All Bets Are Off

Epilogue

*Please check out my new book Dirty Little Secrets. For some reason the cover is glitching out and won't upload so it looks pretty bad, but the actual cover is to the side ---> Please check it.

Also, there is a spin-off of ABAO called The Girl Who Wrote The Dating Manual, about Candice's life after this book, so please check it out :)

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Epilogue

“Phoenix, get in here!” I called, shouldering my way through the screen door with my arms filled with cardboard boxes.

Phoenix looked up from where he was paying the cab driver and grabbing suitcases from the trunk. “Coming, Elle!”

I made my way through the cozy cottage and over the wooden floorboards, navigating my way through the halls until I reached the kitchen. I set down the box and dusted my hands off on my jeans, quickly making sure my messy bun was staying in place, before turning to stare at the place Phoenix and I could officially call ours.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t like two eighteen-year-olds could afford a palace, or anything. The windows were dirty, and it needed a good dusting and maybe a new paintjob. But it was homey and cozy and had the essentials, so it was good enough for us.

It was hard to believe how quickly the summer had flown by. In a haze of preparations, appointments, phone calls and goodbyes with friends, it felt like the summer had been one crazy whirlwind of maturity.

And now somehow we’d stumbled into an adult life filled with timed classes and a home of our own. Of bills and utilities and responsibilities. We were here.

I looked out the window to the small backyard out the back. It didn’t have much to it; a little tire swing, a small flower garden and a tiny toolshed. But it was enough. Maybe one day we’d plant some tulips and have a little dog and the toolshed would be filled with lawnmowers and tools, the way it was supposed to be. We were young and still learning the tricks of the trade, but we were getting better at it.

I heard an engine outside, and then Phoenix appeared inside, lugging two suitcases and a cardboard box along with him.

“That’s the last of it,” he announced, putting the suitcases against the wall and putting the cardboard box on the table.

He walked towards me and took my hands, pulling me closer. “You okay?” he asked, reaching up and playing with a loose blonde strand that had fallen from my messy bun.

“Can you believe it?” I asked, looking around at the small house. At the cardboard boxes and glasses and plates wrapped in newspaper and bubble wrap. At the plastic-covered bits of furniture and the small shopping bags of food until we got settled.

“Believe what?” Phoenix asked.

I gestured around at the home we could now call our wonderland, at the place that was ours and a mortgage we had to pay; our own little corner of the world.