Epilogue The GOAT
ARTEMIS
Two Years Later
“You cannot seriously be wearing that shirt,” I said, staring at my husband.
Gryff did a little spin, modeling the custom t-shirt with Vincent's face photoshopped onto a rugby ball with the words “My wife is the GOAT” underneath. Flynn’s had Holly's face and it read “I’m with the GOAT.”
“The Olympics are supposed to be a dignified international sporting event.”
“And yet here we are,” he grinned, pulling me in for a kiss. “Ready to watch my wife win and her team win gold.”
My stomach did that flutter it always did when he called me his wife. Even after a year of marriage, it still felt surreal. Gryff Kingman had chosen me, had built a life with me, had taken a week off from the Bandits during the preseason to be here.
“Coach isn’t going to kill you for missing practice and the game,” I said against his lips.
“Coach told me if I didn't come support you, he'd bench me.” He kissed me again. “Plus, the Olympics are in LA. I can literally see our house from the stadium.”
“You cannot see our house from the Coliseum.”
“I can feel it in my heart.”
“That's not how geography works.”
We were interrupted by pounding on our hotel room door. “Artie,” Jules's voice carried through. “Stop making out with my brother and get ready. We have to leave in twenty minutes,”
“We're not making out,” I called back.
“Liar.”
She wasn't wrong.
The U.S. Women's Rugby team had made it to the gold medal match against New Zealand, and my entire body was thrumming with nervous energy. Four years of training, of choosing this team over Great Britain, of everything. It all came down to today.
“Hey,” Gryff said softly, reading my anxiety. “You've got this. You're Artemis Fraser-Kingman. You eat Black Ferns for breakfast.”
“That sounds inappropriately sexual.”
“Your mind went there, not mine.”
The ride to the stadium was surreal. Our bus had a police escort. People were lining the streets with American flags. Someone had made a giant banner with my face on it, which was both flattering and terrifying.
“Is that supposed to be me?” I asked, staring at the artistic interpretation.
“I think they captured your warrior spirit,” my teammate Madison said.
“I look like I'm constipated.”
“Warrior constipation.”
When we arrived at the Coliseum, I could already hear the crowd. 80,000 people. A sold-out Olympic final. In my adopted home city.
“Fraser-Kingman,” Coach Williams called. “Ready to captain this team to gold?”
Captain. They'd voted me captain a month ago, and I still couldn't quite believe it.
“Ready, Coach.”
As we went through warm-ups, I kept scanning the crowd.
Then I saw them—an entire section of purple and gold, every single Kingman wearing those ridiculous goat shirts.
Gryff and Flynn with Vincent and Holly's faces.
Chris had one with all four goat faces arranged like Mount Rushmore.
Bridger was holding a banner that read “THAT'S MY DAUGHTER-IN-LAW” with an arrow pointing down at whoever was beneath it.
There were new additions to the family section too. The Kingmans were multiplying at an alarming rate but from Bo, who was actually born in a stadium, down the the youngest, who was content in his father's arms wearing the tiniest set of ear protectors you ever saw, they looked at home.
“Your family is insane,” Madison observed.
“Yeah,” I grinned. “They're perfect.”
The match was brutal from the first whistle. New Zealand came out aggressive, their haka before the game setting the tone. But we'd trained for this. We were ready.
First half, we traded scores. Their speed against our power. My lungs burned as I drove forward in scrums, my legs screamed during rucks, but I could hear the crowd, could feel the energy.
“USA! USA! USA!”
At halftime, we were tied 14-14.
“They're targeting the wings,” I told the team. “They think we're weak there. Let them. When they overcommit, we go up the middle.”
“Through you?” Coach asked.
“Through all of us. But yeah, I'll take the hit.”
The second half was the longest twenty minutes of my life. New Zealand scored first, the crowd going quiet. Then we answered. Back and forth, neither team giving an inch.
With three minutes left, we were down 24-21. We had possession, but we were sixty meters from their try line.
“Framework Seven,” I called the play. “And when it breaks down, give me the damn ball.”
What happened next was the kind of thing they'd probably replay forever. The planned play fell apart immediately, but muscle memory and trust took over. Madison hit me with a pass just as two defenders converged. I spun out of one tackle, handed off another, and suddenly I had space.
Forty meters. Thirty. Twenty.
I could hear Gryff's voice somehow cutting through eighty-thousand others: “RUN, ARTIE!”
Ten meters. Five.
The fullback hit me at the two-meter line, but momentum carried us both over. I slammed the ball down just inside the touchline.
Try.
The stadium exploded. My teammates piled on top of me. The conversion would put us up by two with thirty seconds left.
Madison nailed it.
New Zealand had one last chance, but our defense held. When the final whistle blew, I fell to my knees.
Olympic champions.
The medal ceremony was a blur. The national anthem played, and I was definitely not crying except I absolutely was. On the podium, gold around my neck, I found my family in the crowd. Gryff was crying too, not even trying to hide it.
Later, after media obligations and drug tests and approximately one million photos, we finally made it home for the real celebration.
“Surprise.”
Our backyard was packed. The entire Kingman family, my rugby team, Gryff's teammates who weren't traveling, Sean and Ren, our neighbors, everyone.
But the best surprise was in the goat pen.
“Babies!” I gasped.
Vincent and Holly were there with three tiny kids between them. The babies were a hilarious mix of Vincent's spots and Holly's solid coloring, each one more ridiculous than the last.
“When did this happen?” I asked Gryff.
“Remember when you were at training camp for three weeks? Vincent and Holly decided to celebrate their love.”
“You let our goats have babies without telling me?”
“I wanted to surprise you after you won gold. I had faith.”
“What are their names?”
“That's your department. I've been calling them Thing One, Thing Two, and Chaos.”
I was already in the pen, picking up the smallest one who immediately tried to eat my gold medal. “This one's Stevie. Stevie Kicks.”
“Oh no,” Gryff groaned. “Not more pun names.”
“That one's Goatzart.,” I said, pointing to the one jumping the highest. “And that one's definitely Bleathoven.”
“Stevie Kicks?”
“Look at her. She's already the star.”
The party was in full swing around us. I could see Jules holding court with a group of her UCLA friends, dramatically recounting the match. She'd dragged Bridger into her circle and was clearly trying to set him up with one of her professors who'd come to watch.
“Dad, she's age-appropriate and likes football,” Jules was saying. “What more do you want?”
“Jules, I don't need—“
“You're getting back out there. Mom would want you to be happy.”
It was sweet, even if Bridger looked mildly terrified.
Flynn appeared with Tempest and drinks. “To the Olympic champion.”
“To the goat babies,” I countered.
“To both,” Tempest laughed. “Though I can't believe Vincent and Holly beat us to parenthood.”
“It's not a competition,” Flynn said.
“Everything's a competition with Kingmans,” I pointed out.
“Fair.”
As the sun set over the Pacific, I stood in our backyard surrounded by chaos.
Baby goats were running amok. Hayes was teaching Bo to throw a football.
Someone started a volleyball game that was definitely going to end in tears or property damage.
The neighbors were probably going to complain about the noise again.
“Happy?” Gryff asked, wrapping his arms around me from behind.
“Perfect,” I corrected, leaning back into him. “This is perfect.”
“Even with three more goats?”
“Especially with three more goats.”
“We're not keeping all of them.”
“We're absolutely keeping all of them.”
He kissed my temple. “I know.”
“I love you,” I said, turning in his arms. “Thank you for this. For all of it. For choosing me.”
“You chose me first,” he reminded me. “That day at the rugby match. You decided we were going to be friends.”
“Best decision I ever made.”
Jules's voice carried across the yard. “Dad, she has a PhD and her own rescue shelter for animals. She's perfect for you.”
“Maybe we should save Bridger,” I suggested.
“Nah,” Gryff said. “Jules is unstoppable when she's matchmaking. Remember when she tried to set up Isak with that sports journalist?”
“They're dating now.”
“Exactly. Resistance is futile.”
Someone had brought out a speaker and music filled the yard. Our mismatched, chaotic, perfect family danced and laughed as the stars came out. The baby goats had discovered the buffet table.
“Hey, Artie?” Gryff said.
“Yeah?”
“Wanna make actual human babies at some point?”
I looked at him, this man who'd given me everything. “Yeah?”
“I mean, the goats need more friends.”
“That's your reasoning? The goats need friends?”
“Also I love you and want to have a family with you and think you'd be an amazing mom.”
“After the next Olympics?”
“After the next Olympics,” he agreed. “Though at the rate the Kingmans are reproducing, our kids will have, like, thirty cousins.”
“Good. They'll need allies to handle the goats.”
Stevie Kicks chose that moment to escape the pen, making a beeline for the dessert table with her siblings in hot pursuit.
“Goat breach,” someone yelled.
“Code Dragon Donkey,” someone else shouted.
The entire party descended into chaos as everyone tried to catch the baby goats. The goats ate half the cake before anyone could stop them. Jules's professor ended up holding Stevie while Bridger explained the family's expansion.
It was perfect.