Page 67 of Hunting Little Hope
Epilogue
One Year Later
Hope
“Hope! Wait up!” Perry called to me as he came rushing after me with a box. “Seriously, pretty girl, where the heck are you getting all this energy from?”
My fiancé was lagging behind a bit, but that was not because I was rushing or anything. He was the one who’d decided staying up most of the night before we had our big ceremony was a good idea.
Our Daddies were somewhere checking on some last-minute details, while we were left in charge of table decorations.
Table decorations for our commitment ceremony!
I still couldn’t believe that today, one year exactly after I’d shown up at the Ranch for the dating extravaganza, I was getting married—essentially—to the men I loved so much. To the men who loved me, accepted me, and, more than anything, encouraged me to be myself.
Life had changed so much in the last year that sometimes it still made my head spin. Everything hadn’t been smooth sailing, but together we’d made things work out.
We’d all taken part in planning and then watching our new house being constructed on Rawhide Ridge as Daddy Lee’s apartment, meant for one, proved to be just a little too snug for four. Daddy Tyrell and Perry had both ended up finding work on the Ridge not long after the event ended. Perry worked at Let’s Play, the newly opened gaming shop, where he spent most of his days helping kids pick out board games and teaching the occasional overly competitive adult how to lose gracefully. Tyrell had taken a position at the local community center helping run programs for the kids in the area, and it suited him so perfectly that sometimes I wondered how he’d ever done anything else.
As for me…
Well.
I’d somehow gone from a nervous dating-event participant to Daddy Lee’s teaching assistant. The days he taught in the Littles’ Wing were so much fun and I got to interact with a whole bunch of my new Little friends. The first time I stood with him in front of one of his classes over at Rawhide University, I’d thought I might faint. But Daddy Lee had simply squeezed my hand under the desk, given me that steady look of his, and suddenly I’d found my voice.
Turns out, I was pretty good at helping people learn more about themselves when Daddy Lee was teaching one of his seminars.
And I was also pretty decent at helping Daddy Lee keep his more enthusiastic students from setting the Ranch on fire.
Perry finally caught up to me, slightly out of breath, and thumped the box down onto one of the empty tables in the room.
“You are suspiciously happy about decorating,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me.
I grinned. “Open it.”
He looked at me.
Then at the box.
Then back at me again.
“Hope…”
“Just open it.”
He lifted the lid.
And then he started laughing.
“Oh my gosh,” he wheezed. “You did not.”
“Oh, I absolutely did.” And I wassoproud of myself.
Inside the box were dozens of tiny jars. Each one was filled with glitter in all colors of the rainbow.
All of it sparkly and terrible and completely perfect.
Perry wiped at his eyes as he pulled one of the jars out. “You’re trying to get us killed before we even say our vows.”
