Out of Nowhere (Balls and Brawn Bodyguard #4)

Epilogue Dex

S ix months later

Dex finished hanging the last skeleton in the large oak tree in front of the house and turned to see Seo-jun walking up the driveway, sifting through the mail.

“Let me guess. All bills,” Dex said when Seo-jun reached him.

“There is this advertisement,” Seo-jun said, holding up a card inviting them to try a new dry cleaner. “Were you expecting something else?”

Pulling Seo-jun closer, Dex wrapped his arms around him. “Yeah, perhaps another one of those packages like you got last month.”

Seo-jun’s cheeks got red, and it was so damned cute. He’d surprised Dex a few weeks ago by ordering something by mail and wearing it to bed that night: a pale pink negligee that looked incredible against the warm golden undertone of his skin. They didn’t get much sleep that night, that was for sure.

Palm against Seo-jun’s cheek, Dex leaned in and kissed him softly, taking the time to nibble on his plump lips before licking into the warmth of his mouth. When he pulled back, he said, “I love you more every day, Seo-jun. You are everything to me. The very air I breathe. The light in my life.”

Blinking away the moisture gathering in his eyes, Seo-jun tilted his head so their foreheads touched.

“I feel the same way. I love you so much.”

Taking Seo-jun’s hands in his, Dex admired the matching platinum rings they wore. Two months ago, they’d married in a small ceremony on the beach at sunset surrounded by their friends and Dex’s family. They’d followed it with a beach party reception that had lasted late into the night. Sky, now officially their son, had worn a tiny tux. At eleven months, his hair was still as thick and dark as it had been at birth and his eyes were still like Dex’s. He also had two front bottom teeth he liked to show off. He was not yet walking, although he could crawl like a maniac. The pediatrician said not to worry, he’d be walking soon enough.

Anna had not attended the wedding. After signing the adoption papers giving Sky to Dex and Seo-jun, she’d gone to Vancouver with a man and woman close to her age that she met at a bar. She had yet to return. Dex, Bea, and Tom had all spoken to her on the phone at various times, and she seemed to be okay. She assured them she wasn’t on anything, and she insisted she wasn’t obsessed with Steve and Laura, the couple she was living with. She always asked after Sky, but she seemed happy to have him be Dex and Seo-jun’s son, and not hers.

With a peck to Seo-jun’s nose, Dex linked their arms and they walked toward their house. “What kind of candy do you want to give out for our first Halloween in our house?”

“How about those black and orange wrapped candies?” Seo-jun suggested.

Dex stopped, putting on a horrified face. “That’s sacrilege! I suppose you also want Mary Jane’s and Dots. No way, we don’t want to be that house. Only the good stuff for us. Hershey’s miniatures, M & M’s, and Baby Ruths. Oh, and Twix. We’ve got to have Twix. And Snickers bars.”

“Sounds like you’re going to be eating the candy,” Seo-jun said.

“Well, yeah. I have to taste test it. We have to have extra around the house. We’ll go buy it tomorrow.”

“It’s a week and a half until Halloween.”

“That’s ten days to test candy.”

Five fat pumpkins sat on their front porch. Dex and Seo-jun had carved two of them the night before just to practice. Cara had proposed having a pumpkin carving party with a contest that year, which Dex thought sounded like a lot of fun. Looking at the two Jack o’ lanterns, though, he felt pretty sure his husband wouldn’t win. His pumpkin’s face consisted of two holes for eyes and a straight, narrow slit for a mouth. Dex had burst out in laughter when he’d seen it.

“What?” Seo-jun had asked, mock offended.

“It’s perfect,” Dex told him. “So… you .”

The wind rustled through the trees, sending a fall of bright yellow leaves from the oak tree overhead blowing in their direction and making the skeletons Dex had hung from the branches dance. Soon, Sky would be waking up from his nap and they would take him for a walk in the stroller. His birth name was Sky Dexter Fletcher. It was now legally Sky Dexter Do-Price.

When they turned to watch the sun set, Dex leaned his head on Seo-jun’s shoulder, reflecting on how a few years ago he was closeted, estranged from his family, and desperately unhappy. Then he got a new job, and, out of nowhere, there was this beautiful, quiet man with deep dark eyes and a graceful way of moving that caught Dex’s heart. And, suddenly, everything changed.

Dex suddenly recalled a day a few months ago when he and Seo-jun had gone to a baseball game. Seo-jun had worn a baseball cap, and Dex commented that he looked good in it.

“Why don’t you wear them more often?” he asked Seo-jun.

Shrugging, Seo-jun replied, “I used to wear them a lot. I guess I got out of the habit.”

Now, on the heels of that memory, the guy in the revolving door popped into Dex’s mind—the good looking one back in New York who was Asian and wore a baseball cap.

There were millions of people in New York City. Could it be possible?

Dex liked to believe it could.