wives kind of way. And as far as I could tell she was Judith’s new best friend, which was taking some getting used to, but was nice.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to picture Maddox fucking mashed potatoes. Or maybe I did.

The look Alys gave Claire was confused-but-amused. “Like sculpting them.”

“Doesn’t matter how many times you build the obelisk, it still doesn’t mean anything, and they still won’t come,” Xander teased.

Maddox rolled his eyes. “Fuck. Build a mashed potato shrine to our alien overlords once when you’re twelve and the world never lets you forget about it.”

“In a world with the internet, everything is forever,” Judith said.

Rosie shivered. “Horrible thought.”

These people had a lot more depth than anyone in a movie.

The teasing and playful conversation continued as the meal did. I loved this tradition, all of us gathering here, but this year it was tinted with a different lens.

Or maybe this was the first year I’d taken off the rose-colored glasses.

A clanging rang through the room, and Rosie stood as she tapped her fork against the crystal goblet in her hand. “A toast,” she said. “To everyone in the room, and the amazing things you’ve accomplished. This year and overall.”

Everyone raised their glasses, and drank.

I’d always felt like I was part of this group. For as long as I’d been friends with Maddox, he’d drawn me into this weird little circle of people. But today I was on the outside looking in.

It was different and disconcerting, but the feeling had been growing for a while.

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