Epilogue

"What do you want?"

He'd been reaching out and brushing my ankle with his chilly toes every few minutes for the last half hour. He was sitting next me, turned sideways in a chair, reading.

"Am I not allowed to touch you anymore?"

"You want something."

"So suspicious . . ."

He returned to his book like I was the one interrupting him and waited until I had focused on my paperwork again before saying casually, like it had just occurred to him, "You know, we can get married in California now . . ."

"We don't live in California."

"But we could take a vacation . . ."

"It's really sunny there, you know."

"It's going to be overcast next weekend in the northern part of the state."

"Convenient."

"You have seventy-five days of vacation time built up, you know."

"I can't take seventy-five days off of work if that's what you're suggesting."

"You can take three days."

"No honeymoon, huh?"

He didn't answer and when I looked up he was staring at his fingernails with an absorbed expression, like our conversation wasn't really very important to him but I knew he only acted this extremely disinterested when he was desperate.

"Fine. But I'm not buying a you diamond."

He scoffed.

"As if I would fall for my own scam."

"What?"

"Diamonds. The idiotic notion that little hunks of glass somebody dug out of the ground are a symbol of undying love is a completely fabricated notion created by an advertising agency to make money."

"What does that have to do with you?"

"It's my advertising agency. And not the first time I've fleeced humans for their gold. It's adorably easy."

"You own an advertising agency?"

"Oh, I own just about everything," he said dismissively.

"Everything how?"

"I have controlling shares in nearly every one of your fortune 500 companies and there's so much money sitting around in various accounts I don't even remember where they all are."

"But you didn't even know how to work a blender when we met . . ."

"I don't do my own accounting, obviously. What a tedious waste of my time. That's what humans are for."

"Okay. So how rich are you?"

He looked at me like I was maybe stupid and said, "Charlie dear, I am the wealthiest person the planet. I think I would have to be a rather profound imbecile to not be at my age. I've been looting the corpses of empires for centuries upon centuries. They kill each other off and I take their treasures."

"Well good to know you're not marrying me for my money because I don't have any."

"So that's a yes?"

"Did you ask me something?"

He set his book aside and rose from his chair. I had a bunch of carefully sorted papers on the table in front of me he pushed them aside, scattering them everywhere.

"I'll put them back just like you had them, don't worry."

He sat where they'd been, putting his feet on the armrests of my chair. He leaned forward and kissed me softly.

"Charlie Swan you should marry me."

"Is that a demand?"

I actually really liked the idea, I'd loved being married before but torturing him first before consenting was fun.

"Yes. I demand for you to marry me."

He didn't actually give me a chance to respond. I didn't know if it was because he was afraid I would turn him down or he was just extra amorous that day but I wasn't allowed to get dressed for several hours after that and any time I tried to talk he kissed me or did something else that robbed me of my ability to speak coherently.

We drove down the next Thursday so we'd there on Friday morning. We had to wait in a line when we got to the courthouse. The clerk said that it had been like that since the day they started issuing licenses for same sex marriages in June. It was difficult not to feel a little emotional watching all of those couples get married before us. Some of them had only been together a short time like us but there were many who had been together for decades. There was one lesbian couple who were in their seventies and had spent their entire lives together and would probably have been called adorable by the most homophobic person on the planet. I asked the couples around us why they weren't waiting and having big weddings and they said they knew that the privilege they had now was temporary and would likely be taken away in the November election so they wanted to get married before that happened because their marriage would still be legal and they could plan a real wedding for later on.

I was proud of Aro for not giggling madly at the "until death do you part" line and then had the bizarre experience of having a room full of people cheer when we kissed.

When we got back I was surprised to find that several of the guys I knew were a little put out that I didn't let them throw a bachelor party. I said it would be a little weird to have female strippers at a bachelor party for a guy getting married to another guy and one of my deputies threw up his hands and said, "They're not for you, dumb ass!" Then he apologized for calling me a dumb ass, asked me not to fire him and awkwardly congratulated me on getting married.

It seemed like us getting married sort of legitimized our relationship to the town and the last outward traces of weirdness faded pretty quickly after that. By marrying one of its own, Aro had officially become a citizen of Forks and was then subject only to the regular prejudices and annoyances of living in a small town.

For better or for worse.

In everlasting immortal health.

Until . . .