He kisses my forehead, thumb coming up to swipe away a tear before it falls.
“For the longest time . . . I’ve thought I was unlovable.” The word comes out in a whisper, because I’m not sure I knew I felt that way until I said it out loud. But Russ doesn’t flinch. “I didn’t think you would want me if I wasn’t always the best version of Ari Abrams. I didn’t think you’d want the person with issues. The person who wasn’t always happy.”
“Ari,” he says, his voice a rumble against my throat, “I’m still trying to understand how you wanted me.”
“Because you’re the best,” I say simply, and I love the way it makes his gaze burn brighter.
“I meant it when I told you before: I want every version of you.” A fingertip lands in the center of my lower lip. “I love every version of you.”
Then his mouth is on mine and my hands are in his hair and it’s impossible to get as close as I want. With every touch and stroke and breath, I tell him how I feel about him until my words come back to me.
“I love you, too,” I say when we move apart and he hugs me to his chest again. “God. It’s annoying how much I’ve missed you.”
“Thank you.”
“For . . . missing you? Because you’re welcome.”
A laugh, a gentle nudge of my arm before he drops a kiss to my forehead. “For trusting me.”
Epilogue
FORECAST:
A quintessential summer day, not a cloud in the sky
“HOW DO I look?” Torrance asks as she opens the door of the dressing room. “And don’t lie to me.”
I sat beside her while a makeup artist worked on her face, and I was with her when she bought her dress, but nothing could have prepared me for the full effect of Torrance Hale on her （second） wedding day.
She’s radiant.
“Like a powerful, exquisite sun goddess,” I say.
Her floor-length cream dress is accented with gold lace at the neckline and along the skirt, and instead of a veil, she had sunflowers woven into her hair. She swapped her usual red for a shimmery nude lipstick, the rest of her makeup soft and understated. When she turns, her necklace catches the light—a jeweled sun medallion I made for her last month.
I’m wearing a smaller version of that necklace with my maid of honor dress, a golden one-shoulder gown that stops just below my knees and that I love maybe more than any article of clothing I’ve ever owned.
Torrance and Seth have been officially reunited for almost a year and a half. All our double dates, which we’ve had plenty of, have been drama free, except for when Russ and I took them to play air hockey and they got so competitive, they scared off a group of kids waiting their turn. They didn’t want to rush back into anything, and it wasn’t until a few months ago that Torrance proposed during Halestorm. There wasn’t a dry eye in the studio when Seth raced on camera, shouted out his answer, and kissed her with so much passion, we had to cut to commercial.
Most venues were booked for the season, but given Torrance’s local celebrity status, they were able to snag their favorite park, Golden Gardens, for July 28. The anniversary of their first date. And so gold and white became the wedding colors, and I somehow became Torrance’s maid of honor.
Torrance beckons me into her dressing room so I can adjust the one strand of hair that’s not sitting the way she wants it to, and then she helps tuck a single sunflower in my own hair, which I’ve left loose and wavy.
“You think I’m making the right decision?” she asks, meeting my eyes in the mirror. It’s true, she’s more stunning than any human being should have the right to be, but looking at the two of us, I can’t quite believe I used to want to be just like her.
Being her friend is so much better.
“Marrying your ex-husband?” I say. “Yes. I think it’s about time you locked that down.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “If myself from five years ago could see me now . . . she’d have some choice words, for sure.”
“Ah, but that’s the benefit of growth.”
“Maybe you should mentor me.”
Sometimes it’s difficult to wrap my mind around how work has changed. There’s a calm in the newsroom I have to force myself not to take for granted. I’m not used to it, and frankly, I don’t ever want to be. I don’t want to forget how hard it was to get to this place. Maybe one day I’ll start looking for a role at a bigger station, but for now, I’m more content than I imagined I could be. No pretending, no forced silver linings—that’s the honest truth.
While Torrance gets ready to walk down the aisle arranged on the beach, bracketed by rows of white chairs with gold ribbons, I adjust Russ’s sunflower boutonniere, which pops against his light gray tux. It’s criminal, the way his blue eyes match the summer sky.
“You look incredible,” he says in my ear as I link my arm through his, and what’s really incredible is that it still makes me shiver after all this time.
The guests are a small group of family and friends, including Seth’s many siblings, his friend Walt, and a handful of our coworkers. Patrick is Seth’s best man, and Roxanne helps their one-and-a-half-year-old, Penny, scatter pale yellow rose petals down the aisle. I’m stunned to realize I know most of these people. That we’ve become our own family in a way I thought we never would.
“You may now kiss each other,” the officiant says, and we cheer as Seth lowers Torrance into a dramatic dip.
The reception takes place beneath a white tent only steps from the shore, sunflowers at every table. “As long as I’m not watering them,” Torrance said to me when the wedding planner was setting up. It’s full of both excellent food and bizarre music—I’d expect nothing less from the Hales.
When it’s time for the toasts, Patrick and Roxanne tag-team a story about the night Penny was born. “That was when I realized my parents might just have big, sappy crushes on each other,” Patrick says, which gets a lot of laughs. Seth’s mom talks about the first time she met Torrance and knew instantly how smitten her son was, and I talk about growing up watching her on TV.
“We have one more toast,” Seth says after I pass back the mic, looking pointedly at Russ.
I lift my eyebrows at Russ. He didn’t tell me he was giving a toast, but there he is, accepting the microphone from Seth and heading toward the center of the tent.
“Good evening,” he says into the mic, as solid as if he were reporting from inside a stadium. “I think I know most of you know that Seth and I have grown closer over the past year . . . but what you may not know is that it started out with some matchmaking.”
Some of the guests trade confused murmurs, but across the table, Torrance and Seth look amused. Clearly, Russ asked permission for this.
“More specifically,” he says, “it started with a drunken night in a hotel bar with my girlfriend, Ari.” His eyes land on me. “We wanted to improve the atmosphere at the station, but she was convinced there was still a spark between our bosses. And so we started plotting.”
“Did you have any idea?” Chris Torres asks Avery Mitchell at the table next to me, and she shakes her head. Even Kyla Sutherland, our top investigative reporter, seems shocked.