He lifts his head to grin at her and slides his hand into mine.
“You better watch yourself,” Ruby tells the other two. “I’m coming for you next.”
That starts some trash talk, and as I turn toward the back gate, Josh digs his own keys from his pocket with his free hand. “I’ll come with you. I need to move my car too.”
I blink up at him, confused. “Why?” He’s parked where he always is, right next to me, directly in front of his condo.
“Because, Sami. I havetwoassigned spots, and the other one is right there. I just never really thought about it.” He points to a space that’s always empty on the row behind ours, only ten feet away. “Now that one’s mine, and this one is yours forever now.” He takes my other hand and touches his forehead to mine. “Just like me.”
Epilogue
Sami
IsnuggleagainstJosh’sside, watching the sun set behind the Austin skyline as we share the wicker love seat on my balcony, purchased specifically for this purpose. It feels good to be here with my man, my besties somewhere downstairs, probably arguing about the details for the upcoming pool party. But that’s only because Ava keeps insisting on going as low-key as possible, and Ruby and Madi aren’t having it.
I’ve been home from tour about a week, but there’s a part of me that still expects to wake up tomorrow morning and climb onto the bus to drive to the next stop. It’s way better than the van we were in for our first tour last summer, but still. Nothing can beat being home, surrounded by all my favorite people. And barbecue joints. That’s not unimportant.
I slip my other arm around Josh’s waist and squeeze. This is infinity times better.
“Still exhausted?” Josh asks.
“Not really. Content, more like.” It had been a long tour. Almost four months compared to last summer’s first tour of eight weeks. “This is the first time since we got back that I feel like I’m truly starting to decompress. I was even thinking about pulling out my guitar.”
“Wow,” Josh says. “You are feeling better. What are you going to write about?”
My guitar comes out when I have a song idea. “I don’t know. Maybe how perfect it feels to sit on a balcony with you, watching the sun set on a late September night. It doesn’t get much better than this.”
“Hmm. Let me see if I can make a case for an improvement.” His voice holds the trace of a laugh.
“Go ahead, counselor.” No doubt he'll head inside and return with a bowl of ice cream. The man gets me.
Sure enough, he gently disentangles himself. “You relax. Give me a couple of minutes, and I’ll be back.”
“Cookie dough,” I say.
“Sure, cookie dough.” He disappears into my room, and I nestle further into the love seat. It’s a perfect Austin evening, and I fully soak it in, feeling every single one of my blessings as I do. A successful tour with our second album, which went gold five months after release. It means I can work on music full-time now, and I’ll have to figure out what that looks like when I’m not on tour.
Things with Josh are better than ever. He joined us on the road several times when he could work remotely, I came home when I could, and we had lots and lots of FaceTime. He’ll have to hire a new associate soon to help him handle the business he’s bringing into the Brower and Moore entertainment law practice. Big Time Records even uses him quite often because they were so impressed with his know-how in their negotiation for Pixie Luna, even though they lost. Maybe evenbecausethey lost.
Grandma and my mom came to three different shows on the tour, and my mom wears her Pixie Luna shirt and sings right along with Grandma.
And now I have more than two favorite Browers: Grampa Jim is going strong, but I’ve gotten to like the rest of Josh’s family quite well. Maybe I even love them. I know for sure I miss their family dinners when I’m on the road. And Mr. Brower told me once that he liked our song “Hills and Souls” “quite a bit.” He almost blushed when he said it.
My friends are healthy, happy, and thriving. And I’m about to eat a bowl of ice cream with my favorite person in the world.
He’s taking longer than I expected, and I hear some giggling and a shushing from the patio below me. “Rube? Is that you?”
Dead silence.
Huh. Weird.
I straighten, trying to decide if I want to go down and evaluate the shenanigans, because that was a shenanigans giggle if ever I heard one. But before I can even decide, Ruby’s voice calls to me from the sidewalk.
“Hey, chica, I want a private performance!”
I stand and walk to the railing, smiling down at her. “Sorry, you can’t afford me now.”
She grins. “What if it’s all of us?”
