Epilogue

I won't lie and say it was easy to reestablish a friendship with Ranger. It wasn't.

Ranger eventually decided to go to Miami for a couple of weeks to see Julie, but I think part of it was to get away from Les and me. That hurt, but I understood. I'm a runner too. Not in the sense that I put on a pair of Nikes and running shorts and hit the track, but that I typically run from my emotions too when they overwhelm me. Luckily Les hadn't let me run from him when everything went nutty after Vegas.

Thankfully, things were much better when Ranger got back. Whatever happened in Miami helped, and the tension seemed to have mostly disappeared. We were all working our way back to being friends again.

It was still awkward, but Ranger seemed to be able to be around Les and me without wearing his blank face all the time. Les and Ranger were able to joke around with each other again, and Ranger was back to being amused by me rather than hurt.

It would take time, and things would never be like they were before, but things had changed too much to back to the way they were. As long as Ranger could accept Les and me together, I'd be happy with any type of friendship.

Dad found a cheap apartment near our house and moved out right after Ranger got back from Miami. He walked in on Les and I getting freaky one day, and he found an apartment by the end of the week. Dad's new apartment complex was secured by RangeMan, and you had to be buzzed in to get past the front door. This was to prevent mom from tracking him down and making his life miserable.

The 'Burg went totally ape shit when they found out that dad filed for divorce. It made my divorce from The Dick seem tame in comparison, and trust me, it was not tame.

Grandma's still living with mom, but even she's not speaking to her very much anymore. I suspect grandma will want to move out soon, too, but Les has already vetoed grandma moving in here unless there's a medical reason for it. Having my dad walk in on us having sex was horrifying enough. I didn't even know my dad could run that fast, but he set a new land speed record running away. Grandma would be more likely to start commenting on our technique, and that would be the end of our love life.

No thanks.

Val refuses to let the girls near mom while she's still so bitter, and soused, which is probably for the best. According to grandma and Val, who visits her alone while the girls are at school, mom's been on a bender since I left and will probably try to kill me if I ever see her again.

Despite grandma's best efforts, mom blamed all the changes in her life on me. The divorce, Val not letting the girls around her and my deciding that I was happier without her toxic presence were all apparently my fault, at least according to mom. I could barely bring myself to care anymore. I'd always been her scapegoat, and I was tired of it.

The 'Burg finally saw her for the control freak she was, and for once, the gossip was all against her. Except for her small cadre of friends, which was growing smaller daily, she was pretty much alone now, but it was because of her own actions, and I refused to let myself feel responsible.

Les reminded me that I was only responsible for my own actions, which helped. A lot. He was also really great at distraction when it got to be too much, and then I was too sweaty and blissful to care about my mom's issues.

I still can't believe how much my life has changed in the last year. Ranger's stupid ass decisions ended up being a turning point in my life, but my life is better for it. Yeah, his decision to push me away hurt at first, but it was the impetus for Les to decide to show me how me felt about me, and that's what led me to fall in love with my wonderful green-eyed hottie husband. I can even say the word husband without breaking out into hives now.

I may have ended up running the bond office anyways, but I think the fact that my self-confidence was so much higher now being with someone who actually supported me rather than constantly denigrated me helped me to be confident enough in my own abilities to give it a shot. The office was more successful now that it had ever been with Vinnie, probably because I spent more time on the business than doing despicable things with Joyce Barnyard or watching nasty internet porn.

Should be interesting to see what the next year brings…

The End

Author's note: Th-th-that's all, folks! I decided that if Steph and Les were to have kids, that would be a sequel rather than a continuation of this story. Please add me to your author alerts if you want to be alerted if I do decide to write a sequel with little Lestanies in the future.

I'll be back soon with another story, and I plan to get back to Distracting Ranger as soon as I can.

Thank you so much for your support and reviews for Loving Lester. They mean so much to me, truly. I don't have words to really tell you how excited and humbled I am to read your reviews, which is sad since I'm trying to be a writer here!

If you're reading this now that it's completed, pretty please take just a minute to let me know what you think. You'll make my day, I promise!