She disappears down the hall, and comes back a minute later with a small pink gift bag.

I shake my head in mock disappointment. “Not Thanksgiving colors, Trouble Jean.”

“Shh. Just open it.”

My birthday present this year was a box of pasta.

Regular ol’ spaghetti noodles from the grocery store.

Not even kidding.

It was so random, I laughed until I cried, which was apparently the point. You can buy yourself anything, but you would not have bought yourself spaghetti noodles for your birthday, TJ had informed me.

And then she gave me the best blowjob of my life.

And I got a pirate pillow with her face on it for Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Apparently it’s an important holiday here in Shipwreck.

She got a blow-up hammock that looks like a vagina for her birthday.

I told her it was better than a car or a boat since it would keep her humble.

We might not be normal, but fuck, do we laugh a lot.

I take the pink bag from her and peek inside, but all I see is more pink tissue paper, so I dig in.

And I’m very confused when I pull out a gray T-shirt.

“Turn it around.” She’s practically on top of me, bouncing and smiling, which suits me just fine, but when I turn the shirt around to look at what’s printed on the front, she goes still.

And then I do too.

Growly Bear Daddies Are The Best Daddies, it says.

I open my mouth.

Shut it.

Open it again.

Glance at her.

And the sight of her face wavering between utter excitement and utter panic sends my heart flying to the stratosphere.

“Trouble Jean,” I breathe.

“You don’t have to wear it today,” she whispers. “I mean, you probably shouldn’t. Not for another couple months. And school might get complicated in the fall, so it’s a good thing I have three more years to do two years’ worth of work. But…do you like it?”

She bites her lower lip and watches me.

I have to swallow twice to find my voice, and once more to make it work. “Are you—is that—are we…?”

She blinks shiny eyes and nods, then reaches into the bag and pulls out a short stick with a message printed clearly on a digital read-out.

“Holy fuck,” I mutter.

She loops her arm through mine and presses a kiss to my shoulder. “I know it’s not exactly in the plans, but…”

“Coffee.” I jerk back and look down at her. “You can’t—”

“One cup,” she sighs. “I can have one cup.” She squints at me. “Are you okay?”

I blink at her again.

Am I?

She’s right.

A baby isn’t exactly in the plans, but fuck the plans.

I start to smile, and then I laugh. A year ago, this would’ve freaked me out worse than the EGB. But today?

After a year of talking and working and falling more and more in love with Tillie Jean every day? “A baby?”

She nods. “It’s entirely possible I’ll be puking my guts out this time next week.”

“A baby.” I can’t stop grinning. Until a new thought hits me. “Is your father going to kill me?”

She tips her head back and laughs. “No. He likes you. And he likes that you make me happy. And in case you haven’t noticed, both of my parents are basically in love with being grandparents.”

A baby.

Tillie Jean and I are having a baby.

I have a diamond ring hidden in my workout bag.

The one that never leaves the closet, for the record.

I pull Tillie Jean into my lap and kiss her until we’re both breathless. “I fucking adore you,” I tell her.

She runs her fingers through my hair. “That’s very convenient, because I happen to be madly in love with you.”

The only thing I feel right now is complete and utter joy.

No panic. No worries. No fear.

Just right.

Happiness. Contentment. Love.

Everything.

Bonus Epilogue

Cooper Rock, aka a dude headed to his house after grocery shopping about the same time his dear, wonderful, favorite sister is giving her soon-to-be fiancé all of that good news in the previous epilogue

There are seventy million things I love about Thorny Rock Mountain, starting with, it’s where I came from.

Yep.

I was birthed by this very mountain, and I gave it no labor pains, and we high-fived each other the minute I came out, and we’ve gotten along great ever since.

Don’t tell my mother I’m making shit up, okay?

Not that she’d be surprised. I tell her something like this every Mother’s Day to watch her laugh at me.

I’m whistling through the switchbacks.

Much as I love the city, home is where my heart is, and I’m almost home.

I pass the first house I picked up on the mountain once I decided I wanted to own the whole pile of dirt that birthed me. This one’s a normal-size two-bedroom log cabin that families from the city come out and rent on weekends. “High five, Bear Cottage,” I call to it.

Rents better on those vacation rental sites when it has a name.

Plus, who wouldn’t want to stay in Bear Cottage?

“High five, Cedar Chalet,” I call to my next rental property down the way.

All those people in the city have no idea what they were doing giving up their weekend properties to me.

They’ve let me buy almost my entire mountain.

Grady and Tillie Jean keep telling me it’s bad for my ego, but let’s be real.

There are very, very few things in life that can ding my ego.

That’s all I’m saying about that.

For the record.

I take two more switchbacks, and there’s one more driveway.

“High five, Beck Ryder’s house,” I call to one of the few properties I don’t own.

“High five, Cooper, you magnificent beast,” I reply to myself in my best Beck Ryder impersonation.

I like Beck.

Good dude. His wife’s awesome. Their baby is too. Not that I’ve gotten much time around the pipsqueak, but she came from good genes, so you know she’ll be awesome when she morphs from a little cute blob that eats and sleeps and blows out diapers to a walking, talking toddler who sticks her fingers in light sockets and gnaws on things she finds on the floor.

Like dirty jockstraps.

I grin. Darren Greene has his hands full these days. And yeah, his kid is how I know what toddlers do.

Heh.

I slow down and turn into my driveway, except my driveway isn’t there, so now I’m slamming on the brakes, angled hard in the middle of the road, staring at my mailbox.

Mailbox is there.

But where my driveway belongs, there’s no driveway. It’s undergrowth and a giant pine tree and fallen leaves and how the fuck did she pull this off?

I look up the road.

Then down the road.

This is definitely where my driveway belongs.

I am not confused.

That’s my mailbox.

She didn’t just move my mailbox, did she?

Oh, and make no mistake.

I know exactly who she is.

Tillie Jean.

Tillie Jean, who has yet to learn that you don’t awaken the beast in November.

Not if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life looking like a toddler who had an accident in a glitter factory.

I whip out my phone and send a quick text.

Vengeance will be mine, Matilda Jean.

Vengeance will once again be mine.