Don’t feel like you have to have everything perfectly in place before you come home.”
“Thanks. I am working on trying to loosen my attachment to perfectionism.”
“As someone who is definitely far from perfect, I fully support that effort.”
“And I do want to move back sooner rather than later.” I kissed his jaw, rubbing my lips along his scruffy chin. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too.” He buried his face in my neck and inhaled deeply. “Let’s never be apart again.”
“Deal. From now on, it’s you and me.”
“And Renzo.”
“And Renzo,” I agreed. “And my four sisters. Plus their significant others. And my parents.”
“And my mother. And Nina’s family. Plus Asher.”
I giggled. “We might never get a moment alone.”
“Oh no. We’ll get plenty of those, no matter what.” He rolled to his back, taking me with him so that I lay along the muscular length of his body. “I’ll always be a family man. But our family will come first.”
My heart thumped so hard against my ribs, I thought it might jump from my chest into his. “I love you so much. That means everything to me.”
We kissed, our bodies igniting again, and I felt him growing hard and thick between us.
I smiled. “Do you think we’ll ever get enough?”
“Hell no,” he said, turning me beneath him again and easing inside me. “But I’ll never stop trying.”
“My hero,” I whispered, before he crushed his mouth to mine.
And maybe there’s no such thing as perfection, but that moment?
It came pretty damn close.
Epilogue
Noah
“You ready, bud?” I scratched behind Renzo’s ears. “This is a big day.”
Renzo panted and wagged his tail, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Pretty much exactly the way I got watching Meg get ready for bed at night.
We’d been living together for six months now—she’d moved back to Michigan right around Thanksgiving and stayed with me while she looked for an apartment or condo, but by Christmas I’d convinced her to give up the hunt. You belong here with me, I’d told her. Stay.
And she had.
“Come on, boy. Let’s go. She’s waiting for us.” I grabbed Renzo’s leash and we went out the back door. Meg was already at the event getting last-minute entrants registered for the 5K race she’d helped organize—a fundraiser benefitting the organization that provided service dogs for veterans. But what made this particular event really special was that Meg had worked tirelessly to make sure the race was totally inclusive. She solicited donations for racing push chairs for both kids and adults with special needs who wanted to participate, using her connections in Washington and her new job as a lawyer and advocate for a regional branch of the American Association for People with Disabilities.
A job Asher had helped her get, by the way.
He saw the posting on the website, sent it her way, and Meg got the position. She loved what she did, and felt like it was the perfect balance of legal work and fighting for justice. Did she make the salary she’d made in DC? Not even close. But she said she didn’t care, because she got something more valuable than money out of the job.
She was still trying to get me to agree to run for sheriff, but I was content to enjoy life as it was for now. I hadn’t written it off, but there had been a lot of changes in the past six months, and we all needed time to adjust.
Asher was living on his own in an adaptive home he’d found that offered 24/7 support if it was needed but encouraged as much independence as possible. He was working Monday through Friday, had gotten a raise, and saw Alicia at least a couple times a week. It wasn’t romantic between them yet, he told me, but he was working up the nerve to kiss her.
“Just don’t wait as long as I did,” I told him. “It took me seventeen years to kiss Meg.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I am much smarter than you.”
He’d participate in the race today, as well as Alicia with one of her sisters, Nina and Chris, Meg’s parents, Mack and Frannie, all three of Mack’s girls, April and Chloe Sawyer, Chloe’s fiancé Oliver, and Henry DeSantis, the winemaker at Cloverleigh. My mom was watching my nieces and nephews, but she planned to bring them to the event to cheer everyone on.
And to witness what would happen at the finish line.
Smiling, I patted the zip pocket of my running shorts once more before getting