Epilogue

“Pack some bug spray,” Daniel suggests, only half-kidding.

“What kind?” his mom asks, sounding as if she’s taking actual notes. “Are there ticks? Horseflies?”

“Yes, and yes. But also, I own bug spray. You will not be seriously injured during your one week in the Hudson Valley. I promise.” He elects not to mention the Hudson Valley’s lesser-known nickname, “the Lyme Disease Capital of the World.”

“Hm.” She sounds skeptical. “What about your hand?”

“I really don’t think you’ll be involved in the arrest of a murdering literature professor,” Daniel points out. “As far as I know, we only had one of those here. Anyway, my hand’s fine.”

“You were still wearing a brace in March.”

“Yes,” Daniel patiently explains, not for the first time, “and it is now June.”

There’s a scuffle on the other end, and then Daniel’s father is on the phone.

“Don’t mind your mother. She likes to fret.” This is not news to Daniel. “Does our hotel have air conditioning?”

“Yes.” Daniel doesn’t actually know, but it’s not like they can change anything if it doesn’t.

“Then I’m sure we’ll be just fine. See you tomorrow, son.”

“See you,” Daniel repeats, shaking his head as he ends the call. He taps out a quick text to Meredith asking her to wish him luck.

She responds with a selfie of herself and the kids at the beach—Benjamin nowhere in sight—with the caption first parent-free week in 4 years. score.

They were all more than a little concerned after Daniel got hurt in January, and for a moment there, it seemed as if the incident was going to restart all their concerns about Daniel living so far away. Thankfully, Tony’s consistent appearance in the background of video calls seemed to assuage that fear, especially after Daniel’s visit during spring break.

“All good?” Tony asks, strolling out onto the porch of his parents’ house. He’s wearing pretty much all leather, and he must know what that’s doing to Daniel because he smirks. The only consolation is that he must be boiling hot.

“Yeah. All good. You know, we don’t have to do this. We could watch a movie in a nice, air-conditioned theater or have dinner or something.”

“No, no, no.” Tony wags his finger. “You promised I could take you out at least once. No backing out. I promise to keep you safe.”

Daniel sighs heavily. “Fine.”

Tony grins and hands him the spare helmet.

“Have you thought about how we’re going to handle dinner?” Daniel asks as Tony pulls his terrifyingly huge motorcycle out of the garage. It’s probably normal-sized for a motorcycle, but Daniel is allowed a bit of healthy skepticism about one of the deadliest hobbies in America.

“It’s Colette. What’s to handle?”

Daniel flicks his ear, then pulls the helmet on so Tony can’t retaliate. “I mean on Saturday, with our parents.”

Tony shrugs. “Play it by ear?”

“Don’t see that blowing up in our faces at all,” Daniel mutters.

“Baby,” Tony admonishes.

“Hm?”

“Relax. It’ll be fine. My parents asked to meet yours. They’re not gonna run out of the restaurant screaming if someone calls you my boyfriend because I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

“Fine. I just don’t want my parents to be all…I don’t know, WASPy. Not that they’re Protestants, only…I worked too hard to get your mom to like me.”

“Not true.” There’s a smile in Tony’s voice. “My mom liked you the moment she met you.” He pats the back of the motorcycle.

“Lies and slander.” Daniel takes a deep breath and swings one leg over the seat behind Tony. Privately, he knows Tony’s probably right. His parents have a leg up already in that they’re not Mario’s parents, who have been alternately overinvested in their granddaughter’s birth and early life and entirely uncommunicative. It’s a weird situation, of course, and Gianna is doing admirably without their help, but it’s still enough to irritate the d’Angelos.

Inside the house, the sound of infant screaming kicks up, and Tony grimaces.

“Liana’s still colicky?” Daniel guesses.

“I’m staying at yours tonight,” Tony says as if he doesn’t sleep over three nights out of four. He starts the motor, drowning out the baby, and then they’re off.

Daniel would never admit it, but Tony was right. The breeze is refreshing in the sweltering, humid Hudson Valley summer. The drive across the bridge especially, with the fresh air from the river cooling them off, is wonderful. Daniel’s still not going to make this a regular thing. By the time they reach campus, his heart is pounding. The splash of gravel as they pull up beside Wordstone Mansion does not help, and when they dismount, his knees are shaking.

Tony shucks his motorcycle leathers and stows them, along with Daniel’s helmet, in the special compartment motorcycles apparently have. He keeps his own under his arm, and together, they head down the field. It’s empty once again now the students have all left for the summer. Somehow, during the spring semester, it remained a popular picnic spot despite the pervasive gossip about Professor Abrams trying to kill Professor Rosenbaum here.

Daniel can’t say he blames the students. Even he still thinks it’s beautiful.

Colette waits for them on a picnic blanket she’s had for about two weeks. “I’m trying to go native,” she explained when she suggested this for her last afternoon in the Hudson Valley before her two-week trip to Ohio.

She’s brought sparkling wine and orange juice as well as a few snacks. Together, they sip mimosas and watch the sun on its steady decline toward the treetops.

“What a school year,” she comments eventually.

“No kidding.” Daniel blows out a long breath. “Can you believe I’m a dean now?”

“Someone had to do it.” Colette’s tone indicates that ‘someone’ had better not be her. “And frankly, better you than the alternatives.”

“I don’t know. With some of the emails I get, it’s no wonder Stacy went nuts.”

Tony snorts. He’s seen most of the emails; Daniel prints out the funniest ones to stick to the fridge. “I don’t see you with a gun when you’re scared of Suzy.”

“I can’t believe you named your motorcycle,” Colette scoffs.

“She’s a Suzuki.” Tony grins. He is absolutely messing with both of them and just waiting for Colette to call him on it.

“Hey,” Daniel protests, vaguely offended. “I got on the motorcycle, and I am still the only one of us who got shot.”

“It was a flesh wound.” Colette recovered admirably from her stint in jail and now carries herself without the tension Daniel didn’t realize was there before. It’s as if the worst possible event occurred and knowing she can get through it has helped her relax.

Maybe it’s knowing she has people to help her through it.

The experience rekindled her friendship with Jeff, even though he was fully ready to believe she had done it. She claims his ability to stick to his principles increased her respect for him. Colette’s also insufferable about having always been right about Stacy.

“Send Jeff our greetings, yeah?” Tony leans back to stare up at the sky.

“Send them yourself.”

“Eh,” Tony wrinkles his nose. He was so thankful for Jeff having called the police in time to save his and Daniel’s lives that he actually hugged Jeff in the hospital when they were waiting for Daniel to be released. But he and Jeff communicate exclusively via Daniel’s occasional text exchanges to him.

Not everything is as it should be, of course. Andrew Clayfield is still in a closed ward, receiving treatment, and Daniel’s pretty sure he’s not the only one who feels terrible about that. Lily Peterson hasn’t returned to campus yet either, although Daniel’s heard she’ll return next semester. Stacy’s family moved to Poughkeepsie, both so the kids would be closer to their grandparents and, Daniel’s pretty sure, to avoid the rumors that cropped up about Stacy’s husband and his underage students.

It’s still a better outcome than Daniel dreamed of that day in January, grappling on an icy rock with blood seeping out of his hand and loosening his grip.

Eventually, Colette packs up the blanket and the drinks. She’s taking a late train to Newark to catch her flight at the crack of dawn. “Don’t get involved in any murder investigations while I’m gone,” she tells them sternly, which they’ve been saying to one another every time one of them leaves the apartment building for longer than five minutes. Someday, it will stop being funny. Probably.

“I’ll try,” Daniel promises. “Have fun. Come back rested. I need you for my crime project next semester.”

Colette sighs.

It turns out she doesn’t hate procedural crime shows because they’re police propaganda or because they’re senselessly violent, although she maintains both those things are true. She hates them because she’s a big baby about jump scares. The crime-mapping project Daniel got funding for involves watching many, many procedural crime shows.

Daniel can’t wait.

After Colette disappears up over the top of the gentle slope of the field and her car starts distantly, Tony twists to lean up on one elbow.

“So.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

“So?”

“Come here often?”

“Oh, yeah,” Daniel says breezily. “Saved a guy’s life here once.”

“Really. Wild. Me too.”

“Wow, sounds like we have a lot in common.” Daniel inches closer. “Wanna get out of here?”

“Hmm…” Tony runs a teasing hand up Daniel’s chest. “I was thinking we could stay.”

A thrill shoots down Daniel’s spine. “Really? Here?”

Tony shrugs. “Might as well make some good memories.”

He dips down to kiss Daniel deeply, and it’s not as if Daniel is overladen with common sense when it comes to Tony anyway, so he goes with it. He skims his hands up along the line of Tony’s waist and slides his fingers under his T-shirt. Even in the late afternoon heat, Tony shivers.

“Let me.” Tony pulls away with a glare.

“Okay.” Daniel relaxes into the grass. “Didn’t know you had a vision.”

Tony mumbles something indistinct that might be, “You are a vision.”

Daniel doesn’t call him on it. Instead, he lets himself enjoy as Tony unbuttons and unzips his pants, settles between his legs and takes the head of Daniel’s cock in his mouth.

He’s only half hard to start with, given this has all been pretty sudden, but the adrenaline of how easily they could be caught and the sight of Tony, head bobbing between his legs, dark eyelashes fluttering, is more than enough to get him there.

“You’re so good at this,” he murmurs, cupping the back of Tony’s head in his hand.

Tony makes a sound around his cock; the vibration of it rumbles through Daniel.

He tugs at Tony’s ponytail, and Tony redoubles his efforts, swallowing around Daniel and sinking deep, greedy for it.

“You love this, don’t you,” Daniel whispers affectionately. “Love choking yourself on me, like if you can just be good enough, I’ll give you everything you want.”

Really, he’s not doing anything but telling Tony what he wants to hear, himself, if it were him. It turns out Tony appreciates a lot of the same things, giving Daniel a handy advantage in making him lose his mind.

“You can,” Tony rasps after pulling away to catch his breath. “You do give me everything.”

Daniel bites the inside of his cheek to avoid a mid-sex romantic declaration. He’s saving that. Instead, he pulls at Tony’s hair again, stroking a gentle thumb over the ridge of his cheekbone.

Tony dives in again, holding the base of Daniel’s cock steady and licking circles around the head as he sucks.

Daniel throws his head back and lets himself enjoy it, feel it, the racing of his pulse, the feel of Tony’s mouth, hotter even than a Hudson Valley summer. He comes, biting out curse words and flooding Tony’s mouth, and when Tony kneels up to look at him, a trickle has escaped past his lips. He licks it up as if he can’t quite get enough. In the past, Daniel would have probably thought it was gross, but because it’s Tony, he can’t stop from surging up to kiss him.

“Please,” Tony gasps. “Daniel, I’m…”

Daniel hitches his hips up to rub Tony’s hard cock against him. “Got you all worked up, huh?”

“Yeah.” Tony nods furiously. “Yeah, please…please…”

It would be fun to tease him a little longer, make him beg a little more. But they are in a very public place, so Daniel tugs at the fly of Tony’s shorts until they’re down his thighs, and Daniel wraps his hand around him.

Tony makes a noise like he’s holding in a sob.

“Wow, you really like this,” Daniel says. Tony’s already wet, leaking precome.

“I…” Tony trails off into a gasp as Daniel strokes him quickly. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Daniel tuts. “Language.” But he doesn’t slow down.

Tony claws Daniel’s free arm, holding on for dear life as he comes in thick pulses all across Daniel’s fist. His eyes are wide and his mouth is open and Daniel has to kiss him through it because he’s just too beautiful.

Tony’s grip on Daniel’s arm goes tight and painful, and they overbalance, falling into the grass. They wind up side by side, laughing and messy, spread-eagled on the lawn. Daniel probably has grass stains everywhere. He doesn’t care.

“I feel like I should have known you’re an exhibitionist, given our first time,” Daniel accuses.

Tony laughs harder. “I swear I’m not,” he gets out between giggles.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“I promise. This doesn’t count; there’s no one here. You know I couldn’t sleep the whole night after we met because I was so freaked out my sister might have seen something?”

Daniel frowns. “Seriously? You seemed so confident.”

“I promise I was not.” Tony grins carelessly.

Daniel shakes his head. “What about when I came back, and we—”

“I don’t know.” Tony looks over at him. “No one was there the time we actually…you know, in the garage. I knew we wouldn’t get interrupted. Didn’t know whose van we ended up against, but you know…”

Daniel groans. “I’d nearly suppressed that memory, thanks.”

For a moment, they stare up at the clear evening sky together, reminiscing.

Daniel lets his pinky link with Tony’s. “When we met, I was really…surprised you were interested. I kind of thought you were way out of my league and that you were just that smooth.”

Tony turns onto his side with their fingers still linked together and looks at Daniel. His laugh lines crinkle like he’s smiling, but his tone is serious. “When we met…I started talking to you, and I liked you so much my brain stopped working. That never happened to me before. Didn’t feel smooth to me; felt like I walked face-first into a steep drop.”

There are a lot of things Daniel could say. Potshots about how that brain condition obviously stuck around, given he chose to forgive Daniel over thinking he or his sister might be murderers. Jokes about the fact that Tony sweet-talked him into having sex on a very public lawn, which was nothing if not smooth.

Instead, he tangles his fingers with Tony’s. “I was the same. Heart-first.”

Tony presses a kiss to the side of his head, and together, they watch the sun sink into the trees toward the Hudson.