But maybe ... maybe love fights in bigger, deeper, more true ways than I understand.
“He’s alive?” My words are whispers, fragile and desperate.
“He is.”
I rush into his room, and there he is.
His eyes are closed, and that’s okay—because I just need proof of a beating heart.
He’s covered in tubes and wires, and it could look like death. But all I see is life as I pull down his hospital gown and see the bandages across his chest.
Beneath them is a beating heart. And I know this is true because Jack’s eyes open.
They are on mine.
“You took the bullet meant for me,” I cry. Angry and grateful and desperate and his.
“No.” He shakes his head, his words scratchy and uneven because he’s still clawing back to the land of the living. “I took a shot to the heart, but I knew it wouldn’t kill me.”
“How?” I ask him, tears slashing my face. “How did you know?”
“Because loving you has made my heart invincible. Made me strong.”
“But you aren’t a superhero, Jack. You’re a man.”
“Not just any man.”
I smile through my onslaught of tears.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “You’re my knight in shining armor, my dream come true.”
Epilogue
JACK
It took several months for her to stop waking in the middle of the night, gasping for breath, crying for help. I would wrap her in my arms, carry her outside to the beach, and with the water hitting her toes she’d stop heaving, stop shaking.
She would wake fully, remembering that she was here. That I was here. Both alive, both with beating hearts intact.
I didn’t for a moment blame her, in those weeks, those seemingly endless months, for waking in such a frightened state.
The ironic fact that fucking Periscope saved us all is not unnoticed. However much I hated that app before, I now endorse it wholeheartedly. How could I not?
KMG, of course, loved all the press. I mean, Tess and I went from a sex-tape scandal to a live shooting. Once the truth of her kidnapping, her childhood in the Brotherhood, and the FBI investigation was out, she agreed to a modest interview with Diane Sawyer. She was no longer a girl running; she was the fucking hero.
I signed with KMG. There was no longer a reason not to. They’d already given me the contract I wanted for music, and once Tess didn’t have any fear of imprisonment we were free to do whatever the hell we wanted.
Somehow, with millions in the bank, we are back here, on this island, shopping at fucking Roscoe’s.
Tess never wanted the fame, the fortune. She didn’t want me so that her face would grace a magazine cover.
She wanted me because she fucking loves me and I love her, and that is all and that is everything.
And now we’re getting married.
“Man, what the hell?” McQueen asks. “You got all the money in the fucking world and yet here we are in Washington state, watching you get married at a farmhouse.”
“It’s your sister, ask her,” Ace says, laughing as Landon hands him a beer.
“Man, Sophia loves it here,” Landon says. “The chickens are seriously her favorite thing ever.”
“You are such a dad. It still freaks me out,” Ace says.
I grin. “You will be, too, soon enough.”
We all turn at look at our women. Emmy is six months pregnant, glowing as she should be. Claire is spinning Sophia around in the grass. JoJo is laughing with Tess as they raise their champagne flutes in the air. The late summer wind runs through Tess’s hair.
She’s dressed in white linen, and her feet are bare and her clear blue eyes are bright. And I’m gonna fucking marry that girl today, and love her for the rest of my life.
“How did we all end up so lucky?” I ask, turning to the bad boys of Vegas, who have somehow ended up with the best women on the motherfucking planet.
“I don’t know,” Ace says. “But I’m willing to bet the house that no one gets dealt hands like this. You gotta fight for this.”
“Play hard, love harder,” I say, raising my beer.
No doubt it’s exactly what all four of us will do for the rest of our goddamned lives.