Forever & Ever

by Tere Michaels

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  1: Matt and Evan Get Married. Secretly.

  2: A Christmas Wedding: Matt’s Favorite Child Gets Married

  3: Felicitous (Sounds Like A Holiday Word)

  4: Here’s to You, Mrs. Robinson

  5: It’s Always the Quiet Ones

  6: Decisions, Decisions

  7: The Showering

  8: Don’t Answer the Phone

  9: Red Alert

  10: Welcome, Shelia. And Mavan.

  11: Fatherhood 101

  12: Tony

  13: A Big Bow on It

  More from Tere Michaels

  Readers love the Faith, Love, & Devotion series by Tere Michaels

  About the Author

  By Tere Michaels

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  Forever & Ever – A Collection of Stories

  By Tere Michaels

  A Faith, Love, & Devotion Anthology

  What happens after the story ends?

  Join Matt, Evan, Jim, Griffin, and their friends and families for a glimpse of what happens after happily ever after. Between growing up and growing pains, weddings and retirement, changing careers and changing diapers, life is never boring. Changes, decisions, tears, and joy await as the years march on.

  Acknowledgments

  THIS BOOK is a thank-you, and a final coda, to the Faith, Love, & Devotion series.

  We finished the journey in Truth & Tenderness with a wedding (and a secret wedding!) and anticipating a baby, but a few things were missing that I know my lovely and passionate readers really wanted. And while I didn’t have another complete book to tell, I did have little bits and snippets of their lives post “happily ever after” that I wanted to share, a newsletter story that needed a follow-up, and questions I wanted to answer. What would it be like when the kids grew up and started families of their own? How did this devoted group of friends handle getting older, changing lives, and elderly parents? When things got rough, how did they rise up to help one another?

  Oh right, and you wanted a wedding. The wedding. That’s in here too.

  Please enjoy this last walk past The End into the future, where Matt, Evan, Jim, Griffin, Helena, Shane, Daisy, Bennett, and all the kids (and their kids!) are living their lives with love and witty retorts.

  Thank you to my readers, including the many who have become friends because of this series. What an incredible silver lining to all this! You are the best.

  Thank you to everyone at Dreamspinner Press, especially Elizabeth North, Lynn West, and Amelia Vaughn. All hail Ginnifer Eastwick, the wonderful editor for this series, who has the patience of a saint as she deals with my “process”—I would be lost without you! And Aaron Anderson, for all the gorgeous covers.

  Thank you to all the wonderful bloggers, librarians, and booksellers who supported this series. I appreciate your recommendations through these years.

  Thank you to those who were there from the very genesis of this idea, especially Beth and Linda, who made sure I finished F&F all those years ago.

  I have the best tribe in the world and cannot go further without saying thank you to: Elle Brownlee, Elizah J. Davis, Agatha Bird, Rayna Vause, Kate McMurray, LaQuette, Harper Miller, Adriana Herrera, and Geoff Symon. There are so many more people to list! I just appreciate you all—thank you.

  Damon Suede gets his own paragraph, for reasons. Thank you, my friend, for reasons professional and personal, for long lunches and good advice, for both kicking and saving my butt repeatedly. You both rock and also roll. When a stranger in a kilt runs toward you at a signing, sometimes it’s a good thing.

  And finally, to my husband and son, who gave me the freedom to pursue this writing life. I believe in love and happy endings because I have you.

  Here’s to the next ten years of telling stories!

  Tere Michaels

  September 18, 2018

  Introduction

  WHAT MAKES a book unforgettable? Extraordinary characters, intense emotion, inspired worldbuilding, and a larger sense of how the greatest love stories extend beyond two people to enrich and extend a community. Oscillating between snuggletimes and hot boning punctuated with stretches of “names doing stuff” never suffices. The best heroes save the world from itself while they’re solving themselves. No, special books deliver something unexpected.

  I met Tere Michaels because of my deep respect and affection for Faith & Fidelity. I had no idea who she was and her cryptic website convinced me she was an elderly virtuoso living off Pop-Tarts in an attic somewhere, surrounded by feral cats. That didn’t matter and it was wrong besides. Her book resonated so perfectly with my own hankerings that whatever her circumstances I knew we lived on the same page. I knew we would be instant friends, to be honest. Chance had nothing to do with it because the obvious, overwhelming overlaps in our experience and inclinations made it a fait accompli. I adore and admire her unreservedly. As different as we are, we are cut from the same crazy cloth.

  The first time I read Faith & Fidelity I thought, “This Tere Michaels person knows what an ending actually is and how people can live past it.” Talent and skill smoked off every page. The second time I read it, pulling it apart like a watch to see why it worked so perfectly, I could see on every page that she knew that “happy” and “ever” can only come “after” things that pull folks inside out. Every time I read the book I find something new buried there. I should, because Tere buried so much for us to find.

  Faith & Fidelity begins in grief and disappointment, and with one deft stroke roots itself in the kinds of unhappy endings that can break spirits and crush lives. It charts a dangerous path to hope. And because Tere knows what she’s about in every sense, this dazzling story carries its readers into the light one gratifying step at a time with measured, mindful grace.

  One of the greatest things about all of Tere’s books is the way they weigh happy endings as an idea… never for a moment glossing over the hideous U-turns life expects of us and the terrible costs of real joy. The thing about Happily Ever Afters is that they must be all three: they must offer real happiness, they must be everlasting, and they must come after things which are neither. Time passes, people grow, and the things that please us change because we change. What comes after happiness and how can we survive it?

  HEAs are an odd monolith in the landscape of Romancelandia. The only things every romance must include are a relationship and a hopeful ending. That might sound simple, but in a world where fools can rule and you can be murdered for marrying the person you love, happy endings have a real cost and depicting them requires serious skill. Every happy ending comes at a terrible cost—otherwise who would care?

  What Tere’s fiction does, like all great romances, is remind us of the impossible hope buried in the darkest moments of our lives, the beginnings which flow around and through us when we pay attention. Like water underground, joy surges up through the cracks in our concrete. If we have faith, if we show fidelity….

  If you have read Tere’s work, you know exactly what I mean; if you have never read it, I envy you the overwhelming pleasure before you.

  Damon Suede

  Manhattan, September 2018

  1: Matt and Evan Get Married. Secretly.

  MATT HAD taken the subway to the city, so he and Evan walked to his car shoulder to shoulder. The kids were waiting; dinner had to be eaten. They had plans for the weekend to check on their friends and plans for the summer, when all the family could arrange a week or two to be together.

  Evan felt the pieces falling slowly into place: another year, another lesson, another way to make things easier. Maybe they’d never find the pe
rfect solution to everything. Maybe it would never be easy.

  “I love you,” Evan said when they reached the car.

  Matt paused at the passenger side, his expression pleased. He leaned his arms against the roof of the car. “I love you too.”

  “You know this is it, right?” Evan matched his position from the driver side, the rush-hour traffic buzzing behind them. “Us.”

  “Yeeees,” Matt said slowly. “I’ve known that for a while.”

  The thought had come to Evan quietly and insistently as the day progressed. Some days he believed Matt had brought him back after Sherri died, but really, Matt made him so much better a person.

  Better father. Better cop.

  A better man.

  “I need you to know that. I want to… to… show you how much this is forever….”

  Matt’s expression went from concerned to amused to a sweet reddening on his cheeks that Evan found to be his favorite reaction, ever.

  “The first time you did this—please tell me it was more romantic,” Matt murmured.

  “Sherri was sitting on the bathroom floor with a pregnancy test in her hand,” Evan said ruefully.

  Matt started to laugh.

  MATT NEVER expected to play a direct role in a marriage proposal—giving or receiving. The foxhole front seat to his parents’ marriage left him commitmentphobic for most of his adult life, then boom, Evan, which seemed to take matrimony off the legal table, if it ever even crossed his mind. Besides, these years with Evan, making a home and a family, seemed far more concrete than a piece of paper.

  Hell, they’d even discussed this, at length. Discussed and dismissed. They considered themselves “married” in the sense that this was it. Till death and all that stuff. When they bought a house together. When Matt became the twins’ guardian. Evan had risked his mother-in-law’s wrath and legal ramifications because he knew Matt would do anything to keep his kids—their kids—safe and sound.

  They were it. As it was for their friends who were married or getting married. They didn’t need the hoopla or anything official to make it more so.

  But.

  Matt couldn’t lie to himself. He didn’t expect it, but apparently he didn’t mind it either. Surprise!

  When the follow-up to Evan’s proposal of forever included making dinner, a discussion of early admission college applications with the twins, and a downstairs clogged toilet, he felt no disappointment. The space between “huh, okay” to “where’s the good plunger” barely made a dent in his mood.

  Unexpectedly, the underlying feeling of “wow” tingling below his skin through all of it was what threw him. Every once in a while their eyes met across the room, Evan got a little grin on his face, and Matt felt bubbles of happiness in his gut.

  So weird. They’d talked about it. It didn’t matter! Except maybe it did.

  “I believe it’s traditional to celebrate an engagement with shower sex,” Matt said as soon as the bedroom door closed behind them. They’d handled both teenagers and the toilet, and now it was time to have some adult fun. He leaned against the wall, trying to look sexy, but Evan kept moving through the room and into the bathroom. Without him.

  “That wasn’t the reaction I was dreaming of,” he called as Evan shut the door.

  “Checking the toilet!” Evan yelled from the other side.

  “Romantic,” Matt muttered to himself as he started to strip down to his underwear. He even threw his clothes into the hamper, because he was considerate like that and it felt like the right move when one a) accepted a marriage proposal and b) wanted to get laid.

  The shower didn’t go on—a good sign; maybe that meant wet sex was still on the table—but Evan took his sweet time coming out. Matt turned on the air conditioner, then crawled under the covers, after a brief consideration of making a sexy pose at the edge of the bed.

  For men of a certain age, there just wasn’t a way to disguise one’s stomach sprawled out, so he quickly ruled that out.

  Minutes ticked by. Matt’s hopeful erection began to lag, and the remote fit in his hand so perfectly….

  “I’m turning on the game!” he announced to the empty room and the rattle/hum of the AC.

  When the clock registered fifteen minutes, Matt began to suspect food poisoning or a freak-out.

  He rolled out of bed, grabbing his T-shirt from the hamper as he walked by. Neither of his potential theories had a mostly naked dress code, to be sure. A quick knock on the door, a pause, and Matt waited patiently.

  The response came in the form of a heavy sigh that practically vibrated the wood between them.

  “Stop freaking out, please,” Matt said cheerfully. A lesser man—a man who had not recently seen his life pass across his eyes on a highway on Long Island—might panic, but Matt knew Evan, and if he was honest with himself, he had seen this coming. “If you want to take it back, I think you’re fine. Unless you got me a ring, in which case you owe me double the shower sex for my broken heart.”

  The door opened so quickly, Matt almost fell on the floor.

  Evan’s face registered “pissed.” “You’re an asshole.”

  “True, but you’re hiding and that’s usually because you’ve gone all…” He made a wild flailing motion with both hands over his head and an expression to match. Sticking out his tongue like a winded bulldog was an artistic flourish. “…Evan.”

  “I wasn’t freaking out, and I have never, in my life, made that face.” He exhaled. “I’m just thinking.”

  “Lucky for us the fire alarms didn’t go off.”

  With a little shove to the middle of Matt’s chest, Evan stalked out of the bathroom.

  “I just had this moment of thinking about engagements and weddings and telling people,” Evan said, doing his traditional pacing circuit around the bed and toward the door. “And—before you think this is about shame or anything else, shut up.”

  Matt leaned on the doorjamb. “I said nothing.”

  “You thought it.”

  “Briefly. A blip,” Matt said lightly, crossing his arms. “Listen, I understand if the proposal was a reaction to the whole Tripp debacle and feeling scared. I get it. I won’t hold you to anything because at the end of the day, I’m not going anywhere. Broken engagement or not.”

  Evan squinted as if trying to read his mind to see if he was telling the truth.

  “What? Have I, at any point, made you think it was something I needed? I hate weddings—tight shoes, tiny slivers of cake, no seconds on whatever weird chicken-in-sauce dinner they serve. They give you like three potatoes—who only eats three tiny potatoes? And oh Jesus, the music….” Just the thought of enduring it made Matt shiver in horror. “You know I’m buying an industrial-size flask just to survive Jim and Griffin’s wedding, and I love them!”

  “I don’t want a wedding,” Evan said, stopping midpace. “I mean, I want to be married, but I don’t want the… spectacle. That’s for other people.”

  “Okay.” Matt shrugged. “You want to do something here, with just the family?” They could fix up the backyard. Maybe get a tent.

  Evan started pacing again.

  Matt’s good nature began to slip a bit. “You think the kids won’t go for that? Or… for any of it?” Katie’s reaction, he knew, would be 100 percent supportive. Elizabeth and Danny, he had a good relationship with them. No reason to suspect anything other than a couple of woo-hoos, and Elizabeth might get weepy. Which led them to Miranda.

  “Miranda and me are on good terms now,” he offered, shifting uncomfortably. The game murmured low in the silences. Matt thought about turning it off or lowering the AC or doing anything, but he felt rooted in his spot. “When we were having our—difficulties—recently, she was totally on my side,” he said jokingly. “I could talk to her, if you’re worried. Maybe a bribe is in order.”

  “No, no.” Evan stopped again, looking across the room to lock gazes with Matt. “This isn’t about Miranda. I know she’s come to terms with us being together. But eve
n if I thought she’d react badly, this”—he made a motion between them—“this is it. I meant what I said when I asked you to marry me.”

  The tension knotting Matt’s stomach unclenched slightly.

  “Well, okay.” His body unfroze; he pushed off the wall, approaching Evan slowly. “Okay. No regrets, the kids’ll be all right. I don’t want a wedding either. So why are you at full freak-out?”

  “This is barely a normal freak-out. I’ve been worse,” Evan muttered. He let Matt put his arms around him, resting their foreheads together.

  Matt snickered, rubbing Evan’s back in comforting circles, trying not to seem sarcastic when he said, “Yes, dear.”

  “Jerk.” Evan tilted his head back. “Can we just… let’s do this for us. Alone.”

  “Elope?” Matt rubbed his hands up and down Evan’s back. “I’ll get Bennett to send us to the Keys.”

  “Then Bennett would know.”

  Evan’s words—and the ultimate meaning—finally sunk into Matt’s brain. He cycled through a multitude of emotions: confusion, concern, and then delight. “So when you say just us….”

  “I mean….” Evan pushed against Matt’s body in a way that signaled the end of the conversation rapidly approached. “You, me, a judge. This isn’t for anyone else.”

  Matt’s hands slid from comforting to suggestive as he grabbed Evan’s ass. With purpose this time. “My terms are shower sex and going away for the weekend to be noisy and rowdy,” Matt said, throwing in a suggestive grind for punctuation. “In bed, in case that wasn’t clear.”

  A smile finally broke across Evan’s expression. “My terms are you can’t write your own vows because I’m fairly sure you’d mention my ass.”

  “An ode to fucking Evan Cerelli, by Matt Haight,” he said sweetly, then cut off Evan’s laughter with his tongue.

  EVAN LIVED in his head, a constant stream of concerns and worries and self-reflection, imagined reactions and potential pitfalls. Some days he worried about his kids to the point of distraction. He got caught up in cases, stewed over the ones that didn’t resolve quickly. He thought about his friends, torn sometimes between stepping in with advice and minding his own damn business.