Forever Mine

Epilogue

JAY

ONE YEAR LATER

“Are you really cleaning out your truck before goin’ to the beach?” Beckett asked as he walked up next to me at the gas station, his hands full of drinks and snacks he just picked up at the convenience store.

I shot him a dirty look and kept vacuuming the floor of the truck. “I can’t hear you over the vacuum!” I shouted pointedly. Beckett just laughed and walked to the passenger seat to wait me out.

Maybe Beck was right, and cleaning out my new truck before heading to a weekend beach trip was redundant, but I didn’t give a fuck. I’d vacuum it again after we got home. It took me almost a whole year to save up for this truck, I was gonna take care of it.

I was finally satisfied it was as clean as it was gonna get, and put the hose away before climbing into the driver’s seat. It wasn’t a new truck, but it was from this decade, so that was pretty fuckin’ new by my standards and this town. It had a backup camera, and Bluetooth and all those things that most cars had for the last 15-20 years but that I could only dream of. There were even fuckin’ seat warmers. Not that we needed that when it was 90 degrees out, but I could use them if I wanted to.

“Don’t open that can in here, man.” Beck rolled his eyes but he humored me.

“You sure you don’t want Dakota to drive us?”

“No.” I purposely got an extended cab so all four of us could fit in the truck at the same time, and I was taking advantage of that, thank you very much.

“It’ll be good to get away for a bit,” Beck commented absently as I drove us back to our apartment where Dakota and Riley were finishing packing up and waiting for us. “It’s been a long ass year.”

I grunted my agreement. “Seein’ Kota in nothing but a bathing suit for 3 days won’t be a hardship either.” Beck laughed but wisely didn’t comment one way or the other.

The last year had been both the best and hardest year of my life. I finally had a family and a support system I could rely on. It wasn’t as easy to believe in as I wanted it to be, and I still pushed back and put my walls up sometimes, but between therapy and Dakota’s unrelenting love and support, I was learning better ways to deal when the fear got the best of me.

Work had been going okay, and I finally buckled down and got my GED. I’d probably never go to college, but I refused to just be a high school drop out when I had someone as good as Kota in my life. I had been considering some apprenticeship programs, now that I wasn’t always in survival mode, but I hadn’t landed on anything specific yet. Kota kept telling me that it was fine. That I was still young and deserved time to figure out my life. Most of the time I believed him.

My family extended past Beck, Riley, and Kota now, too. Dakota’s family accepted me like another child, never once making me feel like I didn’t belong. Even Wes and his people were starting to feel more like family, or at least really close friends. I wasn’t alone anymore.

It had taken hard work for me to get to this point, and the long ass ongoing trial for Dr. Kiley didn’t help things. Unfortunately for Kota and I, Dr. Kiley had a ton of money which gave him a ridiculously good legal team. There was too much evidence for him to deny the crime, but they did plead insanity, and it was a brutal uphill battle of trials where my character and even Dakota’s was absolutely destroyed day in and day out.

Eventually, we gave in and let Luca get involved. Apparently the judge’s sister had been saved by Dr. Kiley a few years back and it was making him sympathetic. After that came out, there was a change in judges, and the trial still fuckin’ sucked, but at least they stopped painting us as the guilty ones.

It was over, though. Dr. Kiley was in jail, and would be for a while. Dakota transferred hospitals, because things had gotten too hard for him there, and life was starting to go back to normal. We finally had a moment to breathe, which was why Kota suggested the trip. He was still shocked I’d never been to the beach, and when he heard that Beck and Riley had never been either, he planned this whole long weekend for us to go. I decided not to tell him this was also my first vacation. I wasn’t sure if his heart could take it.

We pulled up to the apartment building, and I parked in my spot. Once we got out, Beck eyed me meaningfully. “You okay, man?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I really am. Are you?”

I was rewarded with a rare smile from my best friend, that he seemed to mostly grant to Riley. “Yeah. I actually am.”

I hugged him then, shocking him a bit. Beck and me always went back and forth when it came to affection. Sometimes we were cuddly as fuck, and sometimes, we barely touched. It wasn’t something we ever talked about, we just instinctively knew what the other one needed. Now, we both needed a fuckin’ hug.

“Should we be worried?” I shot a dirty look over to Riley where he was standing next to Dakota, both of them grinning.

“Fuck off, slasher.”

His eyes glistened with mischief, the fuckin’ brat. “Or what, you’ll hug me too?”

Before I could make a move toward him, Dakota stood in front of me, looking up, his expression a lot more heated than Ri’s was. “What about me? Do I get a hug?”

I tipped his chin up. “You get a lot fuckin’ more than that.” Then I kissed him.

Dakota rocked up onto his toes, our bodies knocking together. I cupped his ass, keeping our balance, while his fingers curled into my hair.

“Ugh gross.”

“Can we go before you get arrested for public indecency?”

Smiling into my lips, Dakota pulled away as we turned to my two best friends who were also the biggest hypocrites in the fuckin’ world. They literally got caught fuckin’ in a public bathroom before. But honestly, I was in too good of a mood to call them out for it.

Instead I took Kota’s hand as we went back into the apartment to grab our bags and the coolers before loading up the truck. It was fuckin’ wild, the turn my life had taken. Two years ago I was pretty sure I was gonna rot in the shitty apartment I shared with Ma, or end up in jail. Now I had the love of my life, a steady job, a high school diploma, and a future I could only dream of before.

Once everything was in the bed of the truck, we all climbed in. I looked at Kota as he got comfortable in the shotgun seat. He was wearing oversized sunglasses that I would think look ridiculous on anyone else, but looked hot as fuck on him. When he noticed me staring he looked up with a goofy grin.

“What?”

I shook my head. “Nothin’. Just thinkin’ about how much I love you.”

The smile got more sentimental. “I love you too.”

I couldn’t stop the lovey dovey feeling from filling my gut as I drove off.

The End