The Imperfections by Sam Mariano
Epilogue
Two years later
Brant
“Bam, bam, bam, bam!”
I crack a smile, looking over at my nephew as he bangs his little plastic hammer against a block of scrap wood I gave him to play with.
Drawn by all the racket we’re making, Amber passes through the doorway into her daughter’s bedroom and shoots me a look while she twists her blonde hair up and secures it with a clip behind her head. “Can you not? Mommy’s getting a headache.”
Rudy turns to look at her. “I fix it,” he says, holding up his hammer proudly.
“He’s doing a real good job,” I assure her.
He looks over and flashes me a smile then resumes his task. “Bam, bam, bam!”
Amber sighs in defeat and walks back out of the room.
About six months ago, Pappy passed away. It was a sad time for the girls, but the loss brought with it something pretty good for Amber. Turned out, Pappy didn’t leave his house to their mom like everyone assumed he would—he left it to Amber and Alyssa.
Alyssa doesn’t have much use for a house, so she signed it over to her sister. I used my powers of persuasion and had a chat with their mom when she tried to contest the will and take the house. Mutually, we came to the conclusion that not only was Robin going to let her daughter have the goddamn house, it was also high time she moved out.
Now, Amber and her two kids have a lot more room to live. Over the months, I’ve been fixing the place up for her. I’ve done a lot to the place, but the most satisfying thing was the smallest: I finally got to take down that shitty screen door I was always itching to fix and put a new, sturdier one in its place.
Today, I’m working on the built-in bookshelf Amber wanted in Rianne’s bedroom, and Rudy’s helping me fix things up for his sister like a good brother should.
After a lot more banging, Rudy tuckers out and I get enough done to call it a day. While Amber takes him to his room to put him down for a nap, I pack up my tools.
I lift my tool box and stand, preparing to head out. Before I go, I take a look around Alyssa’s old bedroom, the place where we first met. It doesn’t look much like it did that night. Alyssa did her best to make it nice with what she had available, but I didn’t have such limitations. I gutted the whole room and put up fresh drywall, changing little things here and there to make it just what Amber wanted.
Looks nice, now. It’ll look even better when it’s finished. Rianne’s gonna love it.
I finally leave Alyssa’s old bedroom, pulling the door shut behind me on the way out. When I get to the kitchen, I see Amber perched on her dining chair—legs curled up under her, ass off the seat, leaning across the table on her elbows. She’s playing, a twinkle in her eye as she flirt-torments her boyfriend, Greg.
“She better not,” she’s saying to him. About what, I don’t know.
The way Greg blushes when he looks up at me commands my curiosity. I stop in front of the table. “Who better not what?”
“Nothing. No one,” Greg offers quickly, shaking his head vehemently. “Nothing. She’s kidding.”
He says it all so quickly and nervously that Amber laughs and sits back down on her chair. Lifting her mug of coffee to her lips, her blue eyes flash with mischief and she tells me, “Greg has an admirer. She keeps coming into the hardware store, trying to get his attention.”
I look back at Greg and cock an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“It’s not my fault,” he swears. “I try to look as ugly as possible when she comes in, I swear to God.”
I watch him sweat while I look him over, then I tell him, “Well, I suppose you can’t do anything about a woman being attracted to you. As long as you don’t return the feeling or add fuel to that fire, it’ll be all right.” Pointing at him, I add, “You better keep your hands to yourself, though, Greg, or I’ll chop ’em right off.”
He pales beneath the flush climbing up his neck. He’s seen the things I buy at his hardware store firsthand, so he believes me.
“I would never cheat on Amber. I’d have to be crazy to even consider it,” Greg promises.
“Damn right you would,” I mutter, looking back at my sister-in-law. “You let me know if he steps out of line.”
“Oh, I will,” she assures me.
“Thanks, babe,” Greg says dryly. Looking back at me, he adds, “You know I’d marry her if you’d let me. My commitment cannot be called into question.”
“Maybe after she finishes nursing school,” I tell him, but it’s nothing he doesn’t already know.
I want Amber to be finished with school and able to stand on her own two feet if she needs to before she goes making any kind of commitments or compromises for men and babies. It was the one stipulation I gave her when I started helping her out financially so she could focus more on school.
She also works at my bar now, has since she turned 21. That way, her boss does give a damn about her future. And, if I’m being honest, it has helped me keep a watchful eye on her little ass to make sure her love life doesn’t spin out of control.
I know Amber has a self-destructive streak and she’s not prone to liking the best kind of men. Greg, he’s a pretty good one, but sometimes the peace she has with him must feel so foreign to her, she starts looking around for trouble to get into. With her working for me, I’m able to make sure she doesn’t let her head get turned by some empty-hearted douchebag in a tight shirt.
I’ve had a couple close calls, but Amber’s enough like her sister that she’s not too suspicious of me, so she doesn’t even know I’ve banned those assholes from the bar. She just figures they must not have been very interested after all.
Drawing my attention back to her, Amber says, “Hey, does Bri need us to bring anything else to dinner? She told me to bring my little folding table to set up for the kids, but she didn’t say to bring a dish or anything.”
I shake my head, thinking of all the damned groceries Alyssa has sent me out for as she thought of more and more things she wanted to bring to Thanksgiving dinner this week. “Nope, we’ve got more than enough. Bring 12 of your closest friends and we will still have more than enough.”
Amber chuckles and takes another sip of her coffee. “Yep, that sounds about right.”
* * *
“Santa!Santa! Uncle Brant, Santa’s on the TV!”
I’m sitting on the couch watching the very same television Rianne is watching, but she’s sure I’ll miss the red fella waving in the sleigh if she doesn’t point him out to me. “I see that. You better behave yourself—he’s probably watching.”
Rianne bounces up and down with excitement then runs into the kitchen to scream at her mom and aunts about Santa Claus closing out the parade.
Rudy is sitting on the floor with my nephews, where his sister was before she jetted off to the kitchen.
My little Mackenzie is curled up against me on the couch, though. She likes other kids enough most of the time, but sometimes she takes after her daddy and just wants a little peace and quiet. There’s not much of that with Bri and Amber’s kids around, so sitting on the couch with me is as close as she can get.
Mackenzie shifts against me and yawns, so I look down at her.
She’s cute as a button all the time, but today she’s even more dolled up than usual. Alyssa dressed her up in a Thanksgiving-themed outfit: a football-brown shirt with little ruffles on the shoulders, and a bright orange skirt with white polka dots and a turkey on it. Mackenzie alternates between petting the turkey on her leg and messing with the suspenders keeping her skirt attached.
Alyssa put half of her blonde hair up in a pony tail on top of her head like she does sometimes and left the other half down. The half she put up bounces every time Mackenzie moves, so when she tips her little head back and fixes her big blue eyes on me, her ponytail moves right along with her.
Pointing at the television, she asks, “Santa?”
I nod. “Yep. Jolly old St. Nick. He’ll be paying you a visit and putting some presents under the Christmas tree for you in just a few weeks.”
“Presents?”
Mackenzie has a habit of making every word she says sound like the most interesting and thought-provoking thing in the whole world. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but just like her mama, she never fails to draw a smile out of me.
“Yep, lots of presents,” I verify.
Hearing something he likes, Thompson looks back at us. “I’m gonna get lots of presents, too. I’m gonna get a Nerf Blaster! I’m gonna be like, pew pew pew pew,” he says as he mimics blasting and destroying every available surface.
That probably is about what he’ll do if my sister caves in and buys the little shit a Nerf Blaster, too.
Beside me, Mackenzie mimics her cousin. “Pew, pew, pew, pew.”
“No, no, no, no,” I tell her, scooping her up.
She curves her little arm around my shoulder as I settle her on my hip, and she looks around to see where we’re going.
“You wanna go see what Mommy’s up to?” I ask her.
“Yeah,” she answers, bobbing her head.
As my niece runs past us back into the living room, I haul Mackenzie into the kitchen. Our entrance isn’t immediately noticed, as I realize when I overhear the tail end of what Bri and Alyssa are talking about as they stand at the center island.
“I’m so nervous. What if Brant hates him?” Bri agonizes.
“Brant is not going to hate him,” Alyssa assures her as she adds a layer to something in a casserole dish. “From what you’ve told me, Carl’s amazing, and he makes you happy. You know that’s all Brant cares about.”
“I know, but he’s divorced.”
“Because his skank wife cheated on him with a child abuser,” Alyssa says, disbelief clear in her tone. “Brant is not going to hold that against him. If anything, he’ll be impressed that he took on full custody.”
I don’t feel right eavesdropping, so I clear my throat and step a little farther into the room. “It sure smells good in here, doesn’t it?” I remark, looking over at Mackenzie.
Her eyes light up and she reaches her hand toward the counter next to us. “Cookie, cookie!” She stops grabbing for them long enough to clutch the neck of my shirt and demand my serious consideration. “Daddy, cookie?”
God, she’s so fucking cute. I want to tell her she can’t have a cookie before dinner, but the way those blue eyes sparkle with excitement, I can’t bring myself to do it. “All right, but only one,” I say firmly.
She bobs forward and kisses me, then turns her body and all of her attention toward that counter until I walk over and get her a cookie off the tray.
Deeply amused, Alyssa tries to chide me. “Those are for after dinner, you know.”
As Mackenzie grips her cookie with both hands and takes a bite, I turn around to look at my wife. Her long blonde hair is down around her shoulders, just the way I like it. A few locks hang down and cover her full breasts. As lovely as those breasts are, my gaze drops a little lower to her protruding belly.
Alyssa catches my gaze and absently runs a hand over her rounded tummy, smoothing out her dress. “It’s impolite to stare,” she jokes.
“I have terrible manners,” I inform her.
It’s too hard to stay too far away from her when we’re in the same room, so I wander over next to her and lean in for a kiss.
Alyssa stops what she’s doing to wrap her arm around my waist while she kisses me, then she pulls back, her blue-green eyes sparkling with pleasure. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I answer back.
Her gaze drops as she checks me out, even though she saw me before we left the house and she’s seen me plenty since, too. “God, you look good in that sweater,” she tells me. “I’d make you put a baby in me, but… well.”
I smile and reach my free hand down to give her belly a rub and say hello to our son.
Bri couldn’t believe I knocked Alyssa up so soon after she had Mackenzie, especially since she was so young the first time, but Alyssa and I both grew up with siblings close in age—or, in my case, exactly the same age—and we wanted the same thing for Mackenzie.
This one’s already moving around in there, but he’s not as accommodating as Mackenzie was. Just about every time I put my hand on Alyssa’s belly, this little guy decides to take a nap.
Now is no different. I drop my hand after a minute and lean over to see what Alyssa’s cooking. “Anything in here I can eat? I’m hungry.”
Alyssa shakes her head. “This is a dessert dish. I’m about to make deviled eggs in a minute though—stick around and you can steal one.”
I do love Alyssa’s deviled eggs. Sounds like a plan.
The doorbell rings and Bri freezes, her eyes widening. “Oh, God. He’s early.”
Rianne comes running back in the room. “Can we watch Frozen?”
“Not right now, honey,” Bri says offhandedly, grabbing a hand towel and wringing the life out of it. Her worried gaze flits to mine, and she says, “Please go easy on him. Keep an open mind. I really think you’re gonna like him.”
It took her a long time to move on after Theo’s death. It wasn’t quite like when we were younger and I killed her ex-boyfriend, because this time Bri understood why I had to do it. That didn’t make coping any easier for her and the boys, though. A loss is still a loss, even if what you lost was an asshole.
She did move on, though, after a while. We all did.
Bri met a man named Carl, who she didn’t tell me about for quite some time. They took things slow, both of them having been hurt before, but she talked to Alyssa about him, so I got little scraps of information through her. I’ve been told he’s a wonderful man, the full-grown type, a man I’ll actually like and approve of, but that remains to be seen.
I follow Bri toward the door, but I hang back enough to give her a little privacy. I want to see his face when she opens the door, see if he looks at her the right way.
Then I want to see how he looks at the other women in the room. Alyssa’s pregnant, so he probably won’t look at her too long. I lean back to look around the kitchen, but I don’t see Amber.
Alyssa casts a questioning look at me.
“Where’s Amber?” I ask.
Alyssa shrugs and goes back to her dish. “Probably upstairs sucking face with Greg.”
“Get her down here so she can meet Carl.”
Alyssa knows exactly why I want her pretty sister down here when my sister’s new boyfriend comes in, and she shakes her head in disapproval. “Can’t you just be optimistic about this?”
“I’ll be optimistic as soon as I see there’s something to be optimistic about.”
Still eating a cookie on my hip, Mackenzie leans over and puts her face right in front of mine, lining our eyes up so I have to look at her. “Hi, Daddy.”
Gently leaning my forehead against hers, I say, “Hi, Mackenzie.” Then I turn my attention back to her mother. “Get your damn sister down here.”
Alyssa heaves a sigh and leaves the counter to fetch Amber, so I haul Mackenzie back to the hall leading to the foyer and the front door.
I get there right as Bri is pulling the door open, so I don’t miss the way he smiles at the sight of her. It’s a genuine smile that reaches his eyes. He’s happy to see her.
He gets a few extra points for holding out a fall-colored bouquet of flowers and causing Bri to light up with pleasure. I keep my guard up, though. Any bozo can buy flowers.
Bri takes a step back, fussing over the flowers and offering to take his coat. He does step inside, but not before making a little room next to him and looking down at the smaller dinner guest he brought with him.
Carl has a son, about eight years old, if I remember correctly. He has a mop of blonde hair on his head and he’s bundled up in a coat and scarf. Carl splits his attention between Bri and his son while they make their way in the house, and it all seems natural enough. Theo used to ignore the boys a lot of the time unless he wanted to use them to show off, so if I picked up any hollow interest like that, I’d be alarmed.
Bri turns to look at me, her brown eyes alive with nerves and excitement. I can see she’s anxious about introducing us, but there’s a gleam of hope in her gaze, too. I know from what Alyssa has told me, she thinks I’m really gonna like this one.
“This is my brother, Brant, and my niece, Mackenzie,” she says, gesturing to us since we’re the first people waiting as they come down the hall.
Carl steps forward and offers me his hand, a congenial smile on his face. “This is him, huh? Great to meet you, Brant. I’ve heard so much about you. All good things,” he adds, grinning bigger.
I shake his hand and resist the urge to tell him to give it a little time.
Bri lingers by his side, anxiously clutching her flowers. Looking over at the little boy he brought with him, she says, “This is Carl’s son, Eton.”
I offer him a nod of acknowledgment, meeting his shy gaze. “Hello, Eton.”
“Hi,” he says quietly, sticking close to his dad.
“Cookie,” Mackenzie announces, holding out her treat.
Eton’s attention drifts to her and he smiles. “I like cookies.”
“Do you want one?” Bri asks, her discomfort making her overly attentive. Then, looking to Carl, she asks, “Is he allowed to have a cookie?”
“I guess one cookie won’t hurt,” Carl tells her with a grin.
Bri moves in front of him, placing a hand on Eton’s shoulder and leading him toward the kitchen. As she passes me, she casts me one last wordless plea to be nice to her new boyfriend.
Mackenzie starts wiggling, looking back at the kitchen. “Daddy, down,” she says.
I let her down and start to fix her skirt, but before I can, she toddles after the quiet boy she must want as a new playmate.
Now that it’s just us, I stand and turn my attention back to Carl. I’m sure Bri has already warned him about me being overprotective, so I don’t feel the need to relay the message myself. I just want to get a feel for what kind of man he is. He’s happy enough to indulge me in conversation, so we linger in the hallway and shoot the shit for a bit.
From what Bri has told Alyssa, he’s a very good father, which is at the top of her checklist now that Bri’s a single mother looking for a serious relationship. His priorities are in order—family first—and he takes care of his responsibilities.
Even though he really liked her, it took him a while to introduce Bri to his son, which tells me a whole lot about him. He cares about his son’s stability; he’s not some careless asshole who’s with a different woman every week. Carl is a man who can focus his attention and keep his eyes where they belong—or I hope he is.
I know I’m testing him a little, but when we walk into the room, the first thing we both see is Amber with her back to us. She’s wearing an excessively short cranberry-colored dress that hugs her every curve. Like her sister, she has damned good legs, and they go on for miles. She’s wearing high heels, and her long blonde hair is carefully curled and styled. Alyssa must’ve prepped her and told her I needed to borrow her to test a man out, because while Carl is a fine-looking man, I guess, when Amber turns around, she positively lights up at him.
“Hi,” she says, rushing forward and offering her hand.
I look over at him, and while he’s surprised by the enthusiasm of her attention, he resists the temptation to let his gaze drop to her plunging neckline, and he keeps his attention respectful. “Hey, how are you doing?” he returns.
“Good,” she says, clasping his hand as she shakes it, then turning around and gesturing to my wife. “I’m Alyssa’s sister, Brant’s sister-in-law.”
Sulking on the other side of the counter as he watches Amber perform for me, Greg calls out, “And I’m her boyfriend. I’m Greg.”
Poor Greg. I’m gonna have to buy that man a bottle of whiskey.
Amber looks at me for permission to go back to what she was doing. I give her a little nod.
Much more briskly, she tells Carl, “I’m Amber, by the way. Great to meet you.” Then she goes over to retrieve her neglected boyfriend and hauls him to the living room to give him some attention.
Now that Carl has passed my test, I’m feeling much more relaxed. He hangs out in the kitchen with me and the girls while Mackenzie grabs Eton by the hand and hauls him to the living room to watch a movie.
“No football?” Carl asks, looking over at me.
I shake my head grimly. “No football.”
* * *
I lovethe hell out of my family, but after spending the entire day with the whole lot of them, I am running on empty and so relieved when it’s time to head out.
We were over at Bri’s pretty late, so Mackenzie passed out in the back seat on the way home. I take her out of her car seat and lay her head against my shoulder so I can haul her into the house.
Since we were meeting Carl and his son and we weren’t sure yet if they were dog people, we had to leave Scout home today. As soon as the door opens, he’s right there, pushing his nose at us, wagging his tail, and wanting attention.
I’m too drained, but Alyssa kneels down behind me and gives him the loving he needs after spending the whole day here by himself.
Alyssa knows spending that much time around that many people takes a lot out of me, so she’s quiet and calm, allowing me time to recharge.
I’m relaxing on our bed with my hands crossed over my abdomen, watching her as she takes out her earrings. Her dress comes off next, and I can’t help smiling at the beautiful silhouette of her pregnant body.
“Get in here,” I tell her.
She looks over at me, then she drops her dress into the laundry basket and comes back to the bedroom in just her bra and panties. “I haven’t put my pajamas on yet. What do you want?”
“You,” I tell her, grabbing her hand and tugging her closer.
Never one to turn down an opportunity for a snuggle, Alyssa crawls onto the bed and climbs on top of me.
We have a bigger bed, now—a bigger bedroom, for that matter. I got frustrated with my inability to get all of Theo’s blood out of the hardwood floor and even more frustrated every time I walked in here and envisioned what he did to her inside these walls. Figuring if it was that hard for me, it had to be a lot worse for her, I decided to just take all the walls down.
We rebuilt, making the bedroom and bathroom bigger and adding a walk-in closet. We have a king-sized bed now, even though we always sleep close to each other. When Mackenzie was born, she wanted to sleep curled up next to Alyssa a lot of the time, and that got me thinking that as she got older, we’d need a little more space in the bed in case she ever had a bad dream and got scared and came in wanting to sleep with us.
It’s nice for Sunday morning family cuddles sometimes, too.
Right now, my lovely wife straddles me and slides her arms around my neck. I look deeply into her eyes, reaching up and cupping her face in one of my hands.
“What did you think about Carl?” she asks.
“He seems like a good man,” I offer.
Nodding confidently, she says, “I think so, too.”
I cock an eyebrow at her, wordlessly reminding her about her terrible taste in men.
Spirited all of a sudden, she says, “Uh uh, no. I married the greatest man in the whole world. I may have had poor taste once upon a time, I’ll give you that, but I’ve graduated past that. I have excellent taste in men now.”
My lips curve up in amusement. “Uh huh.”
“I do,” she insists.
“Sure.”
“I am an aficionado of great men,” she announces.
“You’re an aficionado of crazy,” I tease.
Smiling, she leans forward until her forehead is resting against mine. “You’re one to talk.”
I catch her lips and draw her into a lingering kiss. “You like my crazy,” I tell her after our kiss ends.
“I love it,” she agrees.
I love hers, too. I’ve loved it since the moment I met her and, instead of running the other way, she soaked up all my loneliness, knocking down towering walls and scrubbing at all my dark surfaces until they shined like new.
Everything I have, every single thing that matters, I have because of the incredible woman snuggled up against me right now.
“I love you, Alyssa,” I tell her, curling my arm around her back and pulling her close so I can kiss the crown of her head.
“I love you, too, Brant.” She tips her head back to look up at me, a supply of genuine affection in her gaze that I know to be endless.
Just one more thing that makes Alyssa so perfect for me.
She loves so hard, so deeply, and with absolute loyalty. She loves with her whole heart, her whole soul.
Yeah, Alyssa loves hard, and there’s no one she loves more than me.
I don’t know what I did to get that lucky. I don’t know how this incredible woman came to be mine.
I do know that every single minute I spent alone before I met her was well worth it. It would have been a waste of my time, trying to love anybody else.
I was waiting for my wife, I just didn’t know it.
Now she’s here. Now I have her. Now she’s mine forever.
I am one lucky son of a bitch.
Confirming that fact even though I already know it well, Alyssa sinks against me, turning just slightly to accommodate her growing belly. Her arms are still wrapped around my neck, and they tighten as she draws herself closer. She holds on to me so tight you’d think she’s never gonna let go.
And she won’t.
I know she won’t.
