“Yeah. I get that.”
“I don’t even know what I’d do for work. I can’t go out there wasting time and money looking for pieces of my fucked-up story.”
“Unless you had a west coast real estate company to run, that is.”
He turned my way and cocked an eyebrow. “What?”
“Our west coast property had been down since the situation with Jason and Walter. I’d been holding off reopening until we had the right person to run it. It makes me feel stupid that I’ve taken this long to realize that the right person has always been you.”
Damian’s brows knitted together and he frowned. “You don’t have to do me any favors, Connor.”
“Yes, I do. That’s what family does. We look out for each other. Go out there and find your answers, Damian. You deserve to know your history.”
He sniffled a bit, and that was the closest I’d ever seen Damian get to crying. “Knock, knock,” he said.
I smirked. “Who’s there?”
“You.” He shrugged. “You’re there. You’ve been there for me since you showed up, and I don’t think you know how much that means to me. You’re the brother I always wanted.” I felt myself on the brink of tears and he rolled his eyes. “Don’t make it weird, Connor.”
“No, I mean, I’m not gonna cry.”
“You’re already crying.”
“Well you can’t just say shit like that, Damian and expect me not to cry, dammit! Can I hug you?”
“No.”
“Can I say I love you without making you uncomfortable?”
“Probably not.”
“All right then, I hate you.”
He smirked. “I hate you, too.”
I scratched at my beard. “But we do need to get together sometime and work on your punchlines. That was a very odd joke.”
“I’ll leave the joking to you, seeing how you’re such a joke yourself.”
I chuckled and nudged me. “See? That’s a funny joke.”
“I wasn’t kidding. I think you’re a joke.”
I smiled and patted him on the back. “I love you, too.”
He stood up taller, shaking off his emotions. “Enough about me. Let’s get you married off, old man.”
I pointed a stern finger at him. “Don’t call me old man! Jax is an old man, not me!”
“Yeah. Whatever you say, old man.”
The rooftop of Oscar’s Bar was set up with chairs for our guests. There were sunflowers throughout the space—her favorite. There were M&M’s bags resting in everyone’s goodie bags—my favorite.
I stood at the altar, with my best friends standing beside me. The sun had began to set behind me, and that was her cue.
That was her sign to enter the space, in her beautiful red dress that made me fall in love with her all those years before. She stood tall with a bouquet of sunflowers, and walked down an aisle sprinkled with quarters. Her skin shone as the light hit her, highlighting every beautiful inch of her being.
As she reached me, she passed her bouquet off to my mother, and then Aaliyah turned to face me.
I took her hands into mine, because the idea of not touching her was too much for me.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi,” I replied.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
She smiled at me, and I smiled back, feeling the warmth of her love that was radiating off of her entire being.
My beginning, my middle, my end.
She took my last name that evening, and we danced the night away with our loved ones. We celebrated life, we celebrated the beginning of something magical. Something that would last forever.
After the evening came to an end, Aaliyah and I stayed on the rooftop for hours waiting to witness the sunrise together. This time when the sun warmed our skin, I didn’t let her go. This time, I was wise enough to hold onto her tighter. This time, I’d stay as long as possible. I didn’t care if it were for hours, months, or years. I was completely invested in her, in our story, in every single adventure we had yet to deserve.
Every inch of me belonged to my Little Red Riding Hood, and every piece of her was mine.
For as long as we both shall live.
Epilogue Two
Damian
I hated funerals; they reeked like death.
I always found something odd about stuffing a body into a box, then standing around it as you wept into the open casket. Could you think of anything more miserable? Staring down at the limp body you once loved, wishing you could’ve brought the flesh back to life. It was a known fact from movies that bringing the dead back to life was always the wrong idea, but still…for a second you considered it.
That shit was sad. It was as if humans loved self-inflicted pain. Sometimes I wondered if the tears were for the person who died, or the people left behind forced to face another mundane day of living. We humans spent so much of our time trying to tap into the meaning of life then, bam! You were dead in a box with a person sobbing over you—a person who probably talked massive shit about you while you were living.
That was people for you, though. Hypocrites day in and day out.
I smoothed my hands over my black suit and charcoal tie. I wore black every day of my life, but for some reason I almost wore white that morning. I figured it would’ve been a nice “fuck you for abandoning me at birth” to father dearest.
I held my breath as I walked into the church. To my surprise, I wasn’t struck by lightning as I stepped inside the chapel. I didn’t believe in God or angels or any of that stuff, but still, you never really knew what was waiting on the other side of this shit we called life. If there was a God, he probably would’ve taken me out right then and there.
I popped a peppermint into my mouth, as if that would overpower my drunken state. I was pretty much bathing in cheap whiskey. I’d been drunk since the flight and I didn’t regret it at all. Something about
