Page 205 of The Eight Pranks of April
At one point Jax announced it was time for "pranks" and produced a series of wrapped boxes, each one more ridiculous than the last: a rubber chicken from Jiro, a tiny crown for "backup purposes" from Liam, and a laminated "get out of jail free" card from Dante that looked disturbingly official.
April opened each one laughing, surrounded by men in fool costumes who were absolutely delighted with themselves.
"One more," Killian said. She looked up, surprised. She'd gotten one from each of them already. He held out a small frame.
April took it, inside was a Jenga block. The wood grain familiar, the Sharpie still visible in her handwriting.
Stay.
They'd found it.
She looked up at them. Her fingers traced the edge of the frame, wood and glass protecting something she'd written with a borrowed marker and a hope she hadn't dared name. She smiled at them, hugging the frame to her chest, and then Jiro was pulling her up to dance. The music shifted, and suddenly Liam was there too, catching her from behind, sandwiching her between them before she stepped out and they faced each other. She found herself watching the way they moved. Jiro's controlled grace, Liam's loose-limbed confidence, until they were all laughing too hard to continue.
???
After the party had wound down and the costumes had been abandoned in various states of disarray around the house, April found herself back on the throne.
The crown sat crooked on her head. A half-eaten Madagascar vanilla cupcake rested in her hand.
Eight men were sprawled around the room in various states of comfortable exhaustion: Mateo’s head in her lap, her fingers absently threading through his hair; her other hand resting on Liam’s knee, tracing unconscious circles while his head leaned against her shoulder. Jiro’s hand wrapped around her ankle. He lifted her foot, pressed a kiss to her arch, set it back down gently, and met her eyes with a promise. She was surrounded in the casual intimacy of hands and heat and breathing
Jax was showing Caleb something on his phone while they argued about inconsequential things. Dante leaned against the wall near her throne, close enough that she could feel the heat of him, and Arthur and Killian stood near the windows, deep in one of their silent conversations, two men comparing definitions of “appropriate crown placement.”
Liam leaned in and whispered his devotion. Her eyes moved from face to face, cataloging them like she was trying to memorize this exact moment.
A year ago, she'd written Stay on a wooden block and hoped someone would find it. Would get it.
Now it sat framed on the table, glass catching the light.
She was sitting on a throne in a crooked crown, the center of eight planets who'd looked at her chaos and decided it was worth rearranging their trajectories for. She still wrote thank-you cards. Still organized her desk with the same precision. Still had that small, ridiculous stationary collection. But now when she came home, there were eight people waiting: ones who planned surprise parties and wore fool costumes and spent a year proving that love could look like devotion and laughter and showing up, over and over, on purpose.
The funny thing about accidentally building a kingdom was that eventually it stopped being an accident and started being a choice; one she kept making, every morning, in a house full of men who meant what they promised.
She'd spent her whole life thinking happy endings were supposed to feel like closure, like a book snapping shut. This felt like getting eighty percent through the “final” book in a series and realizing someone had quietly added a sequel. But she’d read it anyway: one queen, eight fools, and a probably-not-legally-binding contract.
THE END
