A/N: This epilogue is a total infodump and I'm not sorry. (That's a lie. I'm a little bit sorry but not enough to cut it, lol.)

…

Scheduled for Friday
by Anton M.

73: Epilogue

…

Atlanta, Georgia

Thursday, January 24
7 years later

"Why are you turning east?" I asked, holding on to the door handle as dad made a U-turn from Moreland to DeKalb Avenue. Car lights blurred on the rainy windows but the rain had stopped. "Dad?"

"Your mom wanted me to pick up some furniture from Facebook Marketplace. It'll only take a second." Dad glanced at my beautifully manicured fingernails tapping on my phone. His gaze returned to the road, but his voice got softer. "I'm sure he's okay, sweetie."

"It's not like him to skip a scheduled call," I replied, my stomach twisting with unease. "Edward never lets me go to voicemail. You know that."

"I'm sure he's just busy," dad reassured.

I kept my eyes trained on my lock screen, putting my fingernails in my mouth only to remove them a moment later, willing for Edward to return my calls.

Had he been in an accident? Had he had an emergency at the lab? A friend or a professor in need of last-minute help? He always let me know when he couldn't make one of our calls. The fact that he hadn't even messaged worried me.

It didn't help that, with his first year of PhD at MIT and my filming principal photography with a perfectionist director, we hadn't seen each other for five months. It was the longest we'd gone without stealing weekends or holidays with each other. Even my Christmas, crazy enough, was spent in a jungle in Cambodia while Edward stayed with Riley and my parents. It was intense and strange and I never wanted to be on set for Christmas again.

I was so distracted by my worries that I barely registered it when dad took a sharp left and slowed down, but the broad-shouldered, dark figure leaning against his bike in a parking lot certainly caught my attention.

My poor heart went into overdrive.

"Oh my God." I jumped out of dad's SUV and sprinted over puddles to my pierced, leather-covered, hair-blowing-in-the-wind boyfriend wearing the goofiest smile on his face. Laughing, he caught me when I jumped into his arms.

"Oh my God," I repeated, taking in his twinkling eyes and touching the stubble on his cheeks. Our lips met in a breathless return home as we grinned and gasped and tasted each other. He smelled like home and a riot of butterflies in my stomach. His nose was cold.

"Hi baby," he whispered against my lips, voice low and husky, eyes alight.

"You asshole!" I accused, unable to stop smiling in spite of my words. "I was worried sick over you! And you just— you just— When did you—? How did you—? For how long?"

"Until our flight to Boston on Monday."

"Our flight?"

His grip tightened on my ass. "Our flight."

I lost myself in our kiss, nipping at his lips, breathing through his mouth, relishing every second of his warm breath and his coarse cheeks sending a delicious, impatient current through me. I adored his cold piercings pressing against my skin.

He groaned when I tugged at his hair, the hair he sometimes grew out for modeling deals he no longer needed.

You don't take your gorgeous boyfriend to photoshoots without someone on the sidelines noticing that, "Hey, Bahati's man is handsome as fuck." And so, a year before the court settlement awarded (a much overdue) 27.15 million dollars to my unworthy-feeling boyfriend for the crane accident, Edward covered for the need-based scholarships he no longer qualified for by modeling. He didn't get paid outrageously at first but the money made up for the remaining portion of his tuition until he sold his double-wide. (He wouldn't have been my responsible boyfriend if he hadn't been determined to stay financially independent from us.)

I adored sending him selfies in front of Måns billboards with ten-stories-high faces of my dangerous-looking boyfriend in ethically sourced, high-end jewelry for men, but the joke was on me because Sébire and Loïc wanted an endorsement deal with both of us to capitalize on us as a couple, and, for a few years, Edward and I made lovey-dovey eyes at each other on billboards all over the world.

Not wanting modeling to take up his precious time studying, Edward stopped doing it casually the day of the crane accident settlement (with the exception of our Sébire and Loïc contract). He wasn't the type of man to be bullied or teased (except by Jasper) and his Georgia Tech classmates already knew him by the time his face got plastered all over the city, but he did receive a few comments and questions. It got worse when he began his graduate degree at MIT, but the few professors and students stupid enough to challenge him soon learned that Edward was lightyears away from just a pretty face.

A substitute lecturer for something insane like Applied Probability and Stochastic Modeling recognized Edward and thought it a good opportunity to teach the students a lesson about being smart enough for that class and doing their homework—expecting Edward, the model boyfriend of an actress, to fail—but not only did Edward ace the questions, he used that bored-sounding voice that Jasper loved to emulate, as if waiting the lecturer to get to the hard questions.

I was worried that he'd feel bad for being known as Bahati's boyfriend in college but by his second semester at MIT, the roles had reversed. I became known as Thermoninja's actress girlfriend (because Thermodynamics and Jet Propulsion was apparently the toughest course and everyone hated Edward because his impossibly high 97% in class messed up the grading curve). I adored the switch. Edward claimed not to be bothered to be known through me, but the way his eyes lit up when people used his new nickname and the way it stuck didn't lie. One time, Edward and I overheard his friends from the AeroAstro department argue over which one of us was luckier: Thermoninja for dating a Golden Globe and a two-time Emmy Award winner, or me for dating Thermoninja, a chess Grandmaster who was a badass in his chosen field of interest, aerospace engineering.

And in the middle of it all, my modest genius boyfriend flourished, and it was a wonder to watch it happen. He learned how to take care of his introverted needs without sacrificing his social life to them and leaned into the side of him that enjoyed teaching by becoming a teaching assistant. He ignored whatever paparazzi sometimes followed him, which thankfully became rarer.

He continued therapy. He spent nights and weekends studying for his two passions: aerospace engineering and chess, earning himself a Wikipedia page with a FIDE rating of 2697 among the top 50 players in the world with a footnote about being a model, an Aeronautics and Astronautics student at MIT, and, hilariously, Bahati's boyfriend. (Although Edward sweetly said he really had three passions: aerospace engineering, chess, and me, but because we couldn't live together yet, he buried himself in the other two.)

He got an identical piercing on the same eyebrow, just a fourth of an inch apart from the other one. He started getting tattoos. He experimented with the length and style of his hair.

Hoping to protect me better (how did I deserve this man?) and wanting to avoid back pain from long nights by his textbook and computer, Edward began to exercise with intent, but together we discovered that Mike's and Garrett's size and shape was largely achieved with steroids (I'd never thought to ask them). Busy enough without toying around with heart attack and insomnia, Edward kept clean as he transformed from a lean model to a more muscled, mature man with a soccer-player's body type. He didn't get a six-pack but I wouldn't have wanted him to; he already gave me absurd butterflies just by standing across the room from me. In fact, the first time he came to get me at the airport after three months of regular gym, he rented a motorcycle and waited for me in a tailored leather jacket, T-shirt tight over his pecs, and I felt shy around that man.

I was not a shy person but the confident way in which he engulfed me in his arms and wrapped me in his leather jacket made my knees weak. It was a miracle I could keep my hands off of him long enough for us to make it to his deserted dorm room, and I must've fallen asleep under the covers in his naked arms afterwards because I woke up to Edward's grunted, "Get lost."

We laughed about it later, and Edward apologized to his wide-eyed roommate, but at least he got himself a studio apartment by my next visit.

Edward had worse poverty PTSD than I did. He'd been determined to live the life of a normal college student and ignore the knowledge of the tens of millions he'd invested in ETFs, but it was undeniable how much easier (and safer) both of our lives got after he bought himself a small apartment not too far from his lab.

It was a relief not having to book hotels or schedule my visits around his roommate's life.

He once joked that all his achievements were unlocked because he needed to distract himself from missing me, which was cute as heck but also true if he deep-dived into his passions the way I did with mine.

Edward was a bit of a hothead when it came to me. He didn't bat an eyelash if people mocked him for his modeling stint or any perceived imperfections (such as wearing pink shirts or swallowing his food without chewing), but if anyone said anything rude or racist about me, Edward did not hesitate to flip people off. One time, he got into a fist-fight in a parking lot. Nobody pressed charges, and he never did say what the other student had said or threatened, but the way Edward behaved—evasive in words and yet snuggling me for the entire weekend—made it clear that it had been about me.

Tabloids would've had a field day with it had any paparazzi been around to photograph the incident, but as it was, the story became no more than a rumor.

Edward took flights to LA to support me during award seasons without joining me on the red carpet, and I took flights to see his key chess tournaments. The events were made all the better by the preceding and following nights in hotel rooms in each other's arms even if newspapers used the events as opportunities to get clicks by writing articles about how we'd actually broken up for real this time.

They were proven wrong so often that it became our little inside joke.

And in the end, I agreed with Edward's college friends.

Of course I was the lucky one. It wasn't even close.

I, too, graduated high school, although I took a year longer because of my more-than-full-time job. Edward was so proud you'd have thought I won an Oscar. He treated me to a weekend getaway to Garrett's bachelor pad, so we spent every waking (and sleeping) second naked in each other's arms, ordering take-out when we got hungry, and only sneaked out once to see Manchester Orchestra live. To others we told that we enjoyed the Atlanta music scene and street food together, which was technically true if you kept out the part where we had sex all weekend and barely made it to the band's first song. I adored it.

Mom and dad threw me a dinner party, Riley got me a dinosaur T-shirt that I wore to absolute tatters, and Garrett, in true G-Kam style, bought me a beautiful Kawasaki motorcycle (with my parents' permission). Edward made me study its frame and engine and quizzed me on the top hundred most probable ways it could break down and how I'd fix it if it did. My parents didn't allow me to drive it until I hit the absolute highest scores on Edward's make-do tests, and I could've applied for job in a motorcycle repair shop with all my newfound knowledge.

Two full weeks of driving my bike like a total badass was all it took for Tanya to forbid me from riding it until the end of filming Underground Memories. Many long discussions later, I caved, but you bet I brought out the bike on the day after filming wrapped.

Mike and I had so much taekwondo training for Underground Memories that the belts we received for fun in the beginning made us extremely competitive. We received our 1st dan black belts weeks before beginning to film the fifth book, and, combined with borrowing moves from capoeira and ninjutsu for their theatricality, we created some surreal fight sequences for the last season of the series. I had to pretend not to know much in the previous seasons but loved finally getting to train for and film fight scenes with the others.

And so, seven years from the first camera roll, we sent off the series of our generation with a bang.

By the end of the seventh season—the last two books, The Secret Woodlands and The Quiet Passage, were split into two seasons each—Underground Memories was a world-wide phenomenon and the most watched series of all time. The second season introduced Tyrese for love triangle potential (but not really), and we got to film and befriend some incredibly talented actors and actresses through the series. The fourth season brought the much dreaded (and much anticipated) sex scene between Nala and Mathys, and, just like I promised Edward, he got front row seats to that comfortable experience with at least fifty people in the room. (Edward had spent enough time on set that his presence was barely noticed.) Mike and I, feeling like we were closer to siblings by that time, made the best of it, and our chemistry sizzled on screen enough to renew reports of us using our respective partners as PR shields to our real relationship.

Edward witnessed the world-class awkwardness of seeing us switch between our acting personas having near-nude sex for the cameras, and our real selves, covering ourselves and cracking jokes to ease the tension. He apologized later for asking to be there but I wouldn't hear it. He had nothing to apologize for. Acting came with such weird requirements and I'd have been anxious, too, if Edward modeled near-nude with a naked woman who wasn't me. It was only natural to feel uncomfortable with it.

Couples all over the world got soulmate tattoos from Nala and Mathys, from Renier and Sebastian, from Delia and Garibald, even from Heloise and her bat Erco. Audiences kept discussing the last season's pinnacle events for weeks and months while Mike and I tolerated questions of whether we'd have Nala's and Mathys's soulmate tattoos inked on our skin.

Why would we have gotten soulmate tattoos with people who weren't our partners?

This question, apparently, did not deter a single journalist. It was frustrating.

The series brought unprecedented attention and security risks. I got to travel the world. Crying, screaming, fainting fans awaited me anywhere I went for years. I modeled. Tabloids covered my style as if I was a fashion icon. My social media accounts became unmanageable without outside help but I never gave up Mr. Bahati's account. My parents, Riley, Edward—my friends and family—were the only reason I didn't turn into a world-class asshole, calling me on my shit whenever needed. I learned how blindly lucky I'd gotten to have Tanya take care of me as a minor, firing not one but two employees when they turned out to be creeps, and I'd had no clue about it until literal years later. Mike pulled a David Schwimmer before our fourth season and suggested that we negotiate our salaries together (obviously a bigger advantage to me than to him), which was insanely kind of him but also taught me to stand up for myself.

It was a whirlwind of a life to get used to. I went from being overly eager to attend award shows, in awe of meeting A-list actors and actresses in the audience, to eventually feeling like the events were a mandatory part of business. Some of them were fun, some less fun, and it never stopped feeling surreal to have your name called out, but I definitely began to count the hours near the end of any event until Edward would (metaphorically) rip off yet another Nolce and Banana gown and make me forget my name.

I kept in contact with Garrett's sister, my three cousins and new grandmother, flying over to Windhoek at least once a year and surprising them with phrases in Rumanyo (which Garrett was teaching me). They cried at my attempts which I hoped was because they were touched and not because my accent terrified them. They were warm and eager to get to know me, giddy with pride every time I got nominated for an award, and sent me (and Garrett) every mention of myself in Namibian newspapers.

Garrett and I got to know each other much better, our histories and flaws and hopes for our relationship, setting aside time to message and call each other from across the world. With Garrett casually but carefully dating women of his own age and no other emerging accusations, the scandal of how I came to be mostly faded into history. A few people sometimes tried to stir that shit up but most people were tired of the same old story with no similar stains on his past.

When dad had been to half a dozen award shows with me, enough to pretend to have the flu to get out of one, I asked him if it was okay that I attended the Academy Awards with Garrett. Dad was relieved. I was invited on my own without a nomination, but Garrett and I went together. He won in the Best Actor category that night, and his speech was an ode to myself and my parents, and I'd be lying if I said I got out of there with dry eyes.

It was the sweetest gesture. His hope to be a mentor, an uncle or a friend to me was certainly a reality now, and he was thrilled to teach me about the 10% pledge and see me make my own. I began to support local food banks, foster care foundations, substance abuse programs, Planned Parenthood and so many others. It took years for me to get Edward on board not because he was ungenerous—quite the opposite—but because his anxiety over money took a long time to recover from. He had a built-in fear of money, fear of losing it but also fear of not being deserving of it, and I did not say another word to him about supporting any causes until, three years later, he came to me himself to ask how it all worked.

I almost cried.

Emmett and Rose continued to date but did not show up in public together for another few years, and I didn't know if it was Rose's effect on Emmett or his medication but his anger mellowed out. His tics, too, got rarer. They kept their relationship extremely private, so much so that when Rose invited Edward and me to their exclusive wedding in California, I didn't even know they were engaged. Their wedding was straight out of a fairy-tale, and when Emmett interrupted my dance with Edward to talk to me, I knew straight away that he was quitting his job as my bodyguard. He was proud of me, though, for listening to experts when it came to my safety, just like I was proud of him for learning to keep a handle on his anger. He offered to be my bodyguard—if he was available—to any events in and near LA.

I took him up on his offer because Rose invited me to stay with them and prepare for award shows at her mansion almost as often as Mike did. Edward and I definitely took advantage of their kindness, although we were always a bit nervous of breaking some fancy crystals or artwork in their professionally designed homes.

Jasper dropped out of University of South Carolina after two and a half years (of studying journalism) when his comedy podcast began to pay for his daily expenses. His focus was on doing interviews with regular—and not so regular—people and brute-forcing their life story into the plot of a random movie. I nearly peed my pants the second time I joined him because clearly my life story was closest to the plot of Swiss Army Knife with a dead, flatulent side-kick. Jasper insisted that it was a brilliant metaphor for paparazzi and crazy fans.

He returned to Atlanta and moved in together with Alice much to the vocal outrage of Alice's parents. Mr. and Mrs. Brandon-Reid threatened to cut her off financially if she moved in with a college drop-out, forgetting that Alice hadn't been dependent on them for years. For the thousandth time, I offered to cover Alice's tuition, which she thankfully—finally—accepted (but not a cent more). Her parents had so many rules and dreams for her future that, with our support, Alice kept low contact with them as she got an MFA in Graphic Design from Savannah College of Art and Design (Atlanta campus), and when she got her first Junior Graphic Designer job in Marietta, she wouldn't shut up about it, which was just how it was supposed to be.

Her parents came around eventually, but I didn't blame Alice for guarding herself in her relationship with them.

Those first four years when Edward was studying in Atlanta turned into something out of a dream with my tight-knit group of friends and family frequently gathering for dinners at our place. I tried to give back, to show up at every important event for Alice and Jasper, Edward and Riley, mom and dad, Edward's gramps and Garrett. Our costume designer Seth Hanning allowed me to use his eerily realistic masks to make sure my presence wouldn't detract from the achievements of my loved ones, so I often showed up as an elderly lady or a short, tiny man.

It was nostalgic to remember what it felt like to be anonymous in a crowd.

For years, my parents fostered other children, much more distressing cases than Riley, but what really broke our hearts was when we had to give the kids back to their parents, so, two summers ago, after four years of fostering children who weren't Riley, mom and dad took a break to better support Riley when his mom's health took a turn for the worse.

Riley's mom passed away from liver cirrhosis days after Edward graduated from Georgia Tech. Riley did not remember his mother as an alcoholic but as a woman who loved him and let him watch endless videos. He was inconsolable. In a double whammy, his father Jesse at Phillips State Prison got diagnosed with late-stage leukemia, some aggressive subtype, and all the money in the world couldn't help him. I didn't know if it was better or worse that Riley got to say goodbye to his father, but it happened much too fast; only a month after he lost his mother.

It was a brutal summer. Riley's father had been a good man, good enough that his crime felt disproportionate to his punishment. With monthly and biweekly visitations, we'd grown fond of Jesse. He was grumpy but soft-spoken. He loved his son and counted the days when he could get out and live together with him. It was tough but necessary for him to sign documents that gave my parents full legal guardianship for Riley. He was effusive in his praise for my parents (and me) and wrote letters for my dad to give Riley at different milestones in his life.

Nobody had a dry eye in the room the day we received news of Jesse's death. (Well, that's a lie—mom did not cry, but her cold bitch heart didn't really count, and she was a big rock to Riley.)

My parents and Edward had a heart-to-heart regarding Riley's adoption, with Edward now ready (and financially secure) to take care of his cousin regardless of what Jesse had signed. Mom and dad admired his offer as much as they feared it because they didn't want to lose Riley. In the end, they involved the boy in the discussion, and he got teary-eyed when my parents said they wanted to finalize adoption paperwork. Riley didn't want to move away from his friends and school, but he did worship Edward. His lip wobbled as he apologized to my boyfriend for not wanting to move to Boston, for not wanting Edward to feel like Riley was rejecting him or for Edward to hate Riley for choosing my parents.

Edward asked us to leave before the two spent an hour talking, and when they allowed us back in the living room, they had shiny-eyed smiles on their faces, but Riley's disappeared the moment he spotted me. Lifting his chin, he said to Edward, "But you can never break up with Bella now. Promise."

Smiling, Edward locked eyes with me as he ruffled the boy's hair. "Easiest promise in the world."

Mom's cold black heart was cured on the day we went to court to finalize Riley's adoption. Edward, dad and I had extensive practice blinking back tears while my mom, my perpetually-dead-inside mom, wailed. It was the only time in my life I'd ever seen mom cry, but when I mentioned it to dad on our way out, he said, "She was the same way when you were born."

Oh dear Lord somebody please give more kids to my parents, they are too pure.

We overwhelmed Riley with gifts during dinner while trying to keep mom hydrated because her face had gone all puffy from crying and she still hadn't stopped. Not that we blamed her. It was an emotional night full of stories of Riley from when he was little (from Edward and gramps), from the night I first met him and from after he moved in with my parents. We drank apple juice from champagne glasses. I amazed Riley by taking out my favorite dinosaur, a monoclonius that traveled the world with me, never to be parted from. Edward, one-upping me, took out his own little stegosaurus, and my dad meant his quip as a joke but his eyes were shimmering when he asked, "None for us?"

Riley sped out of the living room before returning with his little cloth bag of dinosaurs and poured them all over the dinner table.

"Whichever ones you want!"

Dad chose an acrocanthosaurus, mom took a pterodactyl and gramps grabbed a brachiosaurus. Riley gave us a full overview of the habitats and eating habits of the chosen dinosaurs before he got quiet and shuffled awkwardly in his seat, looking ashamed.

Quietly, he said, "I'm too old for them, aren't I?"

Oh dear Riley one is never to old for dinosaurs, especially if one started his own philosophy with them.

"I'm sixty seven, my dear boy. If you are too old for them what does that make me? I will be honored to have it on my mantle piece." Gramps set his dinosaur on the edge of his plate. "May I take one for Dennis? He'd be thrilled to have one watch over him."

Edward and I set up a trust fund for Riley. Edward wanted to do it all by himself, with only his own money, but I wouldn't hear it. Riley was my brother and brother beat cousin by a mile. Of the two of us, I had a better knowledge of (and interest in) legalese, and so we set up a healthy seven-digit trust fund for the boy. We had the document drawn up by a lawyer and made sure to include smart provisions to prevent Riley from taking it all out when he turned eighteen to bankrupt himself with a Bugatti. On a similar note, Edward and I created wills for ourselves. Without one, until I got married, my money would all (obviously) go to my parents, but I wanted to include other friends and family—especially Edward and Riley—in it even though my boyfriend adamantly fought me giving him half of my money in case of my death.

And even though Edward argued with me giving him a shitton of money after my passing, he did the same in his own will. Obviously, everything would need to be reworked if or when we got married or had kids, to and with each other or someone else, but even then, I felt much more at peace knowing that if anything happened to me, Edward was taken care of.

I learned to play chess, too, properly but oh-so-naively, because I thought I could get good enough to challenge Edward one day. Wouldn't that have been something?

How far could FIDE 1900s be from 2600s in chess, anyway?

Light years, man. Light years. To the world's top 50, I might as well have been an infant who accidentally poked a chess board with her toe. I did get good enough to beat Mike's brother, which annoyed him to no end, but that only unofficially set me somewhere around the FIDE score of 1900s. It was a healthy, intermediate score. I wouldn't have been laughed out of the room if I tried to challenge a FIDE-rated player with that score, but to beat Edward would've meant dedicating half a century to the game or getting a brain transplant, and I wasn't sure either of those would've made a difference in the end.

But lucky for me, I still had Bella's Gambit.

…

Holding me tight against him, Edward pulled away from my lips and touched my nose with his. "Honey, your dad's freezing in his car."

I'd left my phone on the dashboard, my purse on the floor, and the door wide open in the wind while my dad politely pretended not to notice the cold breeze as he buried his face in his phone.

Still grinning like a maniac, Edward lowered me on the ground and kissed my lips before releasing me. Feeling like the giddiest girlfriend in the world, I held his hand as we jogged around puddles and approached dad.

"You let me think my fuel gauge broke!" I complained to dad, grinning—I usually took myself to work with my bike. "But you emptied the tank, didn't you?"

Scratching his beard, dad glanced at my boyfriend. "Edward made me."

I laughed, understanding why dad hadn't met my eyes when I was worrying over Edward's phone call. "I'd be so upset if you two weren't such adorable little schemers."

Dad gave me a wicked smile.

Edward gathered my helmet, gloves, and bike jacket from the trunk as I took my stuff from the front seat.

"Can I tell Riley you're here?" dad asked Edward who peeked into the car behind me. It gave me so much joy to witness how close they'd grown.

"I'd rather surprise him tomorrow."

"And I take it you're not coming home tonight?"

"Not tonight," Edward confirmed, sharing a few words with dad before he shut the car door. Dad honked as he drove away.

Edward's eyes shone with happiness. Adjusting my things on his arm (a pile he wouldn't let me carry), he wrapped the other one over my shoulders and held me close as we walked toward Fegatello's Attack.

I'd been to the restaurant many times, but only a handful with Edward since he left for MIT.

"I thought Fegatello's Attack was only supposed to open next week? Isn't it under renovation?"

"It is, technically." Edward kissed my hairline. "I made a few calls."

"Will you look at my fancy Grandmaster boyfriend, getting all the doors opened with a few calls."

Edward grinned.

"Why, though?" I asked as we entered the restaurant.

Surrounded by the scent of garlic and herbs and everything delicious, we piled our stuff on an unused table (even my infamous coat that I never left unattended) and took in the darker and moodier interior before I caught Edward staring at me with a mischievous half-smile on his face.

"What?" I asked.

He looked ridiculously handsome in dark jeans and a maroon button-down. Rolling up his sleeves, he revealed muscled, hairy forearms with my braided threads around his wrists, and a flurry of emotions wrapped around my heart when he tipped my chin up and touched my lips with his thumb.

"You don't know why?"

Feeling buoyant with affection, I took hold of his waist. "Because you love me and wanted to surprise me and make me feel like the most spoiled princess ever by booking an entire restaurant for us after not seeing me for five months?"

Edward's eyes got the cutest secret glint in them. "Always," he replied, wrapping his panty-dropping scent around me and nuzzling my hair. "Nothing to do with today being seven years since our first date."

"Shut up!" I almost yelled, pulling back, locking eyes with him. "For real?"

Edward's laughter did precious things to my heart. "For real."

"Oh my God. Seven years. Wow." I felt the warmth of his muscles when I squeezed his sides. "And you remembered the date?"

Edward took my hands and kissed my knuckles. His eyes sparkled. "Feather-heart," he said, giving me a meaningful glance that said, 'Fuck yeah I did, why are you surprised?'

"You're amazing." I gripped his neck and pulled him down to a kiss. "You're here. In Atlanta. With me. I still can't believe it! And I'm sorry I didn't remember. I would've…" I looked down at my subpar clothing, Edward's familiar old hoodie thrown over yoga-pants and a sports bra.

"You're perfect," Edward replied, voice husky, pulling me into a warm, slow, yearning kiss that made me feel high. His strong hands slid under my hoodie, pressing me closer and sending heat through me. I tiptoed before he picked me up and pushed me against a pillar. Drowning in his kisses, I locked my ankles around him and hummed into his mouth.

"Babe, there's… people in the kitchen," Edward rasped, voice low in my ear, but he kept kissing my neck and I didn't want him to stop. His lips were soft and intoxicating. I wanted his breath on my skin.

"Hey, I wasn't the one who—"

I totally was. So was he. It was damn near impossible to keep my hands off of him, not having seen each other since August. Blushing, I slid to the floor but pressed myself nice and tight against the bulge in his pants before I pulled away. Edward groaned and yanked me back, hiding his face near my ear as he hugged me from behind.

"Later," he promised in a low voice that almost convinced me to rip his clothes off.

We settled across from each other by the chess table, but the distance felt silly, so we scooted to the middle of the U-shaped booth before I realized that we needed menus and began to get up.

Edward held me tight against him. "I ordered for us."

"How'd you know what I want?"

"I know you," he grumbled into my ear, but his eyes spoke of mischief. "But mostly I needed them to get a head start with how slow you eat."

I blew a raspberry on his neck. Edward laughed and held me tighter. Him reassuring me that the kitchen staff was generously compensated for tonight didn't prevent me from slipping them all three hundred dollar bills in my wallet. Catching up and stealing kisses, Edward and I ate our pasta (well, he inhaled his before waiting for my left-overs) before we received our delicious tiramisu.

Edward swallowed half of his cake in one bite (because of course he did) and squeezed my knee in his lap.

"Didn't you have a test for the next dan rank in taekwondo yesterday? How'd it go?"

I was so proud of him for correctly calling it the dan rank that I smooched his cheek and smiled.

"You are looking at a fifth degree black belt, baby."

"Holy shit that's amazing." Edward slid his fingers on my neck and kissed me. "I will pretend to know exactly what that means."

"Most importantly, my love, it means—" I nuzzled his jaw. "That I can totally kick Mike's ass when I next see him because he stopped training after his third dan."

"Priorities, I see." He grinned. "And when's your next test?"

"Wow, Mr. Over-Achiever allowing me to enjoy exactly two seconds of my accomplishment before having to plan the next steps."

"Oh I didn't mean—"

"I know, I know. It's in seven years. You can't get the sixth degree black belt in taekwondo before you're thirty."

Edward snapped his head back to lock eyes with me. "No kidding?"

"Wish I were."

"But what if you're good enough? What if you know all the correct, what are they, techniques and patterns and sparring and whatnot?"

"Doesn't matter. You're not thirty, you're not getting it."

"Well that's a bummer. What will you do? Will you continue practicing anyway?"

Out of habit, I put my fingernails in my mouth before removing them and rubbing my hoodie, excited but nervous to share my news with him because the answer was, 'It depends on if they offer it in Boston.' I pulled my thighs off of his lap and curled my legs under me before letting my knees drop on his thighs anyway. I turned to face him.

Edward took my hand in his, his concerned eyes searching mine. "Are you okay?"

I shifted. "I'm just… I guess I'm scared to tell you something."

He stiffened, staring at me with a pale face and haunted eyes.

"It's not bad," I rushed to assure with a nervous laugh. "It's not. I promise." When Edward's shoulders relaxed, I kissed his knuckles. "It's just that, you're easily the smartest person I've ever met. The fact that you're dating me continues to feel like a glitch in the matrix, and… I don't want you to be ashamed of me."

"Jesus, baby. Are you kidding me? I'm not. I've never been. Now spit out your news before you give me cardiac arrest."

I squeezed his hand against my chest. "I got into Boston University. I know it's not Harvard or MIT or any of those brainiac schools—"

Edward pulled me into a sweet, coffee-e kiss before he hugged the shit out of me. His heart was beating a mile a minute. "Not the way to start a conversation," he whispered in my ear. "Jesus. I thought you were breaking up with me."

My apologies got muffled in his neck.

His eyes were bright when he pulled back. "Boston University? That's insane. Nothing to be ashamed of. How are you not shouting it on top of your lungs? I can't tell you how proud I am. A bit pissed that you never involved me, but so proud."

Edward's enthusiasm daunted me.

"I kind of thought… they made a mistake. I was waiting for them to send me an email correcting their error. What if there's a Bella Bahati Swan in Minnesota who got rejected because our letters got mixed up?"

My lovely, incredible boyfriend buried his face in my neck and laughed. "Why would you think that?"

"Because, like you said, it's—insane. I'm not good enough for them. I took an extra year to graduate high school."

"Baby, they accepted you. Of course you're good enough for them. Nobody cares if you took seven years to graduate high school." Edward brushed his thumbs over my eyebrows, his gaze tender in a way that made me feel vulnerable. "Why didn't you tell me? I would've helped you with your application."

"I didn't want you to be disappointed if I didn't get in."

Edward shook his head but all he said was a mumbled, "Feather-heart." I sank into his hungry, relieved kiss, ready to melt at the way he cradled my jaw and groaned against my lips. Edward lifted me to straddle his lap.

"I didn't even know you were interested in going to college. You're not just doing this to live with me, are you?"

"Remember how I was scared that you were staying in Atlanta only for me and you said that if I was a factor you were ready for the consequences of that? I'm not going to lie and say you weren't a factor. I'm sick of long-distance, but I'd also like to take a break from acting, and… I really, really love what I want to study but— It's something you hate and I'm struggling with that."

"What is it and why do you think I hate it?"

I tilted my head to the side, making a face, and Edward groaned when he figured it out.

"Please don't make fun of me," I rushed to add. "Please. I know you're a savant and I'm only average and I might fail miserably but it's just really important to me that you not laugh at me."

Still cradling my jaw, Edward rested his forehead against mine. His tender voice filled my heart. "I would never laugh at you for this, baby. You will not fail, Boston University is amazing, and frankly this is the absolute best early birthday gift I could've asked for." He brushed his thumbs over my cheeks, touching his nose against mine, side to side, grinning like a fool with all the world's affection in his eyes. "You want to study law, right? Pre-law?"

I felt shy, admitting it, so I nodded instead.

Edward kissed the tip of my nose. "I'm sorry I've been so vocal about how boring law is to me, but baby, I'm not the one who's going to study it. You are, and you'll be brilliant at it. I know you will."

"You don't have to say that."

"I do. It makes so much sense now that I think about it. Baby, you did such thorough background research for your contracts for UM that Tanya was scared to send you the last few. Did you know that? Your parents laughed about it, but they were so proud of you. Why do you think Mike wanted to join forces with you? You may have benefited financially but he benefited from your eyes on his contracts. Plus, you were the only reason the court handled Riley's adoption so quickly—you caught the two documents they would've asked for had you not combed through requirements like it was your job. Our wills, the selling of my double-wide, the details you caught in Garrett's endorsement deal until he started sending all of them for your review—these are not small things, baby. So don't put yourself down."

Feeling warm and fuzzy by his support, I bit back my smile. "I'll be so old, though."

"But that's an advantage. The classmates I've had who've taken a few years or a decade to have jobs or life or kids before college, those are the most driven people, with the best practical questions. You having nearly a decade of work experience at 23—you'll be like a unicorn among them when you talk about the real world."

I laughed.

"Okay, Samwise Gamgee, you can dial down the support now. I get it."

Edward brushed his thumbs over my face and searched my eyes.

"What are you really worried about?"

I shrugged, relieved and annoyed that my emotions were so transparent to him.

"What if I fail? What if I can't handle it and drop out? What if I'm not made for college? I'm sure I'll stop being the it girl by the time I graduate—if I get there—but what I do it for nothing? Then, I'll have no degree or career."

"Are you worried about what I will think if you drop out or what the world will think?"

"You. The world. Both. It's just that it'll be so public if I fail."

Edward brushed his fingertips over my cheek. "I know. There's nothing either of us can do to change that. But you already have an insanely successful career at twenty three. You've won Emmys and a Golden Globe. You're nominated for an Academy Award. I'll be your emotional support dog during your studies or whatever else you need but if you discover that college is not for you, I will support that decision with everything I have. You can do therapy with Jasper. But what do you think you'll regret more, being too scared to enroll in college to study something you're clearly passionate about, or walking away to the safety of your career, never to try something out of your comfort zone?"

I groaned.

"Why must you be so stupidly, amazingly smart all the time? Leave some for the rest of us."

Edward grinned before he kissed me.

"Honestly, if you're determined to be worried about something, your fanclub of half a billion people showing up in your lectures deserves a word."

I laughed. It was not untrue.

"For full disclosure, I feel that I should tell you Harvard rejected me."

"Oh no I guess that means I should break up with you now, huh?"

I slapped his shoulder but smiled. Edward adjusted me in his lap, nuzzled his face against the side of my neck and slid his deliciously warm palms on my back, inside my hoodie. His voice was full of happy disbelief. "Are you really going to move to Boston with me?"

"If you'll have me."

Edward pulled back from our hug and assessed my face with such affection and intensity that I felt goosebumps on my neck. He brushed his lips against mine oh-so-slowly, relishing our touch, and I slid my fingers in his hair when I sank into his kiss. His groan vibrated through me, and I was just about to suggest that we move our make-out session elsewhere when Edward pulled his lips from mine, his eyes wild and hair in disarray.

"Play chess with me."

Because I couldn't say no to those eyes, I enjoyed my tiramisu while Edward prepared the chessboard. Unsurprisingly, I lost the first three games to the sound of my boyfriend praising me for how much I'd improved, but beating me was still child's play to a Grandmaster of Edward's caliber.

"How about we do Bella's Gambit next?"

The bright side of having at least a moderate sense of chess was that I could recognize some openings. Edward played along with the smothered mate in the Caro-Kann Opening, and I did my squiggly little happy dance when I pushed my knight to D6.

"Would you look at that! Check-mate! Thermoninja's girlfriend beats a Grandmaster in the world's top 50 players with the phenomenal Bella's Gambit!"

Edward's eyes were alight with love and longing. I leaned away from the table to get a good photo of his expression when he replaced his defeated king with a ring box. My eyes snapped to his.

"Oh my God," I squeaked in a decibel I wasn't too proud of. I lowered my phone.

Of course. Of course. Why hadn't I thought of this?

"Feather-heart," Edward whispered, his voice rough and nervous.

My eyes welled up even though I wore a goofy smile on my face.

"Yes, my love," I replied, swallowing the lump in my throat, sitting on my palms because I wanted to reach out and kiss him and tell him that he was the best man in the world and I wanted him forever but I could see that he had some kind of a speech prepared.

He grabbed the ring box, slid out of the booth, and got on one knee in front of me. His eyes were shining.

"Oh my God. You're really doing this."

Edward let out a small laugh. "I had a whole, a whole speech planned, but I'm not you. I can't memorize a page of—"

"S'okay," I whispered. "S'okay. I love you. I love you. You don't have to—"

"Let me, let me try," he replied. The way he took a slow breath through his nose, struggling to keep composure, made me fall more in love with him than ever.

"My dad used to tell my mom that she was his everything," Edward began in a raw voice. "As I kid I found it stupid, as a teenager I found it embarrassing, and now I think it's—complicated. Because it sounds so romantic until, until you lose that, and then nothing else is worth living for. And maybe that's part of why I tried to end things with you all those years ago, to prove to myself that you aren't my everything. Because being in love with you is—" Edward grinned through his shimmering eyes. "It's so intense. Everyone told me the intensity would fade away with time, but… I'm not seeing it. The sheer power you have over me is frankly terrifying.

"And you are my everything, obviously, but not in the way my dad thought of my mom. You're my everything in the way that you make my life better, in the way that I'm a better person when I'm with you, in the way that—I want to give you my everything. I want to be yours until my balls sag so low I'll have to build a strap for them."

I laughed through my tears.

"But more than anything, I want to promise you that, while it would destroy me if anything bad ever happened to you, I would stick it out for our kids. I would keep going for our kids. Because you'll be a part of them, too, and when I say that you are my everything, that everything will always include them."

The inside of the ring box lit up when Edward opened it but I could barely see it through my tears.

"What I'm saying is, I'm the luckiest son-of-a-bitch for being the Edward you approached in the parking lot. Will you marry me?"

"Yes. Yes. Yes." I tried to hide my ugly crying but it was a fruitless endeavor, not that Edward minded with his own shiny eyes and cute grin when he put the ring on my finger. He sat on the bench and lifted me in his lap.

Two twisted rows of tiny diamonds approached a bigger diamond in the middle of his ring. It was gorgeous.

Through the haze of my happy sobbing, I heard Edward talk to our waitress who'd taken a video of Edward's proposal on his phone, reassuring him that she was bound by her NDA until we made our engagement public. I accepted her whispered, smily-sounding congratulations with a nod before she disappeared as a swimming blob from my peripheral vision.

"That was beautiful," I whispered into Edward's neck, kissing his skin, struggling to get over my crying. "You're my everything too, in all the ways that you listed, and also—" I pulled away and wiped my face with my hands. In the middle of talking about building a strap for his saggy balls, I caught his biggest worry. "I promise the same. If anything, if anything ever—" I left my sentence unfinished. "It would be brutal but I promise to be there for all the beautiful mischievous geniuses we might have. I promise to work as hard as humanly possible not to check out of life if you ever, if you ever—"

Struggling to keep his lips from wobbling, Edward rubbed his nose with mine and attempted a smile. "Thank you."

Incredulous at finding such a kind-hearted soul to spend my life with, I touched Edward's eyebrow piercings with my thumb, admiring the earthy green of his eyes and the five o'clock shadow on his cheeks. He sniffed sharply but grinned like an idiot, and we shared a mountain of giggly little kisses and words of love before Edward squeezed me tight against him and whispered, "Does my future wife want to get out of here?"

My heart melted at Edward's rough voice calling me that.

"If my future husband is willing to give me one more kiss."

Edward's eyes lighting up with his smile showed me exactly how my heart felt when he called me his future wife, and many toe-curling kisses were shared before we left the restaurant with stupid smitten smiles hidden inside our helmets.

…

…

…

A/N: It breaks my heart to stop writing them. 300K words, two years of my life, and two of the most enchanting potatoes coming to life from my keyboard, damn. What a marathon.

But! It's been an absolute blast writing and sharing this story (for you and) with you! Thank you all so much for reading, each and every one of you :) Feel free to let me know if you have any unanswered questions (I'll do my best answering them), what you liked, what you hated, what can be improved upon, and which chapters, scenes or characters you enjoy(ed) the most. I love it all!

Stay tuned for future-shots. Much love!