Epilogue
IMANI
AWU Homecoming greeted us with music, smoke from the grills, purple and gold everywhere, and memories I no longer needed to outrun.
The campus was loud before noon. Alumni tents lined the green, music spilled from speakers near the student center, and the Royal Sound Marching Collective was warming up somewhere near the stadium.
Women moved past in boots, silk scarves, and AWU sweatshirts cut in ways the bookstore had definitely not intended.
Men found each other by old jersey numbers and stories about what they used to do on the field.
Somewhere near the Greek plots, a crowd erupted over a stroll I couldn’t see, followed by a bark loud enough to make three older men near us straighten automatically before remembering their knees had grown up too.
Two freshmen hurried past us arguing over whose Story & Place interview had gone better, one waving a recorder in the air like she had evidence.
Near Century Walk, students sat beneath the bronze panels eating from foil trays while an older alumnus leaned into their conversation to correct something none of them had asked him.
I smiled.
AWU was still doing what it had always done. Letting one generation tell its stories while another decided what to carry forward.
Beside me, my husband moved through all of it with his hand locked around mine.
That word still got me sometimes.
Husband.
Andre Malik Jones was my husband.
Professionally, I was still Imani Bennett, Chief Brand and Growth Officer of Saint Aurelia, the woman whose signature sat on contracts in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Paris.
The Meridian collection had sold out twice, The Nocturne preview had become one of our most requested private events, and Saint Aurelia had quietly become the house a growing number of Forge players and their wives and girlfriends called when they wanted something serious.
Engagement rings. Anniversary stones. Custom pieces after a championship or a new contract.
More than a few of the women came to us on their own too, buying diamonds because they wanted them and could.
Cleo had stopped asking whether I could travel because we both knew the answer.
But here, with Dre’s wedding band warm against mine and the ring he’d chosen for me throwing light every time our hands moved, I was also Mrs. Jones.
The diamond still made me pause.
Eight carats. Emerald cut. D color. Internally flawless. Sourced through Antwerp, cut by a master stonecutter Saint Aurelia trusted only with the pieces that had to be exact, then set in platinum with hidden pavé and the kind of precision that made even our master jeweler go quiet for a second.
It was the clearest diamond I had ever seen.
Not just because of the stone, though the stone was breathtaking. It was the care. The intention. The fact that Dre had gone to the house I was helping build and asked them to make something worthy of the life he wanted to build with me.
When the world found out Andre Jones had chosen Saint Aurelia for my ring, bridal inquiries nearly broke Cleo’s inbox by lunchtime.
Dre had only shrugged when I told him he had caused a luxury-house problem.
“You deserved a Jones problem,” he’d said.
Some mornings, I could say Mrs. Jones without pausing.
On AWU’s campus, with his ring against mine, his hand holding mine where everybody could see, and that diamond catching the October light like it had been made to speak for both of us, I still had to let the word settle.
I liked it more than my old fear would have allowed.
“You good?” Dre asked, leaning down so his voice brushed my ear.
“I’m good.”
“You sure? You got quiet.”
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s usually my line.”
“I learned from the best.”
He gave me a look, and I smiled because I still loved getting on his nerves.
He looked good enough to be distracting, which was especially unfair on his old campus.
Dark jeans cut perfectly over low-profile sneakers, a white T-shirt with the kind of weight cheaper cotton never held, a custom purple AWU jacket with leather trim, his beard full, diamond stud in his ear, and that quiet confidence that had matured into something deeper than swagger.
People still saw the former star first. I understood why.
Dre had been impossible to ignore even before the world learned his name.
But this year, more people called him Coach than Dre.
Every time it happened, something in his face shifted.
Like the life he had chosen was starting to choose him back.
“Coach Jones!”
Dre turned before I did.
Coach Wallace crossed the walkway with a thick binder under one arm and a cup of coffee in the other.
He was older than he had been when Dre wore number twenty-two for the Kings, his beard more gray now, his shoulders a little heavier beneath his purple AWU windbreaker, but the man still had the same eyes.
Direct. Assessing. Impossible to charm when football was involved.
Dre shook his hand, then pulled him into a quick hug.
“Coach.”
“Look at you,” Coach Wallace said, stepping back to study him. “Back on campus with a whistle of your own now.”
Dre smiled. “Don’t start.”
“I’m absolutely starting. I spent four years telling you to stop coaching from the huddle, and now somebody’s paying you for it.”
“You were always dramatic.”
“I was accurate.”
Dre laughed, and Coach Wallace turned to me.
“Mrs. Jones.”
I extended my hand. “Coach Wallace.”
“Good to see this man walking around with sense.”
“I can’t take full credit, but I will accept the compliment.”
Dre looked down at me. “That’s rude.”
“That was gracious.”
Coach Wallace laughed, then nodded toward the practice fields beyond the stadium. “You got five minutes? I want to ask you about Jalen.”
Dre’s attention changed.
He was still my husband, still holding my hand, but Coach Jones stepped forward.
“Jalen Cross?”
“Yeah. He’s been hearing things. Scouts sniffing around. His people are talking about declaring if the advisory board gives him the right grade.”
Dre glanced toward the stadium. “He shouldn’t declare just because folks are telling him what he wants to hear.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“He has real vision,” Dre said. “Good patience. Better than most young backs because he doesn’t panic when the first lane closes. But his pad level gets lazy late in games, and he carries the ball too loose in traffic. Somebody’s going to test that at the next level and make him pay for it.”
Coach Wallace nodded slowly. “Pass pro?”
“He’s better than his tape says, but he guesses. If he can’t identify pressure before the snap, defensive coordinators will eat him alive. Send me his cut-ups after the game. All protection snaps. Not the highlight package.”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
“You asked me about the draft. Highlights don’t keep men employed. Details do.”
I stood there listening, his hand still holding mine, and felt so proud I had to look away for a second.
Coach Wallace asked about two more players before he let us go. Dre listened, asked questions, gave clear answers, and kept his thumb moving over my hand like some part of him still wanted to make sure I was there.
I was.
All year, that had been the work.
Being there.
There were weeks when Saint Aurelia had me in another city while Dre slept in hotel rooms with the Forge. Nights when we kissed through screens. Mornings when one of us was too tired to be charming. A few arguments that started with schedules before finally getting honest.
But we had learned.
We talked before silence got comfortable. We apologized before pride could settle in. When life pulled, we pulled back toward each other.
Coach Wallace squeezed Dre’s shoulder. “I’ll send you the film.”
“Do that.”
“And tell Warren if he wants Jalen, he better not wait until the combine to act interested.”
Dre smiled. “Now you recruiting me, Coach?”
“I’m always recruiting. Some habits don’t retire.”
When Coach Wallace walked away, Dre looked down at me. “You bored?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I like watching you be Coach Jones.”
His mouth curved, slow and pleased. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“You like him?”
“I married him.”
“You married Dre.”
“I married all of you.”
His expression softened in the middle of Homecoming noise, and for a second, the rest of campus felt far away.
Then Tee yelled his name from near the alumni tent.
“Twenty-two! Stop looking married and come defend these terrible run calls!”
Dre’s eyes closed. “That man has been loud since freshman year.”
“He’s consistent.”
“He’s a menace.”
Tee stood near one of the grills with Noelle beside him, looking sweet and quiet in a cream sweater while she calmly ate from his plate.
Malcolm and Camille were a few feet away, finally done pretending.
His hand rested low at her back while she talked, and every time she shifted, his fingers moved with her like touching her had become habit.
Camille saw me watching, lifted her chin like a woman daring me to comment, then slipped her hand into his.
Malcolm kissed her temple in front of God, alumni, and whoever had questions.
I lifted my brows.
She looked away first.
That little glance told me enough. It also told me we would be having a conversation later, because Camille being publicly claimed in sensible heels was not something friendship allowed me to ignore.
Dre leaned down. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“You nebby.”
“I am observant.”
“You are nebby, man.”
“Both can be true.”
That was how the day went.
Dre and me, hand in hand or close enough to touch, moving from one part of campus to the next.
We stopped by the Jones Foundation tent where his parents helped announce a new scholarship for former student athletes building businesses after graduation.
His mother cried before the first recipient even stepped forward, and Pops pretended the grill smoke was bothering his eyes.