the other side of us | ✓

epilogue | roses by the stairs

Eight Months Later

Mason grunted as he lifted the last box out of the car, wedging the trunk closed with his elbow.

"I could've gotten that." Charlotte called from the stairs. Mason turned and grinned at her, shifting the box in his arms and blowing a piece of hair out of his eyes.

"I've got it." He said, sticking his tongue out at her as he tried to feel his way up the stairs.

"It's your fault for having so many books." Charlotte said, holding open the door for him. "We would've been done an hour ago if you'd purged your stuff like I told you."

"You have just as many books as I do!"

"Yeah, and I paired down my stuff!"

Mason grinned at her as he set the box down on the living room table, surveying the rest of his belongings that were spread around the room.

Maybe he had packed too much.

Adam had helped him pack his boxes, and his neat handwriting helped Mason distinguish which boxes held what items, and Charlotte was right. An over whelming large majority of the boxes had books written in his familiar slant.

Charlotte picked up a notebook with his initials carved into it and paused.

"What's your middle name?"

"You don't know my middle name?"

"I do! Just . . . remind me."

Mason arched an eyebrow.

"What's my middle name?" He tested.

"Harold?" She guessed. Mason burst out laughing.

"I don't know what's worse," He said between laughs. "That you don't know my middle name or that you thought it was Harold."

Charlotte laughed too. "Don't you have a prince named Harold? It seemed a safe bet."

"Fair enough."

"So, not Harold?"

He laughed again. "Not Harold."

Charlotte played with the edges of the notebook. "So, what is it then?"

"Arlis," He told her softly. "After my granddad."

"Mason Arlis Carlyle." Charlotte said. "I love it."

"How's your dad doing with all this?" Mason asked, opening another box.

"He's coming to terms with it," Charlotte said slowly, twisting her long hair into a lopsided bun on top of her head.

"And Patrick?"

Charlotte sighed, and the tips of Mason's ears turned pink. He knew that he needed to stop worrying about everything, but he couldn't help it. Patrick hadn't been his biggest fan from the beginning, and when they'd met a few months ago, he'd made it abundantly clear that he disapproved of their relationship.

"The past is the past. I had a choice, and I made it. None of it was up to them."

"Did you?" Mason asked, walking over to where she was standing and wrapping his arms around her, settling his chin on her head. "I didn't think I gave you much of a choice."

Mason hated saying the words aloud, but they were true.

"I made a choice." Charlotte said firmly. "I love you, Mason."

"And I love you." He replied.

Their content silence was broken by the ringing of Mason's phone, and he unwound his arms to answer it.