Epilogue
Rough and Tumble hadn’t changed.
Same scarred wood bar. Same dented brass rail. Same low hum of conversation that never quite rose to a roar. If anything, it felt smaller than Connor remembered—like a place that had once held a louder version of him.
He sat near the end of the bar with Ric, a half-finished beer sweating on a napkin. The TV on the wall wasn’t tuned to a game tonight. It was tuned to a studio broadcast.
Mac’s voice carried through the room.
Clear. Confident. Warm in a way that had nothing to do with projection.
“What makes Wisconsin dangerous this season isn’t just the roster,” she was saying. “It’s how well they read each other. You see it in the spacing, the cuts—they move like they already know where the next pass is going.”
Ric tipped his head back slightly, listening like he was orienting himself by the sound.
“Feels like yesterday we were sitting here watching her play,” Ric said. “Half the bar yelling at the refs like they could hear us.”
Connor smiled. Not because the memory was sweet, but because it felt finished.
“Feels like a lifetime ago,” he said.
Ric glanced over. “You flying back tonight?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Connor said. “Early.”
“She’ll be there when you get back?”
“Yeah.”
Ric nodded, like that made sense now. Like it always had.
On the screen, Mac laughed lightly at something the host said, easy, unguarded. She looked like herself in a way Connor had learned to recognize—not braced, not performing, not proving anything.
Just present.
He’d watched her fight for that.
Connor finished his beer and set the glass down, already thinking ahead.
Not to the flight back to Good Hope.
To the familiar turn off the highway.
To the sound of her door closing behind him.
To the way she’d look up when he walked in—and smile.
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