epilogue
Tyler
Two years and five months later.
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Christmas in Saint Petersburg is like a realm where Beauty and the Beast met Frozen and had quintuplets.
Old world architecture and golden palaces and churches covered in sparkling blue-white snow.
Light parades and Christmas markets, endless holiday treats and decorations—all very fuckin’ impressive for a kid all the way from South Boston who grew up with slim to none in the way of Christmas spirit.
But that changed after my first trip over here with Zo. My Christmas spirit is fuckin’ overflowing now and I love coming to celebrate the holidays with my Russian smokeshow and her family. We’re fully enjoying our third Christmas together, but I can say with certainty that it will not be our last.
This year we have a whole Crush gang at her parent’s place celebrating Christmas Eve together.
Boris and Talia have come today with Boris’s mom who lives here.
Irina, with her university professor man-bun-wearing partner, Oskar.
Georg, Pam, Haley and Logan, of course. Even Vik and Scarlett and their two boys have joined the party along with Vik’s mom who also lives in Saint Petersburg.
Right now, we’re all at the Ice Palace skating in the middle of the city.
Literally. As in…we’re all ice-skating in front of a legit royal palace.
The Winter Palace, home of the Russian czars.
With the lighted trees, festive ice sculptures, and horse-drawn sleighs, it’s like a really fancy North Pole village.
And the setting is pure perfection for what I’m about to do.
I’m skating with my girl, who looks like a goddess (as usual) in a long white sweater over her mile-long legs covered in warm leggings, with a matching scarf and hat and gloves in pale pink.
She’s my ice princess today, but only in the way of it being icy cold outside.
Nothing about my Zo is icy. She’s warm and loving and generous, and banging hot of course.
Sexy as sin on skates. The first time we came here and did this I was blown-the-fuck-away.
Not only by how gracefully elegant of a skater she is, but how sexy she looked skating in front of me.
Most definitely a holy public erection, Batman!
moment. I’ve had a lotta those moments since I found her, so I’m kinda gettin’ used to them by now.
I signal to Pam and Georg to get the kids ready to do their job. I can read Haley’s lips as she asks Pam excitedly, "Is it time, Mommy?” Just watching their simple exchange fills my heart right up all the way to the top. The circle is closed now, and all is as it should be.
Their new birth certificates finally arrived a few months ago.
My sister and brother are now Haley and Logan Kolochev, with a mother and father who love them like they should’ve been loved from the moment they were born.
Their room at my place still gets plenty of use though, with a sleepover at least once a month.
Georg and I are having an absolute blast coaching youth hockey with Evan and a few of our Crush teammates.
Lots of players’ kids are on the teams. Haley tried it but decided she liked figure skating better, so Mommy Pam has that firmly in hand.
My little sis has some serious skills for only eight years old. Olympics, here we come.
Logan, on the other hand is all about the hockey. A freaking madman on skates at six. He’s a natural, and I can’t wait ’til the NHL draft comes around in about thirteen years. With his dad and his grandpapa and me of course, coaching him, the sky’s the limit for the little pucker.
My ma chose to sever her rights—not for the benefit of her daughter or her son—but for money.
I don’t even know the amount, nor do I ever want to know.
It’s sealed away and doesn’t change the outcome, which I know was only for the better.
In the end, Georg and Pam were willing to negotiate a deal that my ma agreed to and signed off on.
She relinquished her parental rights for cash.
When she was released from jail and had access to her money, she up and disappeared.
I haven’t heard from her in nearly two years.
No idea where she went or what kind of life she’s living, or if she’s even still with us.
I can only wish for her to have found some measure of peace within her very broken soul—namaste.
Beyond that, I’ve had to let her go for my own sake.
Zen has been a life changer for me in so many ways.
I’m not alone anymore.
I have a family.
Who love me.
And I love ’em hard right back.
Zoya’s mom, Marianna, full-on adopted me right from the first. She’s like the coolest, most chill woman I’ve ever met.
She’s got nothing but hugs and kindness and love in her heart for her children and grandchildren.
She was a schoolteacher before her recent retirement, so she’s taken on the task of teaching me Russian.
I’m gettin’ there, but it might be a few more years ’till I’m able to pull it off in conversation with any skill.
My understanding is decent, though. Got all the swears down first. Trash-talking is even more fun than it used to be behind the bench or in the box.
There’s a guy on Twitter who made an account just for my chirps.
@KingORussiaChirpfest. My game chirps—wicked-clever Russian insults—translated for all to enjoy. Off-the-fuckin’-chain funny.
Zo’s dad has been the biggest surprise of all. I thought he couldn’t stand the sight of me, was merely tolerating my presence because he loves his daughter, but I was wrong.
When Dad’s Week rolled around, I was prepared to go it alone, like I’ve done every other Dad’s Week in all the years I’ve played hockey.
It’s a fun time where players’ fathers or grandfathers or uncles join them for a whole week of games, usually one at home and two on the road.
Dads fly with the team and have access to locker-room talks and every practice and game.
Field trips, dinners, events happening throughout the week so there’s media covering all the feel-good stories focusing on the families and their hockey lives.
So, the first Dad’s Week since I found my Zo comes, and Kirill’s there being interviewed with the other fathers.
He tells them he’s there to support “his three sons” on the Crush team.
Georg, Boris, and ding-ding-da-ding…Tyler.
Boris’s father has never been in the picture, so Kirill stepped in when he was just a kid and put him in hockey, coached him.
So, he’s telling the interviewer about coaching the boys in youth hockey, watching them grow up and join the NHL, etc.
, and then he comes to me. He explains he was given a third son recently by his daughter, and that he is the proudest of me, not for the finely skilled defensive player I’ve become on the ice, but the man I’ve become off the ice.
He calls me his blagorodnyy syn. Honorable son.
Whoa.
Coulda pushed me over with a feather during that interview.
The look on my face, was complete and utter shock…
and a whole lotta choked up, I gotta admit.
Zoya watches the video all the time. She says she loves seeing my reaction, how my face changes when I understand what he’s just said about me.
And now, knowing what it’s like to receive that unmistakable affirmation and love, it helps me love Zoya more, and know that my young siblings will have an incredible life.
Unconditional love. Something I never thought I’d deserve. Especially from a parent figure.
Which made the conversation I had with him earlier today a wee bit easier, of course, but I would’ve still done it even if he hadn’t changed his feelings about me.
Because I asked him for his daughter’s hand in marriage.
Yeah, I did. And he gave his full blessing, thank you baby Jesus and all the angels.
He knows how much I love my Zo, my Russian smokeshow princess.
The ring Vik helped me pick out for her is burnin’ a hole in my pocket, and if I don’t get it outta my pocket and on her finger real soon, I’mma need some medical attention.
For real.
Proposals? Some insanely stressful shit right here. Upped my romance game during the last two and a half years, though. When we first met, Zoya told me what she wished for in a guy and I’ve never forgotten what she said:
“I need a prince charming. Someone who will romance me. He will want to know everything about me. And buy me flowers. He will make me feel like love is a fairy tale made real.”
I don’t know about the prince part for me, but I’m certain that she’s my princess so I do my damnedest to make her feel like one. Flowers every time I come home from a long road trip, and now my attempt at a fairy tale made real.
I steer us over to the prearranged area on the ice where there’s nobody skating, holding her hand in mine, checking her out to see if she suspects anything. She doesn’t appear to as she smiles up at me, her cheeks flushed pink from the cold air.
“Why did you take your gloves off, Ty? Your hands must be freezing.” I have no answer that I can share with her or I’ll blow the surprise, so I just lean over to kiss her instead. And also, because well, I can’t help myself. Princess looks like she needs kissing to me.
And I need to feel her lips against mine to steady my nerves before I do this thing. She tastes just as luscious as she always does, her lips warm and soft pressed to mine. When I finally break the kiss and pull my lips away, I see that everyone is in their places.
Go time, Lockhardt.
She sees what Haley and Logan have made just as I take her hands in mine and go down onto one knee.
My little bro and sis have skated a giant heart around us onto the ice with brooms dipped in pink metallic ice paint.
The rest of our family and friends are now lined up along the edge of the heart, each of them holding a bouquet of pale pink roses.
Except for Vik, ’cause his hands are full of little boys—a toddler in one and a newborn in the other.
Scarlett’s busy filming all this for me.
“Zoya.” I take a deep breath and look into her eyes which are now shining with happy tears…
and know it’s gonna be okay. “Zo, I love you so much you’re a part of me now…
and I want—I need—to spend the rest of my life with my best friend by my side.
” Releasing her right hand, I pull the box outta my pocket, flicking it open with my thumb. ”
She lets out a little cry when she sees the ring. It’s set in platinum and yellow gold with three heart shaped diamonds, the largest in the middle with smaller ones locking it at center.
Locked hearts.
“These diamonds are locked hearts. They’re locked in place, just as my heart is locked to yours. It can’t ever be unlocked because there is no key for that. It’s a permanent situation, babe. So…Princess Locked-Heart, will you make your bestie the happiest man in the world and be my wife?”
She’s really got the tears flowing now, her head nodding and her bottom lip trembling, saying the only word I ever needed to hear from her, three times just to be safe, "Yes…yes…yes."
“Well, then…” I tug the glove from her left hand and manage to slip the ring onto her finger.
I stare at it for a second and then bring her hand up to my lips for a kiss.
“I love you, Princess Lockhardt.” I might have some tears of my own ’bout to bust outta my eyes, so I do a thing I’m really fuckin’ good at in such situations.
I joke about it.
“How was that, Smokeshow? Romancey enough for ya?”
“Oh yes.” She’s nodding and crying and laughing all at the same time.
“So much. You’re really nailing it—the charming prince thing,” she says in her sexy Russian accent that has the power to undo me with a single word, let alone the few that come next.
“I love you, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, my prince. My Prince Lockhardt.”
Again, saying all that to me in her Russian accent? Off-the-charts banging hot.
Then she pulls me up and before I know it, she’s in my arms…and I can twirl us around on the ice just like a Disney prince and princess at the end of the movie. Of course, I can’t resist throwin’ in a cheesy wink for Scarlett’s camera.
This shit’s gonna play so well on video.
and they lived happily ever after…