Authors: Eryn Scott
24
Unfairness. Total and complete this-can't-be-happening, shouldn't-be-happening unfairness makes me close my eyes in defeat (and also because there are a few flying wood-shard-pieces I really don't want to get lodged in there).
Which is why I don't notice right away that the men entering the room aren't Curly and Buzz Cut. I keep my eyes closed.
Then I hear the sound. It's another one of those emotional sounds Kaylee made earlier. However, this time, instead of the toe-stubbing giving up sound, it's a light sob of relief as if someone who's been wandering the desert for weeks has just gotten a glimpse of a giant frosty glass of water.
After hearing that, my eyes fly open and I see a wave of police officers flow into the room. And then it's a blur. There's tons of movement, orders being yelled, people whipping past me. All of it makes me close my eyes again, shut them tight to get away from the commotion.
An arm wraps around me, pulls me close to a tight chest. My eyes open slowly this time, no more danger in the air, no need to be afraid in these arms. My eyes meet Andrew's grayish blue ones. This time I have no problem looking past his cuts and bruises, because… those eyes. They're bright and sunny. They're crinkled at the edges. One of them is slightly squintier than the other.
He pulls me closer and plants the kind of kiss on me that I fear might ruin all other kisses for me forever, but then again, I don't plan on letting him out of my sight after this, so I guess it's okay.
"Ahem."
We stop kissing and Andrew pulls away slightly, I feel my hands reaching for him as he steps back.
There's another suited gentleman standing next to us, watching us with a sly smile on his lips. I know without explanation that this is the Marshal they must've sent out to help us.
"So this is her?" he asks Andrew.
Andrew dips his head in a sort of nod. He smiles.
I watch them, not quite sure what's going on.
"She sure is trouble. Had me going crazy when she wasn't at her place like we specifically told her to be." He looks at me pointedly, scoldingly even though he's still talking about me like I'm not here.
I point to myself, just getting what's going on. (Hey, I almost died, cut me some slack.) "Me? I'm trouble?" I ask the new Marshal, then I turn to Andrew and ask, "Have you been talking about me?"
The new guy doesn't wait for Andrew to answer. "Incessantly!"
I bite my lip and look back to this guy next to me. "Oh." And even though he just kissed me and that's a pretty good sign he's into me, hearing this means just as much. I haven't been crazy all these weeks. He really has been feeling the same as me.
Our staring-into-each-other's-eyes moment is cut short, though, because the mobsters have been officially apprehended and are being walked out of the hotel room. I feel like waving goodbye to them, I'm not sure why.
Marshal-that-isn't-Andrew points a finger at me. "We also found a few guys at your office in interesting situations. You girls have some explaining to do about that." I can tell he's trying not to smile, but failing quite miserably.
I cringe and shrug my shoulders as Em and Kaylee walk over and join our conversation. Daddy's words from earlier today (gosh, I can't believe it was really just a handful of hours ago that I was there) about how I had all the tools I need in my head, come back to me.
"Just using the tools we had." I smile. “Plus, one of them attacked Emma,” I add, holding up a finger. “Which made everything we did fall under self-defense.”
“I can show you my bald spot if you’d like.” Em leans forward, parting her hair so he can see the scene of the assault.
The guy chuckles, tells Em it’s okay, he doesn’t need to see anything, then reaches his hand forward to shake mine. "I'm Ben, by the way." He shakes Em's hand after mine, but just waves at Kaylee. I guess if he works with Andrew, they've already met.
The two Marshals make eye contact and Ben's eyes flit to Kaylee in a way that I'm pretty sure means something close to "pack 'er up." My chest tightens and I suck in a gulp of breath before stepping over to Kaylee and wrapping my arms around her.
"Please don't take her."
Em follows my lead, latching onto Kaylee from the other side and shaking her head.
Andrew sighs and Ben looks away.
"We have to. Simple as that. These four don't even scratch the surface of the guys we'd have to put away in order for her to be considered safe. This will most likely make them even angrier with her, more willing to do whatever it takes." Andrew shakes his head.
We're pinning Kaylee's arms to her body with our side crab-clutch hugs, but she brings her hands up to pat ours. "Thanks for trying. I knew I'd have to go. I will miss you, though." She wiggles free and turns to give each of us a proper hug with an extra squeeze (at least mine had one) before stepping aside so she's beside Andrew. "Where to this time?" The smile she tries to contort her face into a smile that looks so unpleasant, I feel sympathy pains shoot through my jaw.
"Somewhere on an actual island?" Em says, sharing a giggle with Kaylee.
"I'm sorry, Kaylee. We're really trying to dig up more on the family. I mean, we’ll certainly try to get some information out of these guys, but we don't have any new evidence," says Andrew.
"Oh!" Em's body jumps in an I've-just-remembered way. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone. "Not sure if this will help, but I've got a good hour of recorded conversation on here."
Andrew and Ben look at her and seem to be waiting for more information.
"Between the two guys." She nods in encouragement. "It's all in Russian, though, so I'm not sure if it'll be any help, but I thought, what the hell." She pushes her phone toward Ben.
I let my head fall back. "That's what you were doing!" I giggle. "I thought you were looking at your hair."
"The whole time?"
I snort. "Well, now that I think of it, it does seem funny. But at the time I thought you were just really fixated on the whole comb-over idea."
We laugh until we notice Kaylee and the guys inching toward the door.
"We've got to get her out of here, just in case, and you two will need to ride down to the station to give your statements and fill out some paperwork," Ben says.
We walk out of the room, ride the elevator down, and stop before a row of vehicles (some marked as police, some not, but still totally obviously cop cars). Kaylee pulls us both into a hug, close and tight at the same time.
"Sorry I won't be able to work anymore." She pulls away and then opens the nearest car door as Ben and Andrew get into the front seats.
"Wait!" I say.
She stops.
"What's your real name?"
She smiles. "Rachel."
25
It's as if the universe knows something is up because our Monday is pretty thin around the office patient-wise and we have even more time to sulk around and sigh. As it is, we've had too many questions about our nice secretary they've heard so much about, each one stabbing at us a little more. By the end of the day I feel like Inigo Montoya toward the end of
The Princess Bride
when that awful six-fingered man pokes the heck out of him with that sword.
My name is Julep Maddox, you took my secretary, prepare for me to act like I might die.
Neve and Sarah are even sulky. They don't know the truth, of course, but I hear Sarah whisper that she even misses Kaylee's singing, which is something.
When we close up, Em and I linger in the office, walking around and lightly touching different surfaces. (Yes, we're very dramatic, but I feel like that shouldn't be a surprise at this point.) After a few minutes of that, we turn on "All By Myself" by Celine and have a full on karaoke go at it in the middle of the hall.
After that, there doesn't seem to be anything else. Em placed an ad earlier today, so we'll have to start interviews as soon as we can. We sigh one last time and grab our things to head home.
Just as we lock the front door, a car pulls into our parking lot. Andrew's car. And it's not just carrying him.
Em and I race forward. I let Em hug Kaylee/Rachel first, so I have a chance to plant a kiss on Andrew's cheek and bat my eyelashes at him.
"What? How?" Em jumps up and down.
Andrew shakes his head. "Your recording. All that Russian, once we had it translated, was names, places, pretty much everything we needed. The rest came from the guys once they realized how deep in it they really were."
"So she can stay?" My fingers shake as I wait for his answer. I watch Em's elbows pull tight in anticipation.
"She can."
We squeal, jump up and down, hug, do all the happy things. After a minute, Em runs toward the office, her keys in hand. We watch her, faces scrunched in question.
She looks back. "I'm taking that damn ad down right away!"
26
Four months later...
Joel makes me pose for what feels like the five-bazillionth picture of me holding my plaque. My fingers rub at my sore-from-smiling jaw.
"Yeow! Come on man." I turn to Joel and slap him on the shoulder. "You've now taken more pictures than all the hipster selfies currently on the internet. And that's an indescribable amount as it is."
Joel rolls his eyes. "It's not every day my Mintaconda is awarded 'Best Small Business of the Year' and 'Best Dental Office in Town' all at once." He pulls me close and smacks a kiss onto the top of my head. "I'm proud of you, Minty."
I smile, despite my hurting jaw, but this one isn't forced. He's right. It's pretty cool.
"Besides, you know your vain butt is going to make me delete seventy-five percent of these anyway."
Em walks up, holding her own matching set of our awards, and stops me from the eye roll I was going to direct at Joel. She wraps her arms around me and squeezes tight. Joel walks over to Nick, who envelops him in a similar but more fiance-esque hug. (That's right! They finally got engaged!)
"We did it." Em's smile is so big and bright I consider asking Joel to take just one more picture.
"Well we're not done, yet." I correct her, but after the don't-be-bossy look she shoots me, I put my hands up and join in on her happiness.
She leans in close. "Little do all these people know what we went through to get here."
"I'm kinda glad they don't." I wave my plaque toward my face as a pseudo-fan; it's suddenly very hot in here. "I don't think having a reputation for wrapping people up in floss will help us get this again next year."
"Right...." Em sighs and looks around the room until she sees Anthony, her firefighter boyfriend. She touches me on the arm to say goodbye-for-now and then goes to join him.
At the same time she's leaving, Andrew, clad in the most delicious light gray suit, walks over, popping some sort of appetizer into his mouth. He pulls the empty toothpick out and smiles at me.
My fingers grab at it. "Food! I hate you. How are you already eating?"
"I'm not the one winning the all-important awards and having eighteen-million pictures taken of me, so I hit the buffet table already." He smirks, but then pulls his other hand from behind his back and produces some sort of bacon-wrapped-sea-creature.
"OhmygoshIloveyou!" I snatch the thing and devour it in one bite, then lean against him happily as I watch Em, radiating happiness as she talks to Anthony and the other guests. I see Neve and Sarah with their families, sporting big smiles. I look over at Rachel-formerly-known-as-Kaylee, her hair back to the brown it was when I met her. She's playing in the back with the kids, letting them tackle her as she laughs and tickles their little bellies whenever she can get a chance. Then I watch my family, who's all here to celebrate with me.
My other brothers, so differently dressed, but wearing the same beaming smiles, stand in a little circle, catching up. Jordyn and Isabella run around in the back of the room with Rachel. Mama and Daddy stand to my right, chatting with some people I've never met. Right in the middle of the conversation, Daddy reaches down and takes Mama's hand -- still fully listening to the man talking -- brings it to his lips and kisses it softly before placing it back by her side.
A warmth spreads through my body, radiating from my heart. As if he feels it, too, Daddy looks my way, nods and gives me his good-ole-daddy wink. I send one right back.
After we eat and mingle for a while, we all head back to Andrew's house where he's set up a bit of a party for the girls and me. There are drinks and more laughter and I can't imagine being happier, surrounded by all the people I love most.
I don't even feel Andrew behind me until he slips his hand over mine, lacing his fingers gently with mine.
"Oh, there you are." I turn and he pulls me close to him. "I thought you were busy being the host, getting everyone drinks, explaining your choice behind every picture or piece of art to my mother." I giggle.
Andrew doesn't. His eyes are light and squinty, there's a smile pulling on his lips, but he looks serious somehow. Suddenly, he's stepping away from me and clinking a knife against the glass in his hand. The sound rings through the patio and out into the backyard where a few people are mingling. I narrow my eyes as I notice a few more people I hadn't seen before, a few of Andrew's friends.
"Thank you for coming tonight," he says, his words quieting the last few conversations. "I am not surprised in the least that Jules and Em and the rest of the girls haven't even made it to their half-year point and they're already winning all the awards this little town has to offer. I mean, have you seen these girls put together Ikea furniture?" The crowd laughs as Andrew looks back at me.
I blink slowly and smile at the sweetness of his words.
"When I met Jules a few months ago, I had no idea how much she would change my life. I had no idea she would save it." Andrew pauses for a moment, letting the realness of that statement sink in. Then he turns around and holds my hands in his and my gaze with his one-eye-squintier version. "I think that right there is the definition of a keeper."
Andrew looks down at the ground and I'm sad for the lack of eye-contact until I realize that he's not just looking at the ground, but kneeling down there. On one knee, specifically. When he meets my eyes again, his are that perfect combination of happy and serious.
"Julep Marie Maddox, I can't imagine a life without you. I don't care that we've only known each other a few months, I think I knew I wanted to marry you that first day I met you, peacock blue paint covering your face and all."
The crowd chuckles.
"It was sapphire, actually." I direct my correction to the crowd, who laugh again.
"See? I even love you when you're being bossy," he says, smiling up at me, his blond all-American hair falls forward into his face. "So? Will you marry me?"
Now, I think it's worth pointing out that I waited until the actual question to shout "Yes!" and throw my arms around the guy, even though I knew what was coming after the whole down-on-one-knee thing (that part gives it away just a tiny bit), which I think is very
not
-bossy of me.
But who the hell cares about any of that when you're wrapping your arms around the man you love and he's picking you up and kissing you and everyone you love is there, too?
When Andrew puts me down, I want to say something funny, quote one of my parents' sayings, or maybe even dance, but instead I look up and find the bright, smiling faces of Mama and Daddy watching over me. My eyes hold onto theirs, tight and desperate. Mama runs over and squeezes me up in a hug, but all I can see is Daddy giving me a slow and perfect nod.
Because he was right. They were right. Even though I love my business and I'm glad it's doing well, I've realized for sure sure sure that it's my relationships and experiences that really make life worth living. All those things I looked at as obstacles before weren't really in my way, they were the way.
After Mama lets me go, I sink back into Andrew as he wraps an arm around me. He plants a kiss on my forehead and I close my eyes as I lean into his shoulder. Breathing him in, I realize that I finally know what his smell is. It's a perfect combination of soap, summer sunlight, and cinnamon. Being able to name it makes every-little-thing click right into place.
And I know this feels a lot like a beginning, but it has to be some kind of ending at the same time, because (per Mama -- er -- John Lennon's saying) everything is definitely okay.
More than okay.