Epilogue
Tony
“ All in. Let’s win this thing .”
“ Mount Hope on three .”
“ This is what it’s all about .”
“This is indeed what it’s all about, the sights and sounds of a winning season. While the rest of the state was recovering from turkey dinners and shopping, the Oregon high school football championships happened this weekend in Hillsboro. Tonight, we bring you the story of a remarkable small town, a first-year coach taking over for an ill Oregon high school sports legend, a young quarterback with something to prove, and a team that’s captured national media attention.”
“That’s us, that’s us.” Cosmo wasn’t alone in cheering. The slick twentysomething news anchor standing in front of the stadium in Hillsboro paused for another montage of our team and its pregame rituals, this one set to dramatic music.
“Oh my God, I know how it ends, and I still have chills.” Angel shook her hands in front of her face. We’d had to move the watch party from her living room to the school cafeteria to accommodate everyone.
In this case, everyone seemed to mean the whole damn town, as the team, the parents, assorted boosters, band members, cheerleaders, and alumni were clustered around the big-screen TV at the front of the cafeteria.
“Shush, this is the part where they show homecoming.” John nudged Scotty who chortled.
“Look at Elliot dancing.” None of Cosmo’s crew had taken dates to homecoming, instead going in a pack in matching tuxes in school colors.
“We all looked sweet .” Elliot gave a live-action review of some of his best moves. “And I see Coach Capo sitting in a tree?—”
“Okay, okay.” It wouldn’t do to blush, but the screen did show Caleb and me dancing at homecoming. Sedately, plenty of daylight between us, but still enough for whoops and hollers from the kids who loved seeing any teacher on the dancefloor. The TV didn’t show my aching instep, but it did show the huge smiles on our faces.
“Out coaches are still a rarity, especially at the high school level, but Coach Capo is quick to bring the attention back to his team and their undefeated season,” the young anchor continued as the screen showed headlines from several LGBTQ+ publications and sports sites around the country. “And what a season it was.”
“Here comes the playoffs montage.” Scotty yelled the loudest as winning plays from various games were shown. He and John were in almost all the highlight clips, an unstoppable duo. But Cosmo, Elliot, and all the others had made it in as well.
“Hey, there’s the caravan of moms,” Cosmo called out as the TV showed a clip of the buses loading for one of our playoff games on the road. The band required more buses than the team. By the time the cheerleaders and dance squad were added, five buses headed out on I-84, followed by dozens of minivans, SUVs, pickup trucks, and more, all adorned with signs and waving the school colors.
“Hey, don’t exclude the dads and Caleb, who drove too,” Elliot’s mom, Joann, yelled at Cosmo. And Caleb had been a frequent refrain all season as he wasn’t merely the coach’s boyfriend. He was also a big part of the parent club, despite not being a parent, and thanks to his involvement, we had our first two foster family members of the booster club. His and Scotty’s story was a big win for nontraditional family structures, and their mom, who was in town for a visit, clapped loudest.
“And it all came down to this past weekend as the little team with the big fan base arrived to take on the Safe Harbor Herons.”
“Birdies!” The cafeteria erupted in a symphony of bird noises, complete with impromptu trumpet and flute solos from some of the band kids. Safe to say, despite the family connection for Elliot, Safe Harbor was hardly popular around these parts.
“Might as well be seagulls,” Scotty scoffed.
“Pelicans. Ostriches,” Elliot threw out a few more suggestions.
“Boys.” Angel held up a hand. “Your mascot is literally a mythical being.”
“Don’t insult our sasquatch.” Scotty shook a finger at her as the room laughed. It was extra funny because Scotty had laughed himself sick when he first saw our mascot, who was beloved for its hairy costume and giant rubber feet.
“Come on, watch the segment,” Angel urged. Next to me, Caleb took my hand under the table, and I shot him a smile. He and Eric were both in uniform, having rushed to the viewing after a shift.
“The Mount Hope Sasquatch arrived at the stadium with big feet and bigger dreams, but they were down twenty-one to fourteen at halftime.”
The TV flashed to a clip of us at halftime, Scotty standing up on a bench to implore the defense to dig in. Luckily, the station had edited out all his F-bombs. The clip did, however, include John’s speech, which had been heavily borrowed from several war movies. And me telling the team that they’d made it this far.
“Let’s finish the job,” I said on the screen, and the crowd in the cafeteria cheered. What the TV program didn’t show was me saying that the team was already winners and should be proud no matter what. Upping the drama for the sake of a good segment was a TV sports classic.
“The second half of the game, though, was an all-out running game battle as Mount Hope charged back to tie things at twenty-eight even. And then, with under a minute on the play clock ? —”
“Thirty-seven seconds!” half the team barked the correction.
“Coach Capo cooked up a Hail Mary for the ages, complete with an Oscar-worthy fake-out.”
“Thank you, thank you.” John stood, or rather, was pushed to stand by his friends and took a mock bow for his acting efforts.
“Mount Hope missed the extra point but went on to win it, thirty-four to twenty-eight, for the first championship in school history.”
“We are the champions…” The team burst into terrible singing amid much laughter and cheering.
“You’re a star.” Caleb leaned in so I could hear him over the team.
“Nah. That’s the kids. I’m just the guy who stepped in to coach?—”
“And win,” Coach Willard said from my other side. We’d moved a few chairs to make room for his new wheelchair. Beverly sat at his other side. “You did mighty fine, Coach Capo. Made this old boy proud.”
“Thanks, Coach. You feeling better is the real win.” My voice came out all croaky. After a summer’s worth of testing and several more health scares in the fall, he finally had a diagnosis of COPD and a treatment plan that was making a huge difference in his quality of life.
From our shaky beginning forward, he’d been one of my biggest supporters, and a few days before Thanksgiving, the school board had made my hire for the next school year official. Some said the board didn’t want to risk national media attention had they made an issue out of my being bisexual, but I liked to think the strong support of my team and their parents was what made the real difference.
“Y’all will come over for our Super Bowl party after the holidays?” Beverly pointed at Caleb. “I hear you’re a big fan.”
“Lies.” Caleb groaned and made a show of holding his head. But for a guy who claimed to not like team sports, he sure had watched an awful lot of it that fall. “I’ll bring my mom’s seven-layer dip.”
“Excellent.” Beverly and Coach Willard beamed. “And has that brother of yours announced his school pick?”
“No.” Caleb shook his head, glancing over at their mom, who was talking with Scotty and his friends. “He’s keeping his cards super close to the vest. But the number of recruiter visits keeps going up.”
“Including West Point.” Coach Willard could hardly contain his pride.
“It’ll be Scotty’s decision in the end,” Caleb said firmly. His attitude had changed in the past few months, coming more from a place of acceptance and understanding that Scotty had to blaze his own path forward.
“And when do you get to put up that room for rent sign?” Beverly teased Eric as he came over to our table.
“Eh. We’re happy to make Tony Caleb’s problem now.” Eric joked, but his laugh was strained.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. He’d been fine when we’d privately discussed me moving in with Caleb after the first of the year since I was there most nights anyway.
“Don’t want to bring the celebration down, but Jonas just left to take Sean and Denver to the airport. Declan was in a motocross accident.”
“Oh no.” A murmur of sympathy went around the whole table.
“Bet he’s a tough one like his old man.” Coach Willard was a big fan of Sean’s, and in this case, I hoped like hell he was right.
Later, much later, after the watch party and celebration had disbanded, after Eric and John had headed back to the house to wait for news from Sean, after a quick dinner from Pinball Pizza with Caleb and Scotty’s mom, I lay in Caleb’s bed.
“Luck is such a weird thing, isn’t it?” I mused, resting my head on his chest. We were both in T-shirts and flannel pants. Sleeping rather than fooling around was a much more likely outcome. Their mother was installed in the living room on the new air mattress Caleb had acquired for her frequent visits. Even if she hadn’t been visiting, the news of Declan’s injury, combined with poor sleep leading up to the championship, was a definite mood damper.
“It is,” Caleb said quietly. “Pretty sure I’m lucky to have literally crashed into you.”
“And I’m lucky to have been in the wrong place at the right time.” I rolled so I could give him a quick kiss. “You can run into me anytime.”
“But I know what you mean.” He laced our fingers together. “Our luck—the chance thing that brought us together—makes me appreciate little things more.”
“Yeah. So much of this season was luck. We played Rainbow Cove in the semifinals right after their quarterback went down in the quarterfinals with an ACL injury. We won a couple of coin-flip calls in other games. And now we’re champions, and don’t get me wrong, the kids worked tremendously hard for it?—”
“And you. You worked hard too,” Caleb reminded me.
“We all worked hard, but luck plays a role. And then Declan was on top of the standings for his league, and now bad luck.”
“He’ll be okay.” Caleb held me a little tighter. “And we’ll all be here for him, Sean, and Denver. That’s luck too. Having such a good group of friends.”
“That’s not luck. That’s what happens when friends become closer than family.”
“True.” Caleb went quiet for a bit. “It blows my mind that I’ve gone from the kid with no friends to more than I can count between work, your group, the parent club… Damn, I am the lucky one.”
“Nah. That’s me.” I kissed him again. “And out of all my friends, you’re my favorite. My best friend.”
“Aww.” He looked up at the ceiling, but his blush gave him away. “You’re my favorite too.”
Someday, likely very soon, on a corny occasion like Christmas Eve or Valentine’s Day, I’d do the asking. And he’d say yes. He could beat me to the punch, of course, but he’d always been a little more cautious about laying his heart on the line. That was okay. I could take a risk for us both. What mattered was that we loved each other. Of that, I had zero doubt. Exactly how I didn’t doubt that he truly was my best friend, my soulmate, and the one person on earth I wanted to make it official with.
I stroked his fingers, rubbing my thumb down his ring finger.
“What are you doing?” he asked sleepily as he dropped his gaze to our linked hands.
“Thinking about all the holiday sales. Isn’t it cyber-something or small-business whatever coming up?”
“You want to go shopping?” Caleb blinked. “Who are you, and what have you done with Sergeant Tony Capo?”
“Me? You’re the one who made me fall in love.” I gave him a noisy kiss on the neck. “And yeah, we might have some shopping to do.”
“You sure?” There was that cautious part of Caleb again, the part that had been hurt before, the part I would always want to protect.
“I am absolutely, positively sure I want to shop with you. And do everything else with you.”
“Good.” He kissed me, carefully at first, then he gave into a giddy joy that always seemed to erupt between us when we least expected it. And for the first time since leaving the army, I was certain I was on the right path for the future I’d never dreamed of wanting, but I would do everything in my power to defend.