red hot | grayson dolan

epilogue

AVERY

may 20th, 2010

-23 years later-

"And that's the whole story." I exhale the longest breath possible and stare at my three children in front of me.

Their mouths are wide open and their eyes are popping out of their heads. They look at each other and stay completely silent. I think they're all in shock.

Grayson furrows his eyebrows at them. "What's the matter? You didn't like it?"

"Are you kidding? That story was insane." Lydia, my youngest daughter, shakes her head in disbelief.

"I wasn't expecting it to be that crazy. Then again, it was the eighties." My son chuckles.

"So what happened next?" Natalie asks us.

"What do you mean? We lived happily ever after." Grayson says while wrapping his arm around my shoulder. I lean over to quickly kiss his cheek.

"We need more details, Mom." Lydia begs us.

"Leave them alone." Michael rolls his eyes at his sister. "We're lucky Mom and Dad finally explained their full love story. Take what you can get."

"It's not like you guys asked us about it everyday." Grayson says with a sarcastic tone.

"Well you always said you would explain it when we were old enough." Natalie points out.

"And you're all at an appropriate age. It wasn't so bad, right?" I say while smoothing out the creases of my long red dress.

"Wasn't so bad? Uncle Austin died and came back to life!" Lydia throws her hands up in utter shock.

"What about Uncle Ethan's car accident? I can't believe he survived that." Michael says to them.

"My favorite part was when Mom dumped that Danny guy." Natalie lets out a laugh.

"At Aunt Lily and Uncle Landon's wedding. Poor guy." Lydia sighs.

"Eh, he got over it. He married a swimsuit model and moved to Europe four months later. He couldn't have loved me too much." I let out a laugh and look back at Grayson.

"To answer your question about what happened next, it's pretty simple. Your mother and I got married in the summer of 1987 and bought a house together. Three years later we became parents when Michael was born. The rest is self explanatory." My husband tells our children.

"I'm so happy we know the infamous love story between Avery Whitestone and Grayson Dolan.... AKA Mom and Dad. It was definitely worth telling. I love a good romance." Lydia says with a happy sigh.

"I always knew it was epic. I mean, if you google them so many adorable pictures come up." Natalie looks at her sister.

"It's just weird to think of you guys like that. Mom, you were my age when you met Dad." Michael speaks up while looking between us.

"Yup, we were pretty cool back in the day. Right babe?" I wink at Grayson, who squeezes onto my waist.

"Pretty cool? The boys and I were legendary. Everyone wanted to party with Red Hot." He laughs.

"They still do." Lydia giggles.

"My friends listen to your music all the time. I can't escape Angels and Demons. They play it before every game just to tease me." Michael begins to fix the collar on his white dress shirt.