PLAYBOY PRINCESS (gxg) ✓

Epilogue

One Year Later, Christmas Eve

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                  "TASHA! YOU BETTER GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME." 

                  Rory opened up the trunk to her black sedan, slinging grocery bags over her wrists. It took all of two minutes for Tasha to arrive, wearing knitted pink pyjamas and no shoes.

                  "Tasha," Rory said. "We're in Canada, just in case you weren't aware. And it's fucking freezing. You're barefoot on the snow and if you get sick, Mom is going to kill me."

                  "Astute observation," Tasha said. "I didn't know we were in Canada. Why don't we have an igloo? Where are all the moose?"

                  "Get back in there and put on some shoes," Rory said. "And stop sassing me, young lady!"

                  "No can do!" Tasha said, running back up the walkway of their two-story house. 

                  Rory finished hauling the groceries inside, setting her car keys down on the lime marble countertop. "Paris?" she called out.

                  Tasha was back in the kitchen, wearing reindeer antlers.

                  "She's not home yet," Tasha said. 

                  "Still at work?"

                   Tasha shrugged and began rifling through the grocery bags until she found the strawberry lemonade. "You bought it!"

                   Rory narrowed her eyes. "I shouldn't have, but I have an unusual soft spot for you. Even after you drank so much of that lemonade you threw up on Mrs. Jones's driveway."

                   "What? The rain washed it away."

                   "Mrs. Jones hates us now."

                   "No, she always hated us. She's just more vocal about it now." Tasha uncorked the bottle of lemonade. "And besides, she called my moms unnatural abominations against the Holy Bible."

                   "So you threw up on her driveway?" 

                   Tasha took a swig of strawberry lemonade, nodding shamelessly.

                   Rory made sure Paris wasn't about to walk through the door, and she ruffled Tasha's hair. "That's my girl," she said. "But don't tell Mom I said that."

                  Tasha rolled her eyes. "Mom would scold me, but she'd be secretly proud."

                  Rory thought of Paris's cinnamon-sugar mouth, the way her hazel eyes glinted like they were threaded with soft sunlight. God damn. The thought of Paris was always enough to steal her breath. 

                "Yeah," she said wistfully. "Mom would totally be proud."

                  "You are so whipped," Tasha said, giggling.