Epilogue
Oleg
“S-t-ory.” I work carefully to make the sounds come off my lips right. I’m standing in the doorway of Story’s music studio on the tenth floor where she teaches lessons and rehearses with the band.
Ravil got a speech therapist to work with me every week on learning to speak again. I make sounds with my lips to substitute for the sounds I can’t speak with my tongue. I fucking hate the way it sounds, but seeing Story’s face light up at hearing her name makes it worth it.
My girl whirls and smiles over her shoulder at me then takes a running leap, jumping into my arms. “Hi, Big Daddy,” she says in a low, breathy voice.
Aw, fuck. Now I just want to press her back against the wall and give it to her hard, right here, right now.
But, no. I have other plans.
“How did speech therapy go?” she asks, dropping a dozen kisses over my face.
“Goov,” I say. D’s are still a work in progress. “Marry me,” I blurt. I’d just practiced an entire sentence for an hour, but I buckled under pressure.
Story’s head jerks back to look at my face. “Did you just propose?”
“Yes. Will you?” The words don’t quite sound right, but she understands me.
She laugh-cries. “Yes. Yes, I will.”
I shift my hands to produce the ring I tucked in my pocket and show it to her. It’s a small, delicate ring with three slender diamond-encrusted bands braided together and three half-carat diamonds on top. Story’s not the type to want a big rock or anything too flashy. I wanted something artsy and sweet, like her.
“I love it.” She lets me slip it on her ring finger. “I love it so much.”
“Come on.” I carry her out of the music studio and into the elevator. When we get out, I go in the main entrance to the penthouse where everyone is waiting.
The assholes all heard me practicing for the last hour, so everyone knew it was coming.
“Well?” Sasha demands. Maxim holds a bottle of champagne in his hands, the cork ready to pop.
“Yes,” I say. I don’t put my lastochka down. Carrying her around is one of the biggest pleasures of my life.
The room explodes into cheers and whoops. Even baby Benjamin cheers and claps his chubby hands. The cork pops and hits the ceiling. Champagne spills on the floor.
“Pozdravleniya!” Sasha shouts her congratulations in Russian. Pavel, Dima and Nikolia repeat it, followed by Lucy, who has learned basic Russian faster than any of us learned English. Pavel’s girlfriend, Kayla is visiting from L. A. and she bounces up and down, as perky as she is sweet.
Maxim pours two glasses of champagne and passes them to us. We wait until everyone has a glass.
“To Story, who revealed our brother Oleg to us.” Ravil lifts his glass.
“To Story.” I raise mine.
“I love you,” Story says to me then twists in my arms. “I love all of you.” She lifts her glass, then sips it. “You’re the best new adopted family I could have, and I love living here with you, but I understand if you have to kick us out after our second or third kid.”
There’s laughter and more banter, but I don’t hear any of it because the world narrows to Story for me, like it always does.
My obsession. My beautiful swallow.
And soon, my wife.
THE END
Continue reading for book 4. I hope you’ll love it.