Epilogue
AARON
Why am I so fucking nervous?
I’ve played in front of thousands of screaming fans and was able to block them out, but right now I’m a goddamn mess.
I glance to where Juliette stands near the makeshift refreshment table, grinning at something the tour guide is saying, her pretty face beaming at me.
She’s wearing jeans. Her sensible flats. Ice Wolves sweatshirt with a prim collar peeking out of the crewneck, hair slicked back, small bun at the nape and gold hoop earrings hanging from her lobes.
Damn she’s pretty.
I shake my head—focus, dude.
It’s Team Day with the Ice Wolves, which means the stadium is crawling with elementary school-aged kids in matching T-shirts, eager but exhausted chaperons, and sticky fingers and faces pressing against all the glass.
They’re toured the locker room, walked past the penalty box, and watched the Zamboni take a lap around the ice.
Now it’s my turn.
The kids are in the community room and I volunteered to entertain them because there’s been something weighing on my mind and heart, that I won’t be able to let go until I’ve gotten it off my chest. And considering it makes Juliette’s ovaries explode (her words, not mine) to see me interact with kids, this felt like the perfect way to say what I need to say.
Knowing they’ll love to see my hockey gear up close after my presentation, I leave my shoulder pads next to the chair at the front of the room and rest my stick against it. I set my face mask on the ground, too, before unceremoniously plopping down and surveying the little faces. My audience.
My co-conspirators.
So many giddy expressions, big, curious doe eyes, ponytails and juice-stained faces. All of them waiting for the big, bad Ice Wolf to begin.
The hand of a little boy sitting cross-legged on the floor shoots up. Without waiting for me to call on him, he asks, “When are we starting?”
I shift on the chair, and it creaks in protest from the weight of my giant body. “Yes, my little dude, we already have.”
“Nuh-uh.” He disagrees with a loud sigh. “This is the most boring part of the field trip. All you’ve done is stare at that lady.”
He points to Juliette.
Nor is he wrong; I was staring.
I can’t help it ’cause she’s so fucking adorable.
“Yeah,” another squeaky voice pipes up. “Plus, your chair looks like it’s gonna break.”
A chorus of giggles fills the room as someone else says, “My dad broke a lawn chair once.”
“Thanks for sharing,” I mumble, feeling my face get hot.
Jesus Christ. Maybe this was a horrible idea. I’m starting to regret it; these kids are armed, ready and anxious to begin.
Here’s the thing: they’re all in on my secret.
All of them are part of this plan.
Trust me when I say, it wasn’t easy to coordinate children participants—there was barely any time to rehearse and zero time to make sure they were all willing. But here we are and there’s no turning back.
I watch as Dorian Meier, one of the Wolves forwards, walks past the glass-walled community room, brows raised as he gazes in curiously, pausing with his hands on his hips at the sight in front of him. I feel like I’m in a fishbowl.
“Bro, keep walking…”
He does not keep walking and I have no choice but to clear my voice and proceed.
“Alright everyone,” I begin. “First I want to thank you for coming on the tour today, and for your patience.” Beneath their scrutiny, I shift in the chair. “Normally we read a book about ice hockey but today is a special day, and we have a special guest.”
Their heads swivel and crane, trying to determine who the special guest is.
Eyes home in and lock on Garrett Storm, who hovers nearby. Even though he isn’t my special guest, he was a necessary evil; I need his help with the cue card hiding amongst the kids and with the prompts.
Storm winks at me.
My nerves are frayed but the kids are anxious, restlessly flapping the cards they were given when they entered the room. Several kindergarteners hold them, beady eyeballs staring expectantly.
Right.
Time to get this party started.
I clear my throat. “Once upon a time, there was a bear named Bandit who made a very bad choice.” I pretend to turn a page. “Bandit was big and burly—like me—and hurt someone he cared about very much.”
Also like me.
One of the little girls raises a cardboard cue card: HE HURT THE SWEETEST PERSON HE EVER MET.
Juliette’s brows shoot up, confused by the crowd participation.
I keep reading. “The bear wished he could go back and make a different choice, but bears cannot travel through time.”
A blonde-haired cutie scoffs. “You would need a time machine to do that.”
I ignore her. “So instead, the bear apologized.”
A second card pops up: SAID SORRY A LOT.
Then another: AND ON THE JUMBOTRON.
Then, from the back row: GROVEL HARDER, DUDE.
I raise my eyes from the book I’m pretending to read and glare at Storm. He shrugs when I say, “That was not on my list of things to write on the cue cards.”
He laughs. “Just helpin’ out, bro. I was inspired to get creative.”
But he’s correct—I do need help.
I lower the book onto my lap.
The community room quiets and the adults in the room look thoroughly entertained. Despite the glitter-covered poster board and the fact that my ass has gone completely numb from this chair, I’m excited. What I’m about to say next is the most important part of this moment.
I look to Juliette.
She is the kindest, sexiest, sweetest woman I’ve ever known, and my heart grew ten sizes the second she came into my life.
Inhaling a nervous breath, the words I rehearsed on the drive here come pouring out of my mouth. “I know I apologized to you, Juliette, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve groveled enough.”
The kids are blessedly quiet as I steel my nerves and continue.
“I wish I could go back to that night at the bar and re-meet you after your date with Preston, that douche. I wish I’d had no ulterior motive.
I wish I’d immediately set out to date you, gotten your phone number, and flirted and texted you like a normal person. ”
A cue card slowly rises: HE WAS A DUMMY!
“I was the biggest dummy,” I admit with a laugh.
A giant fucktwat.
“My mom calls my dad dumbass a lot,” a boy in a navy-striped shirt volunteers helpfully. “Is that the same thing?”
I laugh. “Yes.”
Juliette bites down on her lower lip, a smile threatening to burst.
She’s happy, I can see it in her eyes.
I did that.
I make her smile…
I continue. “I wish I’d taken you to dinner because I couldn’t stop thinking about you, not because I was trying to prove something to your brother. I wish I’d sat across from you in that steakhouse and told you the truth about why I was there.”
Another sign lifts: SEE? TOTAL DUMMY.
A hand flies up near the back.
“Yeah?”
“Did your mom yell at you for treating a girl like that?”
My head shakes. “No. My mom lives too far away.”
This doesn’t satisfy the kid, who purses his lips. “She should have.”
I agree.
And I’d deserve any shit my parents gave me.
Another skinny arm goes in the air. “I have a card that says ‘stupid’ on it. Should I hold that up, too?”
Garrett steps forward, hands up. “Little ladies and tiny bros, you are all getting way too carried away. Stick to the plan,” he tells the kids. “Chill.”
I sigh. “We’ve already established that I was a dummy, okay?
We are not debating that. And Jules, I know you forgive me, but that doesn’t mean I’ll take for granted that I was a jackass.
” I pause, glancing into all their tiny faces, and at their chaperones, somehow waiting for a card with the word JACKASS to pop into the air, and breathe a sigh of relief when it doesn’t.
“I wake up every morning thankful you’re in my life.
You make it better—and I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to make yours better, too. ”
THE KISSES WERE REAL!
Juliette is laughing, tears of happiness shining in her beautiful blue eyes, and the sight of her smile shakes loose the knots inside my chest.
“I brought you here, with all these Ice Wolves fans as my witnesses, to spill my guts out.” Setting the book aside, I stand, ignoring the violent crack in my knees and the chair’s relieved squeak beneath my ass. “I can’t redo the beginning—but I can promise you the rest of it.”
You could hear a pin drop in this room. A small crowd of Wolves staff stand at the glass in the corridor, along with several other players, watching with Dorian Meier, as I do my best to entertain a room full of impatient, wiggling children who can’t resist moving all over the place.
I am boring most of them to tears.
The have ants in their pants, several of them stand for a better view.
“Babe,” I say to Juliette. “I promise to tell you the truth even when it makes me look like a giant asshole.”
She laughs again as a blue card lifts, covered in crudely drawn hearts with an insane amount of glitter: HE LOVES YOU A LOT.
I walk over and take her hands. “I love you—a shit-ton.”
A child gasps at my profanity.
Several teachers cough at the same time a kid with narrowed eyes vows, “I’m telling my mom you said that.”
“What’s a shit-ton?” someone else demands to know.
I ignore them all. “Not sure how it’s possible to love someone this much in such a short amount of time, but I do.
I’m so sorry for what an ass I was and wanted my little friends to hear it.
If Bandit the bear and I had a thousand chances to go back in time and do things differently, we’d both choose you every single time. ”
I love her so damn much.
She glances around at the tiny chairs, the handmade signs, and the children watching us with open interest, clearly hanging on her every word, waiting for her to say something back.
“Y-you love me?”
“I do.”
Juliette is positively glowing. “Since when?”
I slide my hands around her waist. “I loved you the second you ordered that milkshake on our first official date, even if I was too busy acting like a complete freaking idiot to realize it.”
Her brows raise. “That soon?”
Yes, that soon. “So now you don’t have to wonder.”
Her lips part, but before she can respond several of the girls in the room release a collective, “aww.”
More cue cards rise.
KISS HER!
KISS HER!
“Did you see that?” I drag the tip of my nose along the sensitive skin below her ear. “The crowd demands we kiss.”
She glances at them. “They’re a very bossy audience.”
“Obviously,” I scoff. “Wolves fans take romance seriously.”
When I press a kiss to her jawline, the room erupts into a fit of shrieks and giggles as if I had my tongue jammed halfway down her throat—which I fully intend to do later, in private.
“This may be the least dignified moment of my life,” I murmur. “I feel like these beady little eyes are all judging me.”
She laughs. “I mean, we are at work. This has to be breaking several policies.”
Probably.
Don’t give a crap though.
I give zero fucks when it comes to Juliette and her happiness.
Most of the kids are covering their eyes—kisses are so fucking gross when you’re six—but peeking through their fingers. I lower my mouth and brush it against Juliette’s soft, pouty lips.
I love her mouth.
I love her smile.
Her voice.
Her laugh.
Her cookies…
“I love you, Aaron.” Juliette rises on her toes and kisses me back, soft hand cupping my jaw as she gazes up at me through wide, blue eyes. “You are so sweet for doing this. My heart is so full.”
Her heart is so full.
I have easily gotten used to the way she spins words, basking in them when my moods are sour, usually after a loss.
“I love you so goddamn much,” I say again.
“I love you, too,” Juliette whispers.
“She said yes!” One of the girls screams, prompting another sign to shoot into the air.
SHE SAID YES!
My gaze shoots to Garrett Storm, now standing at the refreshment table, casually drinking from an apple juice box meant for the kids. He lifts it in a toast but the look I shoot him says, seriously, asshole?
“What?” He laughs. “I wanted to ramp up the drama.”
“We practiced cheering and jumping up and down before you got here!” one of the kids announces proudly.
I feel my eyes widen at my teammate. “Did you tell them I was proposing?”
He sips through the straw, making slurping sounds before admitting, “I may have implied an emotionally charged conclusion to the story time, ergo, a proposal.”
“He brought glitter!” a girl with two red braids points her finger at Storm. “It’s a big mess in the conference room.”
Another scrawny arm shoots into the air before he can defend himself.
“Yes?”
A gap-toothed cutie in a yellow dress asks, “Is she already your girlfriend?”
“I don’t know.” I glance down at Juliette, her cheeks are the prettiest shade of bright pink. “Should we ask her if she’s my girlfriend?”
The room erupts.
“Yes!” they shout.
A chorus of screaming, some children clapping, even more of them bouncing zealously on their bottoms, too excited to contain themselves. Juliette looks over at them, then back at me.
“You’re seriously going to make them do your dirty work?”
I shrug. “I need all the help I can get, this is a high-pressure situation.”
She giggles. “You’ve won the Stanley cup.”
“True. But I’m a man who knows when he needs backup.”
Storm chimes in, lifting his stolen apple juice and pointing toward the clock. “Time is running out, Bishop. T-minus two minutes before these kiddos need to be at their next tour stop.”
I turn back towards Juliette. “Juliette Kennedy—will you be my girlfriend?”
She bites down on that bottom lip I’ve already sucked on a dozen times, and nods. “Yes, I’ll be your girlfriend, even though I feel like I already was.”
The SHE SAID YES! sign pops up again, but this time it’s upside down, which makes us laugh.
The room explodes as if I’ve just scored a game winning goal, the gap-toothed girl in the front raises her hand again, waving it back and forth. “You should ask her to marry you now!”
Juliette’s eyes widen.
Garrett slowly holds up a HAPPILY EVER AFTER sign.
I grin, pulling her in for another kiss. “Okay. Shows over, everybody.”
* * *