Epilogue
TAYLOR
Three Years Later
The arena was packed to the rafters, the majority of the crowd rocking our teal and white, the rest in the red and black of the Boston Minuteman.
I grinned and gave them a little wave before skating off.
Thirty seconds later, I stripped the puck off their center at the blue line, and the roar that went up was immediate.
“T-Mo!”
Six years with the Marauders and I still wasn’t used to it.
I pushed up ice and found Rhys cutting hard up the left side.
When he’d signed with the team three years ago, I worried my career was over.
Now, we were one of the strongest defensive pairings in the division, skating like we’d been paired our whole careers.
He knew where I’d be before I got there. I knew the same about him.
I fed him the puck, and he walked it to the circle, roofing it over the goalie’s glove faster than the man could react.
Our fans exploded.
I got to Rhys first, crashing into him hard. He laughed and shoved me off.
“Little soft on the pass,” he chirped.
“You still scored,” I pointed out.
“Barely.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
Bell slammed into us from behind, shouting, “I fucking love this team!” as Cally and Ports piled on.
Back in the locker room, fresh off a 4-2 win, Ports was riding a boxer-clad Cally’s back, smacking his flank like he was a horse, as they shot around the room hooting and hollering.
Bell was holding court in the center, gesticulating broadly as he gave his play-by-play breakdown of how we’d smoked the best team in the division.
I watched Rhys—a man who, for the first year I knew him, scowled more than he smiled—try and fail to keep a straight face.
“Drinks at The Upside Down!” Bell called out. “First round’s on me.”
“Yes!” Ports shouted, hopping off Cally’s back and draping his arm over his shoulder.
“You coming?” Rhys asked.
“Can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “Sebastian’s plane landed an hour ago.”
Bell sauntered over. “You’re no fun anymore.”
“I am extremely fun. I’m just fun at home now.” I waggled my eyebrows, and Rhys made a faux gagging noise.
I bumped his shoulder with mine. “If Si wasn’t in Pittsburgh for that wedding, you’d be rushing out alongside me.”
“True,” he smirked, grabbing his keys and wallet from his stall and calling out to Cally, who’d finally put on some clothes. That guy was naked more often than not. “Come on, boys. Let’s get you fed before you start drinking.”
Bell caught my eye and gave me a small nod.
I walked the six blocks home from the arena, the windows lit up from inside when I turned onto our street.
Last year, we’d sold my antique colonial and moved into a modern townhome with a rooftop deck that had a view of the water.
I sometimes missed that rickety old house, but I didn’t miss the endless upkeep or the yard work.
I jogged up the steps and let myself in, dropping my bag by the door and following the smell of garlic to the kitchen.
Sebastian was at the stove, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled to his elbows, his tie off, his jacket draped over the back of a stool. There was a glass of red wine on the counter next to him. He glanced up when he heard me come in, smiling wide.
“Hey! Good game.”
“You watched?”
“I caught the third period.” He turned back to the stove, stirring the contents of a large copper pot. “Rhys’s goal was ridiculous.”
“That he got off my pass,” I said, coming up behind him and setting my chin on his shoulder. “Smells good. Whatcha making?”
“Marry Me Chicken.”
“I’m no chicken, and I already did.”
He snorted, and I kissed his neck. He hummed, tilting his head to the side.
“Tastes good,” I murmured against his skin, my lips lingering on his pulse point. “I missed you.”
Sebastian had been down in D.C. all week, while I’d been on a roadie the week before that. We hadn’t seen each other in twelve days.
“Missed you, too,” he said, setting the spoon down and leaning back against me. “Thankfully, I don’t have to head back for another two weeks.”
“Mmm,” I hummed, imagining all of the ways I wanted to spend that time.
The Marauders had a run of home games leading into the All-Star break, so I wouldn’t be traveling again for the next ten days.
I couldn’t wait to make up for lost time.
“Down boy,” Sebastian chuckled when my cock started to swell against him.
“But he missed you,” I sing-songed, flexing my hips and then backing away just in time to avoid his swat.
“Go sit down. Dinner’s ready.”
I sat at the island and watched him plate up our meal, which I would never get tired of doing. “How’d it go this week?”
He exhaled loudly, turning to me, a plate in each hand. “The bill got out of committee, which is the good news.”
“And the bad news?” I asked, as he set them down on their placemats.
“Rutherford is staging a procedural delay. His district has a forty percent free and reduced lunch participation rate, but he’s grandstanding for an audience of twelve people who’ve never set foot in a public school cafeteria.”
“You’ll get him back,” I said with absolute conviction as he climbed onto the stool next to me.
If anyone could bring that jackass Rutherford to heel, it was my husband.
“Yeah, I’ll get him back,” he agreed, pouring a second glass of wine and sliding it my way.
When Sebastian and I first got together, I didn’t really understand the appeal of wine, but after a honeymoon in France that included a week in Bordeaux, I was a solid convert.
We spent the next twenty minutes talking about my game, the party our friends Harrison and Jeremy were throwing next weekend, and Maya’s drama queen girlfriend.
“Oh,” he said, popping up from his stool. “I almost forgot.” He went to his bag and returned with a folded piece of paper. “Bea wanted me to give you this.”
Bea, as in Sebastian’s sister—the one he’d given up on ever finding. But then one day, a pink-haired woman with a septum piercing and arms covered in tattoos showed up in his office on the Hill, saying, “Hello, big brother. I heard you’re looking for me.”
Sebastian had extended that trip so they could get to know one another.
As it turned out, the only thing they really had in common was the fact that they were both gay.
Still, they’d gotten along well enough that first weekend that they'd decided to stay in each other's lives. Now, they were thick as thieves.
I unfolded the paper carefully to find a drawing of a compass with my Marauders jersey number worked into the design, beautifully rendered in Bea’s distinctive style.
Bea was a woman of many talents. She was a part-time mixologist at a popular gay bar in D.C. She played in a roller derby league. She was a gifted tattoo artist. And now she was learning how to play guitar.
Oh! That was another thing she and her brother had in common.
“It’s perfect,” I said, refolding the paper and sliding it into my back pocket.
“Of course it is,” Sebastian said, his voice laced with pride.
“Now I just have to work up the courage to actually have her do it.”
“She said she’ll give me a matching one.”
My number. On his skin.
I felt something possessive move through me that I wasn’t even remotely ashamed of. Buttoned-up Sebastian Carruthers walking around with my number inked somewhere on his body, where only I knew where it was?
Yeah, I really liked that idea.
“I kind of love that,” I told him, setting my glass down.
Sebastian pushed his plate aside and leaned his elbow on the counter, his head propped in his upturned hand. The corners of his mouth were relaxed, his tired eyes steady on mine, the way they got late at night when there was nothing left competing for his attention and he got to just be.
“So do I,” he said, his voice warm.
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “Somewhere only you can see.”
“Fuck yeah,” I said, reaching out to wrap my palm around the back of his neck and tug him toward me.
He came willingly, sliding off the stool to stand between my legs as I kissed him slowly and thoroughly, tasting wine and the garlic as our tongues twisted against each other.
“Let’s go upstairs,” he whispered against my lips.
“You read my mind.”
I slid off my stool and walked him backward toward the hallway, my mouth on his, his fingers twisted in the front of my shirt.
We weren’t in any particular hurry, and that was its own kind of luxury—the knowledge that we had all night, that he didn’t have to get up before dawn to catch a flight, and I didn’t have an early skate in the morning.
Before we even reached the stairwell, though, both our phones chimed with a series of incoming text messages. There was a brief pause, and then several more followed.
I dropped my head back and groaned. “No.”
Sebastian pulled his phone out of his pocket when more chimes sounded. “It’s Bell,” he said, thumbing the screen to open the messaging app. “Holy shit. Will’s in the hospital.”
“What?” I said, grabbing the phone from him, my eyes moving quickly over the group text Bell had just sent, Sebastian reading over my shoulder. “Shit.”
“That sounds bad.”
According to his note, Will had driven his car straight into a tree, breaking a leg and his collarbone. An injury like that? His season was over. A scandal like that? He’d be lucky if the team didn’t cut him loose immediately.
The phone chimed again, and Sebastian gently eased it from my white-knuckled grip. “Ethan’s on his way to the airport now with Ryan to fly out to San Diego,” he read aloud.
“I told him to lay off the partying.”
“I know you did.”
Ever since that Thanksgiving where Will had spent the entire afternoon and well into the evening trying to fuck Sebastian, the three of us had formed an unlikely friendship.
Whenever the Marauders were in San Diego, he, Bell, and I made sure to get together.
And with him spending the summers here in Portland helping to coach at his dad's youth hockey camp, we spent a lot of time together then, too.
Deep down, Will was a good kid, but for the past year, I’d been worried about him.
He made frequent appearances in the tabloids, photographed leaving clubs with various men and women, but never the same one twice.
And the last time we played against him, he’d looked haggard.
He was twenty-five, but he looked closer to thirty.
“Maybe this will be the wake-up call he needs,” Sebastian volunteered.
I nodded, worried that, instead, it would ruin his whole fucking life.
“Come on,” he said, taking hold of my hand. “We’re both exhausted. Let’s go to bed.”
“Fucking Will ruining my sexy times,” I muttered under my breath.
Sebastian chuckled as he led me upstairs. “Will it make you feel better if I let you blow me?”
I brightened instantly. “Yes.”
Warmed from our shower and the things that had happened inside it, I watched Sebastian run through his end-of-night routine. It was a sight I’d witnessed a thousand times before, and I knew the sequence by heart, but it never got old.
He caught me staring and raised an eyebrow.
“Just like looking at you.”
He shook his head, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth, and climbed into bed next to me. I reached over and turned off the light.
Lying there in the dark next to my husband, I thought back to the kid who’d fallen for his roommate but didn’t yet have the emotional maturity to understand that’s what was happening.
The thirty-one-year-old who’d fallen for him all over again, even though it seemed like our love was an impossibility.
But against all odds, we’d made it work anyway.
Sebastian’s breathing slowed, and he rolled onto his side, even in sleep, reaching for me, his hand warm against my ribs.
I threaded my fingers with his and closed my eyes, a smile on my face. I couldn’t tell you what I’d done to deserve any of this, but I would never take it for granted. I really was the luckiest son of a bitch in the world.