Epilogue Lily
Epilogue
Lily
“You sure you want to do this?”
“Yeah.”
Barrett hadn’t come down to Florida for my last weekend there, but when I told him there was something I wanted to do in Texas, he told team ownership he needed thirty-six hours off. They gave it to him even though the beginning of the season was in full swing.
Before I’d even had the chance to ask, there was no question that he’d be there for me. He always was.
I handed him the key, shielding my eyes from the brutal heat of the sun while he unlocked the padlock that had kept the unit secure for the last decade. Not that long ago, I would’ve known exactly how many months and weeks and days it had stayed that way.
Counting that passage of time didn’t help. Didn’t make me miss them less. So I stopped. Now my countdowns involved the three members of the King family who held my future.
How many days until I’d see them. Until I could sleep in Barrett’s arms. Until I could bake with Maggie after school. Watch Bryce play soccer and be that sideline mom who yelled at the refs until Barrett told me to calm down.
Barrett pulled the lock out and pocketed it, leaning down to yank open the rolling door.
My stomach had been unsettled all morning, my brain anxious, only settling slightly when Barrett got off the plane he’d chartered to come be with me. Banging the coach came with perks, and access to a private jet was definitely one of them. Pearl, as it turned out, was a closet romantic.
Before I opened my eyes, Barrett slid his fingers in between mine, holding them tightly in his grip as the stale smell hit me. I blew out a breath and finally pried my eyes open.
The unit was smaller than I remembered. In my head, it had grown into something big and intimidating, rows and rows of memories that I’d never dared touch.
In reality, there wasn’t as much as I thought.
A couple of wardrobe boxes that held clothes I hadn’t been able to part with.
A leather chair my dad had often fallen asleep in.
The covered body of the car he’d worked on for years, completed only about six months before he died.
He’d taken me on two drives in that car, and if I closed my eyes again, I’d remember the wind on my face and the songs playing on the radio.
I walked closer, fingers dragging along the edge of the cloth covering the car.
Barrett stayed with me, his eyes lingering on the vehicle, lit with curiosity when I glanced over my shoulder.
“What is it?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“You can look.” My voice came out thick, tight with emotion that I’d kept bottled up all morning in anticipation of what we were doing.
Before he uncovered the vehicle, Barrett held my face in his hands and studied me closely. “Are you okay?”
After letting out a deep breath, I nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay.” Then I smiled. “I’m ready.”
Barrett dropped a kiss on my forehead, then turned to the low-slung car. With careful hands, he pulled the cover off, his face going slack when the beautiful blue was completely uncovered.
“Whoa,” he breathed. “A Corvette?”
“1969 Stingray,” I told him, eyes lingering on the sleek lines of the perfectly restored machine. “His dream car.”
“It’s incredible.” His gaze locked on mine. “You should take this back with us. I think he’d like knowing you were driving it.”
My eyes filled. I liked that idea. “Do we have enough garage space?”
“Sweetheart, I’ll buy you a new house if we need to make room for this,” he said, sliding an arm around my waist while we stared down at the car.
“I like that house,” I protested.
“I do, too, but don’t let that be the reason you leave it here.” He kissed the top of my head. “This is too beautiful to leave hidden away.”
I exhaled heavily. “Okay. We’ll figure it out.” I tilted my chin up at Barrett and he took the hint, leaning down for a soft kiss.
“Do you know which box you’re looking for?”
Tucked in the corner were two small stacks of moving boxes labeled with big black letters in my handwriting.
Dad’s garage stuff
Aaron’s toys
Books
Paperwork
Office items and photo albums
The box on the top of the closest stack wasn’t taped shut, just folded together.
Mom’s kitchen stuff
My hands shook slightly as I pulled it open, silent tears coursing down my cheeks as I looked down into the box.
Her cookie cutters. The rolling pin that was probably fifty years old.
Vintage glass casserole dishes that she’d kept from her grandma—a burnt-orange-and-white pattern that was just kitschy enough to be cute.
Memories bombarded me, bittersweet and poignant, moments that had been simple at the time, but now they felt like everything. They didn’t devastate me like I’d always feared. I rubbed at my pounding chest and took another breath as I shifted a glass dish to the side.
Folded neatly against the side of the box was a glimpse of yellow material.
I smiled through my tears. “Yeah. I’ve got it.”
Two months later, I gave it to Maggie for her eleventh birthday, and she asked if I was okay as I cried when she put it on for the first time.
I told her the truth: I was happy, but I missed my mom, and wished she’d been able to meet her.
Then my sweet girl hugged me and cried, saying she wished that too.
Turned out, Bryce had the same reading taste as my brother, and he devoured the comic books Aaron had loved so much, losing himself in the fantasy worlds of animal kingdoms and wars and good versus evil.
We read through them together, setting aside time every night before he went to bed to take turns reading.
My dad’s car, which we named Blue, sat in the extra garage stall Barrett had added on to the house as soon as I moved in.
During the first regular season as the coach’s girlfriend, I had a crash course in just how busy Barrett was.
Much like when I’d first met him, he tried to be home before the kids went to bed, but it didn’t always work out that way.
On the nights when it was later, I waited up until he got home, greeting him with a long hug and a longer kiss.
Sometimes he was asleep less than fifteen minutes after walking through the door, but it was always with me in his arms, and that was the only thing that mattered.
He was the hardest worker I’d ever met in my life, and I found that game day was one of my favorite things.
Watching him get to do the thing he loved was almost sickeningly exciting.
I especially liked his mood after they won.
Celebratory sex was my jam. So was consolation sex after they lost. That was usually later at night, once we’d climbed into bed, and I’d wrap my arms around him while he talked about the game and what went wrong.
Like anything with us, all it took was one kiss—meant to be simply that—and it didn’t take long to become more. As we neared the end of the season, closing in on a year from when we met, we were still insatiable. He told me he loved me every day. And I always said it back.
The first time the three of them drove somewhere without me, I didn’t know where they were, and I had a panic attack when they were late coming home.
He held me through it and told me it was okay.
I started seeing a therapist a couple times a month after that, and to my surprise, all my emotional baggage actually could fit onto her couch.
Turned out, talking to people who could talk back really did help. No offense to Larry, but it was what I’d needed all along.
We argued on occasion. Because we were both stubborn as hell and always thought we were right.
The makeup sex was worth it, though. It was over little things—like grilled cheese with ketchup, even when there was perfectly good tomato soup in the house.
He was wrong, and I swore I’d get him to admit it someday.
Or it was over larger things, like how we thought something should be handled with the kids—especially when it came to dealing with Rachel.
To my surprise, I did not break her nose when I met her.
But we’d never be friends, that was for fucking sure.
During an eternal Christmas break when the kids were at her house for a week, Maggie sent me a text saying she’d rather be home with us—her real parents—and I cried on and off for the rest of the day.
Barrett was more understanding toward his ex than I was, but even if we butted heads, he knew I’d take a bullet for his kids, and that was always where my intentions were rooted.
It was during that Christmas break, after a day of movies and snuggling on the couch, that Barrett pulled out a beautiful diamond solitaire and proposed to me under the mistletoe.
This time, he’d been the one to hang it.
When he got down on one knee, I couldn’t stop crying.
“You’re my best friend,” he told me. “My partner. And every piece of my life is better with you in it.” He kissed my hand as he looked up at me, his own eyes filled with tears. “Marry me, Lily.”
I said yes, and we waited to tell the kids until they got home from Rachel’s a few days later. Bryce wiped away a few tears that he thought we couldn’t see, while Maggie proclaimed it the best day of her entire life.
Buffalo made it into the playoffs that year, winning their wild card game and then one more, and it was the saddest fucking thing in the world watching those players leave the field after they lost.
Two days later, Barrett woke me up with his mouth between my legs, and when he was done—or when I was done, rather—he said he had a surprise for the kids and me.
“That wasn’t my surprise?” I said, still slightly out of breath, adjusting the sleep tank that had gotten all twisted around my chest.
He laughed. “Nope. Get dressed and come downstairs. We’ll grab breakfast on the way.”
“You’re in a chipper mood,” I said, eyeing him skeptically. “You didn’t even get laid this morning.”
He smacked a kiss on my mouth while he waited for me to stumble out of bed on still-shaky legs. “The day is still young.”