Epilogue
RAFE
THREE YEARS LATER
There are certain sounds you don’t mistake once you’ve heard them enough. A sold-out arena chanting your band’s name is one of them. A gym full of kids bouncing basketballs while a drum kit gets mic-checked in the corner is another.
The second one is my favorite.
We’re three weeks from the end of the US leg of the Steel Saints tour.
We started in New York, zigzagged through Chicago and Dallas and Denver, and we’ve been inching west ever since.
The new album went platinum faster than any of us expected, and our world tour starts next year.
Management is already throwing around phrases like “legacy phase,” which makes Miles roll his eyes so hard I’m surprised they haven’t detached.
But today isn’t about charts or ticket sales.
Today is about three songs in a community gym in San Diego.
The guys agreed to it without hesitation when Ollie asked. Two-day gap between Phoenix and LA. A small detour south. No staging, no pyro, no theatrics. Just stripped-back versions of three tracks for the kids in the basketball outreach program.
Luca insisted on handling the stage layout himself, which means he’s currently arguing with Marco about speaker placement like he’s not eighteen years old and about to leave for college on a full scholarship.
I lean against the baseline and watch him.
Three years ago, he wouldn’t have met my eye. Now he’s walking around with a clipboard and an opinion.
“That mic stand’s too high,” he tells Miles, who stares down at him in exaggerated offense.
“I’m six foot two,” Miles says gravely.
“You’re dramatic,” Luca shoots back. “Lower it.”
I laugh.
Marco catches my eye from across the gym and shakes his head fondly. He’s still as deeply involved in the program as he was when it first expanded here. If anything, he’s more relentless. He runs workshops, mentors, and makes sure the funding doesn’t disappear when headlines shift.
“Your fault,” Marco calls to me. “You encouraged him.”
“He’s right,” I reply.
Marco snorts.
Across the court, Ollie is standing near the free-throw line, talking quietly with one of the younger kids.
He’s in jeans and a black T-shirt with the foundation logo on the chest. Retirement softened him in some ways, sharpened him in others.
He doesn’t carry the physical strain of the League anymore, but he still moves like an athlete—controlled, grounded, aware.
He caught the health bug hard when he stopped playing professionally. He tracks sleep like it’s a competition. He meal-preps with religious intensity. He still side-eyes me when I grab gas station snacks on the road.
I still leave damp towels on the bathroom floor.
Marriage is compromise.
Three years in, we’ve learned where to bend and where not to.
He looks up and finds me watching him. His mouth curves, just slightly, and fuck, it still hits.
It’s not the electric, volatile thing it used to be. It’s steadier now. Deeper. Less about collision and more about alignment.
We travel together when we can. He joins tour stops when his foundation schedule allows it. I fly with him to Tucson, San Diego, sometimes Minnesota when the Eagles need him for alumni events or advisory panels. We’ve learned to sync calendars without resenting the distance.
It isn’t perfect.
Luca jogs over, breathless. “You’re really doing just three songs?”
“That’s the deal,” I tell him.
“You’ll do ‘Mending Hearts,’ right?”
I smirk. “You negotiating the set list now?”
“It’s their favorite,” he insists, gesturing at the cluster of kids pretending not to eavesdrop.
“They have good taste.”
He hesitates, then grins. “It’s about him, isn’t it?” He nods toward Ollie.
“I don’t confirm or deny artistic inspiration,” I say solemnly.
“Sure,” he replies, unconvinced.
Ollie finishes his conversation and makes his way toward us. “You ready?” he asks.
“For three songs in a gym with questionable acoustics?” I glance around at the exposed beams and scuffed floor. “Absolutely.”
He shakes his head, amused. “You don’t have to do this,” he says quietly, just for me.
“I know.”
“And you’re sure?”
“I wrote half the album in hotel rooms while you were in Tucson,” I remind him. “I can handle a gym.”
He studies me, like he’s still calibrating even after all these years. “You’re not exhausted?” he asks.
“I’m always exhausted when on tour.” Plus, I’m seriously not getting any younger. We’ve been slowing down and may announce that next year’s tour might be the last for a while.
“That’s not what I meant.”
I soften slightly. “I’m good.”
It’s true.
Eleven years sober last month.
Eleven years of therapy, of meetings, of unlearning the reflex to numb instead of feel.
The chaos that used to live under my skin doesn’t dominate the way it did. It still flickers sometimes, especially mid-tour, when sleep is inconsistent and adrenaline spikes. But I know it now. I don’t run from it.
I don’t drink it quiet.
Ollie reaches up and adjusts the collar of my jacket without thinking, the same way he used to straighten his jersey before stepping onto the court. “You’re going to make them lose their minds,” he says.
“That’s the idea.”
He leans in and kisses me. It’s quick.
The kids still gasp like we’ve done something scandalous.
“Gross!” someone calls.
“Focus!” Marco shouts back.
Ollie pulls away, smiling. “You’re incorrigible.”
“You married me.”
He rolls his eyes but doesn’t disagree.
The small crowd settles onto the bleachers. No screaming arena noise. No blinding lights. Just a couple hundred kids, volunteers, and mentors who’ve seen what this program can do up close.
Miles counts us in softly.
We open with something light. A mid-tempo track from the new album that gets heads nodding and shoulders swaying. The second song is older, one they all know, and Luca absolutely belts the chorus like he’s auditioning for something.
By the time we hit the third song, the energy shifts. I step forward slightly, acoustic strapped on.
“This one’s newer,” I say into the mic. “You’ve probably heard it. But this version’s different.”
The room quiets. Ollie’s standing off to the side now, arms folded loosely, watching.
“‘Mending Hearts,’” I say.
The first chord rings out, softer without full production behind it.
I wrote this one two years ago, in a house in San Francisco with unpacked boxes still lining the hallway after we moved into a new house, a little farther away from the city. It wasn’t about the chaos. It wasn’t about all we’d been through.
It was about what came after.
I sing the first verse slowly, letting the words sit in the air instead of rushing them.
“We were fire in a paper room,
breathing smoke like it was air,
calling damage destiny
like we didn’t know despair.”
There’s a murmur from the kids who know it.
I glance at Ollie on the second line of the chorus.
“You don’t save a heart by running,
you don’t heal it by goodbye,
you mend it in the daylight
where there’s nowhere left to hide.”
His expression changes slightly. He doesn’t look embarrassed anymore when I sing about him. He doesn’t deflect or tease. He just stands there, steady and present.
The second verse hits closer to home.
“We were brave in all the wrong ways,
throwing love against the wall,
thought the fall would break us open,
didn’t know it built us tall.”
I hold his gaze on the bridge.
“It’s not the storm that makes you stronger,
it’s the staying when it’s done,
it’s the hands that don’t let go of you
when you finally choose to run toward the sun.”
The gym feels smaller now, more intimate.
When I hit the final chorus, I don’t look at the crowd. I look at him.
“So if the world keeps breaking open,
and the past won’t stay apart,
I’ll be here in every moment
mending hearts.”
There’s no roar at the end. Just applause that builds slowly and then swells.
Luca is on his feet first. Ollie claps like he’s not the reason the song exists.
I step back from the mic, heart pounding for a reason that has nothing to do with stage lights.
Three years ago, we were stabilizing. Now? We’re rooted.
After the set, the kids swarm us. Questions about songwriting, about tour buses, about college dorms and training schedules.
Luca hangs back until the end.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
“For what?”
“For showing up.”
Ollie answers before I can. “That’s the whole point.”
Luca nods, like he understands more than he did three years ago.
When the gym empties and the equipment’s packed away, we’re left standing in the fading light of early evening.
“All good?” Ollie asks.
“Definitely.”
He studies me like he always does after I perform something personal.
“No spirals?” he asks gently.
“None.”
He nods once.
We walk out of the gym together, hands brushing but not fully linked. We don’t need to hold on tight anymore. Outside, the sky is streaked with pink and gold.
“World tour next year,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“You ready?”
“With you? Always.”
He smiles.
Three years ago, we rebuilt. Now we’re expanding.
We’re not perfect. We still argue about towels and negotiate schedules. We’re still imperfectly human. But now we’re steady.
And as we climb into the car and he squeezes my hand once before letting go, I realize something simple: We didn’t just survive loving each other. We learned how to do it in the open.
And that?
That’s the real encore.
Ollie’s character was created in the Zone Defense series, where you’ll meet five incredible basketball players, several that you’ll recognise from this trilogy.
Curious about Caden, the physio? Check out his story, Caden & Theo.