Epilogue #3
I look down at her—the curve of her mouth, the tired happiness in her eyes—and my chest aches again. She woke something in me I didn’t know was sleeping. Not the need to win; that’s always been there. The need to… share it.
She squeezes my hand, lets it go, and leans forward to laugh at something Tanner says about getting recognized at a grocery store by a seventy-year-old who only knew him as “the one who lost his tooth on TV.”
Plates start making the rounds again. The big platters of meat from the grill gets passed like an offering. They take bites and the entire table sounds like I’ve hit unmute on hardcore gay porn.
“Jesus, Z,” Davidson says, half-choking, half-moaning. “What did you do to this cow? ”
“Marinated it in black magic,” Jace says around a mouthful. “Fuck, this is good.”
Compliments ripple up and down the table—low swearing, headshakes. Someone pounds the wood with the flat of their hand.
Zed looks at the guys as each one passes their compliment, and I see the appreciation in his gaze, his pale eyes lighting up a little. Zed reacts well to praise. Good to know.
“You hear this?” I call down to him. “What’s the secret?”
He looks up at me. The string lights catch in his eyes again, pale and sharp even out here. I know him well enough now to see the tiny shift, the almost-smile that never quite makes it to his mouth.
“I just used honey, garlic, and soy sauce.” His massive shoulders lift in a small shrug. “I’m glad you enjoy it,” he adds.
“Enjoy it?” Tanner says. “Dude, I’m about to cry.”
“Gordon Ramsay would never call you an idiot sandwich,” Jace adds .
Laughter rolls down the table. I wait for the praise to quiet, for Zed to soak it up, and then I push my chair back and rise.
“Hey,” I say, loud enough to cut through the noise. “Shut up for a second.”
The table quiets in stages with a few more laughs and a last clink of a bottle.
“Oh shit, Dad’s talking.” Jace gives me a lopsided grin.
“If you’re done sucking Zed’s dick for five seconds, I wanna say something.”
The table erupts again with shouts and laughter. Tanner twists in his chair to look down the line.
“Be honest, Z,” he calls, laughing. “You ever had this many men on your dick at once?”
The noise spikes. Zed tilts his head at Tanner, a single dark brow raised over those almost-colorless eyes.
“You seem quite interested in my dick, Tanny,” Zed teases, his baritone full of amusement. “Got something you wanna share with the class?”
Laughter explodes, cutlery rattling, the guys immediately piling on Tanner.
“He can’t handle it, Z,” Davidson wheezes .
“Who fucking could?” Jace booms. “I’ve seen it in the showers,” he adds, fanning himself. “He’s carrying a third leg down there.”
“You sure you only saw it, Jace?” Addams shoots across the table.
“That why you limp each time you head out of the showers?” Matt adds.
Jace looks at Zed between laughs, throwing his hands up in surrender.
“I’ll be more gentle next time, sugar,” Zed says to Jace, and the roar of laughter that follows is deafening.
“Yeah, yeah,” I cut in with a laugh. “Back off Zed’s dick, I’m trying to be sentimental.”
That earns another round of laughter, but it settles faster this time. They quiet down, eyes dragging back to me. Zed leans back in his chair with that faint ghost of a smirk.
They’re listening.
I rest my fingers on the table and glance down the length of it. My team. My family.
“I’m not going to make this long,” I say. “But I am going to say this while you’re all sober enough to remember it tomorrow. ”
A couple of groans.
Someone mutters, “Debatable.”
“We started this season like shit,” I say simply. “We did. We crawled. We bled. We had nights I wanted to break a stick over every one of your heads.”
“Love you too, Cap,” Tanner calls.
“But you showed up,” I go on, ignoring him. “You gave it your all. You blocked brutal shots, you played through stuff you should’ve sat for. You took hits that rattled your bones and got up anyway.”
I go down the whole line, name every one of them, list the hits, the blocked shots, the stupid jokes on road trips—everything. Finally, my eyes drag to the spot near the grill.
“And Zed,” I say.
He looks up.
“You’re the best insurance policy we’ve ever had,” I tell him. “You let us play like shit sometimes and still walk out with a win. You stood on your fucking head all year. We’re damn lucky you’re on our side.”
Chairs creak, and heads nod. A few guys knock their knuckles on the table. Agreement runs down the line like a low wave. Zed’s mouth twitches upward and he lifts his glass in our direction, tattooed knuckles flashing.
I give him a nod and let my gaze sweep the table again.
“Off the ice,” I say, “you did more than you had to. The Academy”—I jerk my chin vaguely—“that doesn’t happen if you guys don’t show up for the shoots, for the clinics, for the meet-and-greets with parents.
There are kids out there who don’t get a shot at ice time unless someone opens a door for them.
No money. No connections. No name. We’re helping build something that says they get to be here anyway. ”
I feel Jessica looking at me with a smile. I don’t look back yet.
“Now,” I say, “before this turns into a TED Talk, understand something.” I tap the table twice with my knuckles. “I am proud of you. Of all of us. This,” I nod at the Cup glinting at the end of the table, “is ours. Again.”
I let that hang, then let my mouth curl.
“But don’t get too comfortable,” I add. “Enjoy summer, enjoy the parties, enjoy the hangovers. Then get your asses back in gear, because we’re doing it again next season.”
That gets a louder roar from my guys.
“For now…” I reach for my glass, lift it, and look down the length of the table. “…for now, eat Zed’s meat,” I say.
The table erupts—groans, laughs, “AYOOO,” and howls.
“Drink my alcohol, and don’t break anything that looks important in the house.”
I sit back down, and Jessica’s hand immediately goes to my thigh, warm and reassuring.
“That was a great speech.,” she says over the noise, her eyes bright.
“Politician’s son, remember?” I say.
She snorts, nudges my leg with her knee. Her hand finds my jaw, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth, like she’s smoothing out something no one else can see.
“I love seeing you like this,” she says quietly.
“Like what?”
She hesitates, then murmurs, “Happy. ”
“Well, I had the best forty minutes of my day upstairs.” I shrug with a chuckle.
She laughs, leans in, and kisses me. Jace wolf-whistles somewhere to my right. Somebody bangs a glass. I flip them off without breaking the kiss.
When she finally pulls back, she’s glowing. I’ll do everything to see that smile every day.
“You did it,” she whispers.
“We did,” I say.
What I don’t say is we’re not done.
In forty-eight hours, I’m putting her on a plane. She doesn’t know that yet. A week ago, half-asleep on my chest, she started naming places she wanted to see.
Next morning, I called my travel guy, anybody who could move dates around without pissing off the League.
Three calls, one rearranged charity thing, and an argument with a PR rep later, I had two tickets. Ten days of no media, no cameras, no obligations.
Just us.
She thinks we’re taking a couple days at the beach house and then diving straight into Academy work, fittings, and whatever house wants her next. She has no idea there’s a folder in my desk upstairs with printed confirmations and a handwritten list titled “things Jessica likes.”
It’s not the only thing she doesn’t know about yet.
There’s a building downtown I keep circling.
Nothing special from the outside—old brick, bad paint, a half-faded sign from whatever it used to be.
But the inside…I can see it. A rink on the lower level for the Academy kids.
Studio space upstairs. Room for bolts of fabric and sketch walls and racks of clothes with her name on the tags.
I haven’t bought it yet, but I will once we get back.
When it’s more than an idea, more than a fantasy I run in my head, I’ll take her there.
Put the keys in her hand. Tell her I want to build something permanent with her—kids on the ice downstairs, her work on display upstairs, our life threaded through the whole thing.
She feeds me another bite off her plate, not even looking as she does it.
“Stop zoning out,” she says, mouth curving. “You’re freaking me out. What are you thinking about?”
You. Us. A building with your name next to mine .
“Nothing,” I say.
She narrows her eyes. “Liar.”
“Eat your food,” I tell her. “You’re gonna need your strength.”
“For what?”
“For however many times I’ll fuck you while we’re here.”
She laughs and smacks my chest, head tipping back, throat exposed.
My hand tightens on her thigh.
Yeah.
We did it. And we’re just getting started. I won’t be doing any of it alone.
The Academy’s already bigger than I imagined. An organization with a board, lawyers, and actual teams behind it. We’ve got the organization in for a chunk, with so many people wanting to be involved.
And Zed.
That one still throws me. He didn’t want his name on any press release. Didn’t want recognition, visibility, anything. Alton told me Zed had wired in an amount that made even him sit up straighter .
When people look at Zed, they see the wall in the net, the heavily tatted giant, the impossible save percentage plastered on graphics. I see that too.
I also see everything underneath it that I can’t quite get my hands on.
I see the PDFs and articles I pulled up in the middle of the night, the glow of my laptop.
A house with its windows blackened. A list of charges that reads like a warning sticker: assault, arson, “incident under investigation.” An article that never quite says it outright but lines the words up close enough that anyone could read between them.
I see the kid he used to be in old junior clips, and I see the man at the end of my table now—changed, moving like he’s got something heavy chained to his back and he’s learned how to skate with the extra weight.
Whatever the reports say, whatever got sealed or wiped or spun for the public, that’s just the surface. What really went down that night. What he actually did. What he lost. What turned the boy I knew into this man with ice in his eyes and ghosts clinging to his shoulders, I don’t know that part .
One day he’s going to have to decide what to do with it. Whether he keeps letting it sit in the dark, rotting him from the inside, or drags it into the light and makes it submit like everything else in his orbit.
When he does, I’ll be there.
But that… that’s his story to tell.
THE END
Dear Readers,
Thank you for reading Stick Tease .
I hope Dominic and Jessica stole your heart, raised your blood pressure, and left you thinking about them long after the final page. If you enjoyed their story, I’d be so grateful if you left a review. Reviews help other readers discover my books, and they truly mean so much to me.
Thank you for supporting my stories, my hockey boys, and all the chaos, tension, and heat that comes with them.
See you at the next faceoff.
— Vitina Rose