Epilogue
“It’s winter break,” Haddie told him. “Why do we have to do it now?”
Levi held the main door to Summertown Elementary open, shooing her inside before anyone saw them.
“Because I want it to be the first thing your students see when they get back from the holidays, and I kind of need you to see it too.” He kissed her on the cheek and the shooed her again, this time toward her hallway.
“Come on… If Coach Crawford finds out I swiped his key ring at the Crawford Christmas party, it’s not going to matter if he finds out about us. I will be toast.”
Haddie snorted, then covered her mouth with one hand while holding tight to the rolled-up piece of poster board under her other arm. “He and the board agreed to the activity fees and communal fund. I think it’s safe to say you’re his golden child again.”
Levi shrugged but a smile spread across his beautiful face. “I’m just happy he named Tommy the director of athletics and activities. There is no one better to make sure the new way of doing things runs smoothly.”
In the months since the wedding, Haddie had never seen Levi so happy as he was at—of all places—a school board meeting where Principal Crawford not only let a petition change his mind about running his ship the way he’d always run it, but also gave his son the much deserved honor of helping him navigate new waters.
They reached Haddie’s classroom door, and she retrieved her own key ring from her coat pocket to unlock it.
But her hands were still cold from the crisp December evening, and she fumbled the retrieval, dropping the keys to the floor with a metallic clang that sounded so much louder in the silent, vacant school.
A light flicked on across the hall in the main office, and Haddie and Levi froze when Principal Crawford appeared in the doorway.
“How did you two get in here?” he asked, striding toward them with his arms crossed over a Muskies hoodie that he wore with matching sweatpants.
Haddie picked her keys up while stammering, “We were just… I mean, Levi wanted to… See, I have this poster…”
Levi, on the other hand, still stood like an ice sculpture. Haddie wasn’t even sure he was blinking.
“He can see you,” she stage-whispered. “You’re not fooling anyone.”
To her surprise—and she hoped Levi’s too—the older man laughed.
“Do you kids think I don’t know you’ve been swiping my keys for the past fifteen years or more?” He clapped Levi on the shoulder. “And I see you’ve gone and gotten yourselves entangled even after I warned you against it.”
Levi swallowed and finally showed signs of life by nodding.
“We’re not entangled, sir. Just…um…in love,” Levi told him, and Haddie swore she fell for him again in that very moment.
“And you’re breaking into school because…?”
“Not breaking, sir,” Levi continued. “We used your keys.”
Haddie winced. “Oh, Babe, you are just digging us deeper.”
Coach Crawford held out his hand. “Keys, Rourke.”
Levi produced the school’s master key ring.
“How long has this been going on?” he asked them both, and Haddie tried to beat Levi to the punch, but he couldn’t stop talking now.
“Since the beginning, sir. I fell for her the night I met her at the same hotel where Tommy had his wedding.”
Haddie’s heart both leaped and sank as she realized how utterly romantic that was but also—sadly and adorably—stupid to admit because it sealed their fates.
Coach Crawford gave them both a self-satisfied grin.
“I don’t think I’d ever see you smile as much as you did when you met her at the bar, Rourke.
Happiest I’d seen you in more than ten years.
” He jingled the keys in his hand and then tucked them away in the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie.
“Took you long enough to get your acts together, though, and take the plunge, right?” He nodded toward Haddie’s classroom while they both stared at the man, speechless.
“Ten minutes. After that, I’m giving Deputy Hayes the go-ahead to drive by and see if the lights are still on.
If they are, you might get to spend the night in closer quarters than that little apartment of yours. ”
He spun on his heel and strode back toward his office, but he passed right by it and kept on strolling out the main entrance.
“What the hell just happened?” Haddie asked.
“Did Coach Crawford just admit to playing matchmaker when I thought the guy was going to fire me?”
“But…” Haddie blurted out. “I don’t get… I mean, did he really…?”
Levi shrugged. “Let’s not waste time trying to figure out anyone in this town, least of all Thomas Crawford the First. We’ve only got about nine minutes unless you want to call his bluff on whether or not we’re sleeping in the town jail.”
Haddie shook her head. “I want our bed.”
“I want you naked in our bed,” Levi added.
“Is there any other way?” she teased and then finally opened her classroom door.
“Would you like to do the honors?” Haddie asked, pointing to her first-day-of-school All About Me poster.
“With pleasure,” he told her, then strode right toward the piece of posterboard that did not have a picture of him on it and tore it off the wall in one strategic yank.
“Wow,” Haddie remarked. “You really hated that poster, huh?”
He rolled it up and dropped it into the nearest trash can. “I really did. But your new one is the best piece of art I’ve ever seen.”
Haddie shook her head and laughed as she unrolled and hung the art in question, which was still populated by stick figures representing Haddie’s students, her team, Matteo and Emma, but with a few additions.
Every one of her favorite people in Summertown now stood under a giant rainbow.
Above the rainbow she’d drawn two birds to represent her mom and grandmother.
And in the center of it all, between her students and her team, right beside Emma and Matteo, she’d drawn a giant heart, inside of which she’d placed a large decal of the Summertown mascot, Muskie.
Except she’d taken a silver Sharpie and added a number to Muskie’s jersey. Twenty-three.
“The fish is me, right?” Levi asked, for like the fiftieth time that day.
“The fish is you,” she confirmed with only a slight eye roll because Haddie would never truly tire of Levi wanting to hear that he was loved, nor would she ever tire of letting him know how much he was.
He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her close. “Because I’m one of your favorite people,” he added.
Haddie nodded. “One of my most favorite,” she admitted. “And you’re right. This is much more appropriate than the coaches calendar.”
Levi groaned and let his forehead fall against hers. “Does it have to hang in the bathroom?”
Haddie laughed and kissed his nose. “Not if you let me put it on the ceiling so waxed and oiled-up Levi is the last thing I see before I close my eyes at night and the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.”
He tilted his head back and narrowed his eyes at her. “Sometimes I think you love waxed and oiled-up Levi more than me.”
She clapped her hands gently on his cheeks and brushed her lips over his.
“I love every single version of you, Mr. Tux.” She felt his cheeks warm beneath her touch.
“But this one right here…” She kissed him again.
“Is my favoritest of all the favorites.” This time she kissed him longer, slower, her lips lingering on his even when she paused to add, “You always were, even before you officially made it onto the poster.”
“I knew it,” he whispered.
“You did not,” she teased.
He ran his hands up her back, and even through her coat she could feel her skin prickle with goose bumps at his touch. Then he slowly dipped her back so far she had to clasp her hands around his neck to hang on.
“I knew it,” he said again, then kissed her with so much love that Haddie felt the final, trickiest, most stubborn lock inside her chest open to finally set her heart free.
“Okay,” she relented. “You knew it.”
And what did Haddie know? She knew that loving this man was as wonderful as it was terrifying and as beautiful as it would be—at times—disastrous.
But she also knew that for every down there would be an up, and for every fear there was also the security in knowing that they would fight for each other time and again and that neither of them would run.
“Oh my god,” Haddie whispered, and Levi smiled against her.
“I know, right? I am, like, rom-com-level swoon right now, aren’t I?”
“No!” She tapped his shoulder and pointed out her window toward the front of the school where flashing red and blue lights illuminated the circle drive.
“How many minutes have we been here?” Levi asked.
“More than ten, I’m guessing.” Haddie grabbed his hand and gave it a sharp tug. “Run!”
Okay. Fine. Maybe just this once…