Epilogue #3
Behind her, the room was an emotional mess.
Charm was fully crying into Aura’s shoulder.
Aura had one hand pressed over her mouth.
Ryan wiped his face with the heel of his hand and muttered something about all of us being impossible.
My mother was crying into my father’s chest, and Harrison Mercer, coldest man in Manhattan, had his hand over his mouth like he needed it there to keep himself together.
Daniel Bennett stepped forward, and Bliss turned toward him, still crying, still holding the marble like it was breakable.
“Dad,” she whispered.
He looked at her for a second with grief and joy so deep it made the room ache. Then he reached into his pocket, and Bliss’s breath caught.
“No,” she whispered.
Daniel’s eyes filled as he opened his palm, revealing her mother’s ring.
I had not known he was going to do that.
Judging by the way Bliss stopped breathing, neither had she.
I had never seen Bliss go that still.
All the noise in her disappeared at once. Every sob. Every breath. Every frantic little motion. She stared at the ring in her father’s hand like time had cracked open and let Cindy Bennett step into the room for one impossible second.
Daniel’s voice shook. “Your mom would have wanted you to have it when somebody worthy of you came along.”
Bliss made a sound so broken I nearly moved toward her on instinct.
Her dad got there first.
He pulled her into his chest, and she folded against him, the marble trapped between them while her shoulders shook. He pressed his mouth to the top of her head, eyes squeezed shut.
“She would love him, Bug,” he whispered. “She would’ve loved how he loves you.”
I tried to swallow, but my throat had stopped working.
Eventually, Daniel released her and turned toward me. Then he took my hand, his fingers trembling as he placed the ring in my palm.
“Cade, I could not have dreamed of anyone more perfect for her,” he said, voice rough with all the things he was trying not to break under. “She is my only daughter and my baby. I love all my kids, but my little girl is the life breath in me.”
“I know that,” I said.
His hand clasped my shoulder, and there was so much trust in that touch it almost took me out at the knees.
“I wanted to make you suffer, Cade,” he admitted. “I wanted to watch you eat shit and smile because you loved her enough to understand why I hated you on principle.”
I said nothing.
I let him speak his truth.
“You willingly faced death to keep her safe. You almost died. You stood toe-to-toe with a man who enjoyed torturing my daughter, and you didn’t back down.
Kill or be killed, you never once backed down.
When I gave you my blessing to marry her, I found peace because you already answered the only question I had. ”
My hand closed around Cindy Bennett’s ring, and emotion burned so hard behind my ribs I didn’t know what to do with it.
“I would do it again,” I said.
Daniel nodded like he already knew.
Then he looked down at the ring in my palm. “Now, I’m guessing you have one hell of a ring picked out, and this one isn’t worth much money, but our love was just as strong as you and Bliss’s. That woman was proud of my ring on her finger.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, while my mother sniffled behind him, holding my father close.
“Well.” Daniel’s voice broke a little. “Give her the ring, son. You can give her your fancy one too, but I want you both to have this as part of your bond.”
“I will, sir.”
And I could not stop the fucking tears because Daniel Bennett had just upped my proposal, and it was a total king move.
When I turned to take her hand, emotional speech cued in my brain, but Pip did Pip shit instead.
“Are you asking me to marry you without saying marry?”
I lifted a brow. “I said make you a Mercer. Context clues, Pip.”
A watery laugh broke out of her. “You are the worst proposal speaker alive.”
“I was recently ventilated.”
“That is not an excuse for poor sentence structure.”
“It absolutely is.”
She looked at the marble again, then at her mother’s ring, then at me.
Her eyes were red. Her cheeks wet. Her mouth trembling around the kind of smile I knew I would spend the rest of my life trying to earn.
I looked at Ryan, who stepped forward and handed me the ring I had bought her with him and Charm watching like two highly emotional jewel thieves. It was in no way comparable to the one her dad had just asked me to give her.
That was okay.
Both could matter.
Both did matter.
“Bliss,” I said, my voice rough as I held both rings in my hand.
“I love you. I love everything about you, and you are every reason for the breath I fought for. I live for us being us and for the utter insanity you bring into a room just by being you. I want more than to marry you, Pip. I want to be your husband and do husband shit with you.”
Her face crumpled again. “Husband shit?”
“Yeah.” I nodded, dead serious. “Like Home Depot on a Saturday afternoon so I can buy a barbecue and save your family from your dad’s cooking.”
Everyone but Daniel laughed, including Pip, who nodded through tears and said, “Yes, but we call it legacy so we don’t hurt his feelings.”
“Exactly.” I kissed her lips softly. “I want Target trips after so you can buy more throw pillows we don’t need because they are aesthetically necessary for your happiness.”
“Because they are, Cade.” She cried harder. “They really are.”
“I know, Pip.” I pulled her closer, careful of every scarred part of me and completely careless with my heart. “I want to build you a more stable and functional platform for your Nevers so you aren’t using an old cupboard door and hot glue.”
Her mouth trembled.
“And I want to watch you scour the internet for every marble you can find because the life I will build for you is going to require an obscene amount of Nevers to honor your mom with.”
“Stop,” she cried.
But I refused, tugging her impossibly closer.
“I want to give you babies and name them something as unique and beautiful as Bliss. Reverie or Mercy, maybe, because a mini version of you would require both, Pip.”
Her mouth trembled. “Mercy?”
“Yeah.” I brushed my thumb over her cheek. “Because I’d need it if she came out anything like you.”
A broken laugh slipped out of her.
“And I’d call them Pipsqueak,” I added. “They’d love it.”
“They would hate it.”
“Impossible. It’s adorable.”
“You are not naming our hypothetical baby Reverie and then calling her Pipsqueak.”
“Pipsqueak wouldn’t eat Grandpa’s burnt chicken either.”
Her laugh broke harder through the tears. “Because we bought the barbecue to save everyone.”
I nodded, brushing my thumb over her cheek. “We bought the barbecue, Pip.”
She cries, nodding her head and I know she can see it.
“And I want to love you, Pip, because nobody will ever love you as much as I appreciate you letting me love you.”
“Yes, Cade. Yes.”
She pulled me closer and pressed the hand with the marble against my chest, right over the place where my heart was trying to leap from my ribs.
“I’ll wear my mom’s ring. I’ll wear yours too. I’ll be your fifty-five reasons. I’ll be Bliss Mercer someday, even though that sounds like a woman who probably owns horses and yells supportive burns at your rival team because mean people suck, but also—supporting my man.”
Laughter broke through the room, wet and relieved and loud enough to make my ribs remember their trauma on principle.
I didn’t care.
I cupped her face and kissed her.
Carefully at first, because we did have an audience, including both our fathers, my mother, her brothers, my teammates, her best friends, a private nurse off duty and invited because Steve had become weirdly beloved, and possibly the chef pretending not to cry near the kitchen.
Then Bliss made a tiny sound against my mouth and kissed me back with the kind of trembling devotion that made every scar, ache, and memory disappear for one reckless second.
The room erupted.
Briggs shouted something incoherent. Charm sobbed louder.
Kellen yelled, “Family history!” and lifted his phone.
Ryker threatened to throw it out the window.
Easton laughed. Aura cried. Rider clapped once, then pretended he hadn’t.
Ryan said, “About damn time,” like he hadn’t seen me almost die and kept me alive through sheer refusal.
My father’s hand landed carefully on my shoulder when Bliss pulled back.
I looked at him.
For a moment, Harrison Mercer did not look polished or cold or untouchable.
He looked like my father.
Exhausted. Relieved. Proud in a way he had never figured out how to make gentle until right then.
“Well done,” he said quietly.
Two words.
That was all.
But from him, it felt like a speech.
My mother kissed my cheek, then Bliss’s, then immediately started crying harder, which made Bliss cry again, which made Daniel Bennett wipe his face and mutter something about allergies even though we were thirty floors above the nearest tree.
The chef announced dinner like he was trying to save all of us from drowning in feelings. No one moved for a second. Then Bliss looked up at me, still holding the marble and wearing her mother’s ring on one hand and mine on the other.
“You planned all this?”
“Some of it. I required emotional supervision and access to a jeweler.”
“You were training.”
“I had rest days.”
“You were supposed to be resting on rest days.”
“I was multitasking.”
“You are such a menace.”
“Your menace.”
Her face softened in that way that still made me feel like the floor might disappear beneath me.
“My menace,” she whispered.
I smiled.
Then she tucked the marble safely into the pocket of my KFU hoodie she had stolen off a chair and slid her arm around my waist. Not to hold me up anymore. Not because I needed it.
Because she wanted to be close.
Which meant everyone noticed and pretended not to.
I loved them for that.
Annoying as hell.
But I loved them.
As the room came alive around us again, voices rising, food being uncovered, champagne being poured, beer being opened, and my mother trying to convince Daniel that the lake cottage truly was modest, I looked down at Bliss.
She looked up at me.
“What?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“Fine.” I kissed her temple. “You’re wearing my name eventually.”
Her cheeks flushed. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You said yes.”
“I was emotionally compromised.”
“Still binding.”
She smiled through fresh tears. “Good.”
My body was no longer something I had to drag back from the edge. It was healing. Strengthening. Becoming mine again with every mile on the bike, every lap on the ice, every lift, every breath that came easier than the one before it.
But Bliss was beside me, her engagement rings on her fingers and my marble in her pocket.
Our families were in the next room.
Our future was not waiting somewhere far away anymore.
It was here.
Messy. Loud. Impossible.
Mine.
And finally, ours.