Page 172 of Blue Gold

“Maples?”

“Oui. You know, when things change, you say maples are turned?”

“Oh!” he gasped. “You mean the tables have turned?”

Pouting, I got down to my feet and pushed him. “It’s the same thing⁠—”

He pulled me back into a hug.

“It’s not, but I love it when you mix words up.” He kissed my cheek. “It’s getting me hard.”

Surprised, I looked down at the weapon poking my ass, then up at him.

“So soon?”

His smile said it all, and since we had time to waste until our flight⁠—

“Well, if only we had a table, we could have fucked on it.”

Already having me in his arms, Daniel ducked his head down, his lips on mine.

“Don’t you mean maples?”

I shut him up with a kiss that led to, well… much more.

EPILOGUE THREE

DANIEL

A few years later

The sounds of cellos played in the background as Elliot and I watched our three-year-old son, Miles, walking down the aisle, holding our rings. Dressed in a little black tux, he looked absolutely adorable, even more so when he suddenly stopped walking only to look around at the rest of our guests. His big blue eyes, the same as my beloved’s, glinted right before his lips quivered and he burst out in tears.

“Papa,” he cried, while the guests, including us, let out a collective aww. It might not be politically correct to smile at your crying kid, but this moment was simply too cute.

Elliot quickly left my side, rushing over to our Miles. I watched in awe as he bent down on one knee in front of him and brushed Miles’s tousled black hair away from his crying little face before whispering something in his ear. The two then turned to look at me, and ugh, my poor heart.

Even though I’d once claimed to never want any more children, in the end, it was I who suggested we have a child together. Looking at them now, I couldn’t be happier and help but think of all the bright changes this child had caused in our lives. Not only did he add so much joy to our everyday, he also brought out a whole new side to my Elliot, who, just as I always knew he’d be, was an incredible dad. He was still the same young man I’d fallen for, only so much more. It also helped that, due to fatherhood, he’d finally quit smoking altogether. Which was a wonder on its own, considering his love for that bad habit.

Moving a hand over his chubby cheek, Miles sniffed his button nose, then took Elliot’s hand to the sound of our guests clapping. And me? I stood there, my hands crossed before me, as I watched the love of my life walking down the aisle with our son. Grateful beyond words and with my heart filled with an endless amount of love, I did my best to fight the tears threatening to come out. One quick glance at my daughter, who cheered me on from the front row, helped me calm down the nerves, and I straightened, waiting for Miles and Elliot to arrive.

“Why the tears, Bunny?” I asked Miles once the two reached me, and I ruffled his soft hair. Ignoring me, Miles moved to hug Elliot’s leg, clearly not interested in this wedding.

Oh well.

“He’s just a bit scared of the crowd,” Elliot kindly explained with a soft smile. “Mon lapin, would you give Papa the rings?”

With his head shoved in Elliot’s leg, Miles half glanced to look at us before giving my soon-to-be husband the small box that had the rings inside.

“Thank you, mon lapin,” Elliot told him in a voice so soft I didn’t even know it existed until Miles was born.

Straightening up, Elliot handed the box to Vito, who waited patiently by our side this whole time.

When same-sex marriage finally became legal here, I couldn’t wait and decided to turn my promise to marry Elliot into a reality. And while we both had different visions of how this wedding should look, there was one thing we both agreed on, and that was that Vito should be the person to marry us. Why? Probably because he was the first person to learn about us and, more importantly, accept us.

“Well, if that is not adorable, I don’t know what is,” Vito said, his voice bursting with life as always. “But shall we move on? You know, before we lose the sunset.” He winked, tilting his head in the direction of the ocean behind us.

Needless to say, we ended up with Elliot’s vision of a wedding, in a beautiful venue on the coast of California.