Epilogue
Rhys
It had been a little under three months since our terrible first date, and a lot had happened in that time.
My team was, so far, undefeated in regular season, and I’d been right about Taavi, Ruiz, and the twinky HR guy.
Pretty sure they were a throuple at this point.
Sev and I had been attending sign language classes together, and we’d picked up a lot of vocabulary.
My grammar still sucked, but it was improving.
Tyler and Lindsay decided they’d move in together at the end of summer when her lease was up, which gave me a few months to find a place of my own. Coach’s wife came through on the endorsement deals, though, and I’d had more breathing room, financially.
The biggest change, however, had to do with the fact that I was standing outside of Sev’s recovery room, holding a massive flower arrangement. The more we’d hung out with Coach and his family, the more Sev had realized that he really would be better off with two implants instead of one.
He was able to brow beat his insurance into covering part of it, and we crowd-funded the rest through a rugby car wash that sorta accidentally went viral in the Austin area.
That tended to happen, we’d discovered, when you got a bunch of rugby lads shirtless and soapy.
We’d snarled up traffic by the stadium, and the Austin Police Department had chided us for creating mayhem—oops—but we got the necessary funds together.
Gripping the daisies that I knew my rough-looking guy loved, I peeked my head around the curtain.
I smiled at Sev’s mom and dad, who looked as tired as I felt.
We’d all been up at four thirty a.m. to get him to the hospital on time.
The surgery went smoothly, and the doctor had been able to learn from Sev’s first surgery regarding the placement of the internal device.
He still had to recover before they installed the processor on the other side, but everything was looking good.
Sev blinked slowly, still groggy from the meds, but he looked good. I set the arrangement next to his bed and he gave me a dopey smile, completely incongruent with his tatted-up look.
“You’re here,” he slurred. Fucking adorable.
“I’m here.”
“I missed you.”
“It’s not even lunchtime.”
“Still,” Sev grumped, scrunching his face. “Any amount of time away from my one true love is too long.”
I inhaled sharply, darting a look to his mom and dad.
“He’s been saying that all morning,” his dad whispered, a mischievous grin on his face.
“Where’s my one true love?” his mom said, smiling through her terrible impression of him. “You do know that we plan on getting a ton of mileage out of that one, right?”
I swallowed thickly. I mean, yeah, I’d been in love with him practically from the beginning, but I figured we’d need a few more months before it was reasonable for us to say it out loud.
“Uh, sure. Now if we can just get him to say it when he’s not high on painkillers, that’d be sweet.”
His mom patted my chest. “I’ve never seen my son like this before.”
“Oh? He wasn’t this way with his first surgery?”
“No, Rhys. I mean I’ve never seen him so smitten. So in love. Makes me happy.”
Sev’s dad nodded in agreement. “Martha, why don’t we let these two have a few minutes together?”
They took each other’s hand and walked out of the tiny recovery area. Biting my lip, I pushed Sev’s hair back from his face, then whispered, “You’re my one true love, too.”
Always, if I had anything to do with it.
Severin
This surgery had gone so much better than the first, and having Rhys here made all the difference in the world.
He made everything better, to be honest. From the very beginning—well, almost the very beginning—he’d brought out the best in me. Even though we’d only been dating a few months, I already knew that I was madly, deeply, stupidly in love with him.
Since everything with the surgery went well, Rhys was able to take me home by midafternoon once the anesthesia had worn off. I’d still be down for the count for a few days, but at least I could recover from the comfort of my own bed.
As he tucked me in, I caught the smile that Rhys had been wearing most of the day.
“What’s this smile about?” I asked, touching the tip of my finger to the upturned corner of his mouth.
He huffed out a laugh. “Not sure if I should tell you.”
“Okay, now you have to tell me.”
“It has to do with something you said while heavily under the influence.”
I thought back through the things we’d talked about at the hospital and drew a blank.
“I have no clue. What did I say?”
He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “You called me your one true love in front of your mom and dad.”
“Shit,” I said, not one bit sorry. “I was supposed to wait until a reasonable amount of time had passed to say it.”
He gingerly settled alongside me, resting his head on his meaty fist. “Ah, well. I said it back, so maybe neither of us was in a reasonable mood today.”
“You said it back?”
“Mmhmm.”
“But… I didn’t hear you. I was out of it.”
“Do you want me to say it again?” he asked, smiling through a kiss to my temple.
“Yes,” I responded, feeling awfully pouty.
I blamed the anesthesia.
Ignoring my moody expression, Rhys made the I love you sign with both hands, then made the signs “kiss”, intertwining his fingers.
“I love you, Sev. You are my one true love,” he whispered, his eyes shiny with emotion.
“I love you, too,” I whispered back, somehow both giddy and teary at once. “I have from the beginning. And I don’t want you to find another place when you move out of your apartment. I want you to live here.”
“That the meds talking?” he asked, skeptical.
“Nope. I think we’re both past the point of pretending that this isn’t a forever thing.”
“True.” He tapped my nose. “But your mother didn’t appreciate your plan to trick me into going to Vegas so that you could marry me.”
Shit. Busted.
Rhys raised his brows. “Wait. Was that a real plan?”
I shrugged. “I mean… I was thinking a trip to Vegas sounded like an excellent six-month anniversary gift. And, you know, if we happened to stumble into a chapel while we were there, who’d be the wiser?”
Wow. Maybe those drugs were stronger than I’d realized. I mean, yeah, I was going to marry him, but I’d planned to keep that under wraps for another month or so, at least.
Rhys snorted. “You know you said that out loud, right?”
“Shit.” I grabbed his beefy arm. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not trying to push you, okay?”
“Baby,” he said, running his nose along mine. “Have you heard me deny anything?”
“Uh… no.”
“Then assume that I’m waiting for the end of the season to make it official so that we can have some semblance of a honeymoon.”
I grinned, then winced as exhaustion took over. Fucking robot ears.
“We love each other, you’re moving in, we’re getting married at the end of the season. Please remind me we had this conversation once I’m fully recovered.”
Rhys’s deep chuckle made me smile.
“I will, baby. And I’ll keep reminding you for the rest of our lives.”
Thank you for reading Meat Cute!