Epilogue
ROSE
Our reconnection doesn’t crash into my life or knock the air from my lungs.
It doesn’t demand anything from me. It moves slowly, deliberately, like it knows how fragile things still are, how carefully they need to be handled.
Everything starts with space, with Callum not pushing.
He lets the silence exist between us without trying to fill it with reassurance or apologies.
He listens when I speak, even when what I’m saying is messy or unfinished or changes halfway through.
We meet for coffee first. It’s neutral ground in the daylight; it feels safe with no expectations from either or us. What was supposed to be an hour soon rolls into two, and feels almost too easy.
Then it’s the dinners that stretch longer than planned because neither of us wants to be the one to end them. We have conversations that drift from the mundane to the meaningful and back again, we’re learning how to exist together in this new version of us.
He doesn’t touch me unless I initiate it, and when he finally does, he asks.
“Is this okay?” he says the first time his fingers brush mine and he entwines our fingers to hold my hand. The question alone does something to me.
“Yes,” I answer, because it is. Because I choose it.
The intimacy builds like that. Not in grand declarations or sweeping gestures, but in moments stacked gently on top of each other.
In the way he remembers how I take my coffee and the way he notices when I start to retreat into myself and doesn’t follow, he just stays close enough that I know he’s there.
Trust doesn’t snap back into place, but it begins to grow, slow and steady.
The night we end up back at his flat feels inevitable, but not rushed.
There’s no tension humming between us like a threat, no fear that if we don’t do this now, we’ll lose the chance forever.
When he closes the door behind us, he doesn’t pull me into his arms. He waits and it’s me that steps toward him instead.
Our kiss is slow. Soft and exploratory. His hands frame my face as though he’s relearning me, and he’s afraid of pressing too hard. When I deepen it, when I slide my hands into his hair, he exhales and it’s a low, shaky sound that tells me exactly how much restraint it’s taken him to get here.
When we move to the bedroom, everything is unhurried.
He touches me as though I’m something precious, not something he’s afraid will slip away.
There’s no desperation in him now, no edge of panic or need to prove anything.
Just presence and care. When he pauses, searching my face, I realise he’s waiting for permission again.
“Please,” I whisper.
And when he finally slides inside me, it’s tender in a way that makes my chest ache.
Not because it’s overwhelming, but because it’s chosen.
Every second is a soft murmur between us.
I feel the crescendo peak and Callum holds me tight, arms wrapped around me like a safety net as I fall over the edge into bliss.
It’s not until the final shudder leaves my body that he allows himself to fall, my name a whisper on his lips as he does.
We wake tangled in sheets again, sunlight stronger now, the world firmly awakes around us. There’s no fear in me this time when I open my eyes. No instinct to brace myself for loss or the fear of Talia’s social media posts. They seem to have died out with the acceptance that she lost him to me.
Now there’s just a calm certainty.
Lying there, listening to his heartbeat under my cheek, I realise something with startling clarity.
Love didn’t save me.
I did.
I learned how to stand on my own, how to trust my instincts, how to sit with fear without letting it decide for me. I learned that being chosen isn’t the same as choosing, and that the second one is the only one that matters.
And now, with open eyes and steady hands, I choose him. Not because I need him. But because I want to walk forward with him. Honestly and imperfectly together.
And I know exactly who I am as I do.
CALLUM
It’s taken us weeks to get here, none of them rushed, more of a steady life altering pace. What we’ve built during this time is trust. Honest and firm. I’ve learned a lot from Rose but mostly I’ve learned who I am and the man I want to be for her.
That’s the thing no one tells you about breaking something important.
You don’t just learn how to put it back together.
You learn what it was made of in the first place.
What you were leaning on. What you were avoiding.
What parts of yourself you’d been letting slide because life was loud and fast and you told yourself you’d deal with it later.
Rose doesn’t let me hide. Not behind hockey or guilt. And behind good intentions that never quite translated into honesty. She doesn’t interrogate me or punish me for it, either. She just exists with this silent clarity that makes it impossible not to step up when you’re standing next to her.
We talk. A lot. Sometimes it’s about the past and the crash, about Talia, about the pressure cooker my life became before I even knew I was suffocating.
Sometimes it’s about nothing at all. Music playing low while we cook.
Sitting by the river with takeaway coffee going cold between our hands.
We are all about sharing space without filling it with noise to prove we’re okay.
There are still moments where I see the hesitation flicker through her. I don’t blame. I caused that. The difference now is that I don’t try to rush her past it or soothe it away with promises I can’t guarantee. I let it exist. I stay.
That’s the work. Staying when it would be easier to distract myself. Staying when there’s no applause for it. Or when the old instinct to fix and control starts itching under my skin.
Hockey helps in a strange way. Not as an escape, those days are over, but as a mirror. I play differently now. Less desperate to be the hero every shift. Coach noticed it before I did, pulled me aside one afternoon and said, “Whatever’s changed, don’t undo it.”
I didn’t tell him it was Rose. I didn’t have to.
The season winds down with a sense of momentum that feels earned instead of frantic. The noise around my name fades into something manageable. Fans stop speculating. Media moves on to shinier scandals. Talia disappears from my orbit entirely, she doesn’t have the power she once thought she did.
Rose never asks me to explain why. She doesn’t need the validation of my resentment.
The night I finally ask her about the charity event, we’re curled together on her sofa, legs tangled, some documentary playing that neither of us is watching. The invite has been sitting in my inbox for days, unopened, like it might explode if I acknowledge it.
It’s not the event itself that scares me. I’ve done a hundred of them. Black tie. Speeches. Photos. Smiles that last exactly as long as the camera flash. It’s what it represents. A public line drawn with intention instead of impulse.
I turn the volume down and she looks at me immediately, that soft, perceptive focus she has when she knows something’s coming.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” she asks.
I take a breath. Not because I’m afraid of her answer, but because I want to ask this the right way. “There’s a charity gala in a couple of weeks,” I say. “The foundation does it every year. You know the one.”
She nods slowly, waiting.
“I’d like you to come with me,” I continue. “As my partner. Publicly. No half-measures. No dodging questions. If that’s something you want.” I don’t reach for her hand. I don’t soften it with jokes or qualifiers. I let the words stand exactly as they are.
She studies me for a long moment before she speaks. “You’re asking,” she says quietly.
“Yes.”
“Not assuming.”
“Never again.”
That earns me a small smile that feels like sunlight breaking through cloud.
“I want to,” she says. “I just need to know something first.”
“Anything.”
“This isn’t about repairing your image,” she says. “Or proving something. This is about us.”
“It is,” I say immediately. “It’s about choosing you. Standing beside you. And being seen doing it.”
She nods, considering. Then she reaches for my hand, fingers threading through mine with intention that sends something steady and sure through my chest.
“Then yes,” she says. “I’ll go with you.”
The relief that follows isn’t explosive. It doesn’t knock the wind out of me. It settles instead, deep and grounding, like something clicking into place exactly where it belongs.
The weeks leading up to the event are normal.
In the best possible way. We argue once about nothing important and laugh about it ten minutes later.
We plan outfits without overthinking them.
She teases me about my terrible taste in ties.
I tell her she looks unfairly good in everything she tries on.
On the night itself, when I knock on her door and she opens it, I forget how to breathe for a second. She’s wearing confidence more than anything else.
“You ready?” I ask.
She steps closer, straightens my lapel with a smile that’s all warmth and courage.
“Yeah,” she says. “I am.”
Walking into the venue with her on my arm doesn’t feel like a performance.
It feels like alignment. When cameras turn our way, I don’t square my shoulders or adjust my stance.
I just stay where I am; next to her, with my arm wrapped around her waist and the biggest smile on my face.
When someone asks how long we’ve been together, I answer honestly.
“For as long as it’s mattered,” I say. We’re not here to sell anything, we’re here together.
Later, when the speeches are done and the crowd thins, we step out onto the terrace overlooking the city. The lights blur into something soft and distant below us. She leans into my side and I rest my chin against her hair.
“Thank you for asking me to come with you,” she says.
“Thank you for saying yes.”
There’s no grand promise exchanged. No vows whispered into the night.
We don’t need them. Because the truth is simpler than that.
I know who I am now. I’m a man who owns his mistakes.
Who doesn’t confuse intensity for love. Who understands that trust isn’t something you demand, it’s something you earn, protect, and choose every day.
And I choose her. Not as a declaration or a headline.
But as a life.