Epilogue
Two months later, Lana sat in the crowded arena wearing Eric’s jersey, her fingers tracing the stitched numbers across her chest as she watched him glide effortlessly across the ice during warmups.
The bright lights reflected off the rink, the roar of the crowd filling the arena, but somehow her eyes never left him.
Her husband.
Even now, the word still felt surreal.
If someone had told her a few months ago that she'd be married to a professional hockey player, traveling across the country with him during the season, and turning road trips into stolen adventures, she would have laughed in their face.
Yet here she was, smiling every time Eric glanced toward the stands and found her sitting exactly where he knew she'd be.
This away game had become the perfect excuse for a mini honeymoon in the middle of hockey season.
Tomorrow she would finally meet the rest of his family over brunch—a gathering Eric had been both excited and slightly terrified about for days.
Afterward, they would fly home on a private jet, where Eric had spent the last week dropping mysterious hints about a surprise for his "beautiful new wife. "
The fact that he looked entirely too pleased with himself whenever he mentioned it only made her more curious.
Thirty thousand feet in the air, he'd promised.
An adventure they'd never forget.
Knowing Eric, that could mean anything from an illicit and romantic rendezvous to a near-death experience involving champagne, bad decisions, and whatever ridiculous scheme he'd convinced himself was romantic.
Oddly enough, she trusted him completely either way.
The biggest surprise wasn't the private flights or the glamorous hockey lifestyle.
It wasn't the luxury hotels or waking up beside a man who somehow looked annoyingly handsome before his morning coffee.
It was how easy marriage felt. Not effortless—because relationships still required work—but natural. Comfortable. Like she'd found the person she was always meant to come home to.
Eric had admitted that he spent years insisting he wasn't the marrying type and told her about some of his past trysts. He wasn’t shy and reveled in enjoying his own body – a body that was hers to delight in anytime she wanted it.
The man confessed that he used to practically break out in hives whenever conversations drifted toward commitment.
He hated clingy women, yet somewhere between late-night conversations, stolen kisses, and learning every little thing about each other, they'd become something neither of them had expected.
Perfect.
Permanent.
They fit together in a way that surprised them both.
They still had their own lives. Their own careers. Their own friends and interests. Eric had hockey. She had her passions and ambitions. Neither one expected the other to give those things up and it never had to be said aloud either.
Instead, they simply chose each other.
Every day.
Every night.
Every quiet moment in between.
The conversations about the future had started happening naturally, too.
A house.
One home instead of two apartments.
A backyard.
Maybe children someday – or whenever it happened naturally between them.
The thought of a future with someone at her side no longer felt distant or frightening.
Instead, it felt exciting - especially when Eric talked about it.
A few nights earlier, he'd spent twenty minutes enthusiastically explaining why their future ‘forever’ home absolutely needed an underground sprinkler system and a giant rainwater cistern.
"Why is that?" she'd asked.
"So the grass stays green year-round… duh," he chucked, rolling his eyes – and then smiled to soften his words to her.
"For the kids?"
"No."
"For entertaining?"
"No."
"Then why?"
He'd looked at her as though the answer were obvious. "So our ‘future’ dog has a nice, cool, plushy place to poop. Have you seen the yards here? Rocks… and don’t get me started on the spiders."
They didn't even own a dog.
Yet.
Still, she'd laughed so hard she'd nearly cried.
Because somehow the image of Eric planning an entire landscaping project for a hypothetical dog in a house they hadn't purchased made perfect sense.
And maybe that was what love really looked like.
Not a bunch of grand, expensive gestures or dramatic declarations.
Not the wedding or the honeymoon or even the fancy private jets.
It was sitting beside him on the couch while he planned a future that included her in every version of it.
A future filled with laughter, children, a dog they didn't own (yet), and a yard that would apparently be the envy of the entire neighborhood.
As Eric skated past the glass and flashed her a grin, Lana felt her heart squeeze.
Maybe their story hadn't happened the way either of them expected.
Maybe neither of them had been looking. But somehow they'd found each other anyway.
And as she watched her husband on the ice, she realized she wouldn't change a single thing.
Because the future Eric dreamed about?
It sounded absolutely perfect to her.