Epilogue
WILDER
Six Months Later
“Hey, Sunshine.”
“Hi, handsome. How’d it go?” Maisie’s sweet voice filters through the speakers of my truck as the red light finally turns green.
Horrible. Like torture in the form of psychoanalyzing bullshit. Like I’m being waterboarded by memories that I want to stay buried right where the fuck they belong.
“Fine.”
There’s no one who knows me better than Maisie. Sometimes I think she knows me better than I even know myself, which is exactly why she immediately calls me on my shit.
“Wilder,” she says softly, and I know that tone, the one she uses when she’s being careful with me like she’s afraid I’ll shatter in her hands.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
“It was… less shitty than the last one,” I finally say.
This time, it’s more of the truth.
“One step, right?”
My fingers curl tighter around the steering wheel as I take a long, slow exhale. “Yeah, baby, one step.”
I don’t say that sometimes it feels like taking one step is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. That I’m trudging through quicksand, and I might not make it out of the pit.
But then I have to remind myself that therapy isn’t supposed to be a walk in the park. It’s not meant to be easy, or it wouldn’t take people like me their entire adult life to get there.
It’s only the eighth session.
And fuck, the number of times I’ve wanted to walk out and never go back is more than I can even keep track of, but that’s the thing… I have gone back.
Even though it’s hard as shit, and I hate every goddamn second of it, I keep going back.
Because if there’s anything I’ve learned in the last year, it’s that running from what was chasing me and burying my trauma deep didn’t do anything but make it all worse when everything finally came spilling out.
This guy, my therapist, feels less like a quack job than the one the team appointed during the early years of my career.
It’s still hard for me to try and explain the things plaguing me to someone who’s never experienced it, but something I’m beginning to realize is that just because someone hasn’t been through it themselves doesn’t mean they can’t understand.
Take Maisie, for example.
She’s never experienced the shit that I’ve been through, and I would give up my fucking life to keep her from that, but somehow, it still feels like she gets it.
She doesn’t look at me with pity, but with the love that’s unconditional, full of empathy and understanding.
“I’m pulling into the parking lot, baby. I’ll be inside in a sec,” I say, pulling my truck into an empty spot and cutting the engine.
“Same booth as always, Coach. You know where to find me.”
I find my lip curving into a grin despite the last hour of emotional turmoil.
There’s always a light at the end.
Maisie.
I know that no matter what happens behind that therapy door… when I walk out to the other side, she’ll be there, lighting the way.
When I walk into the diner a few minutes later, the bell clinking obnoxiously, the scent of greasy food hits me, and my gaze immediately flits to the corner booth where I know she’ll be.
Her long, golden hair falls in a halo around her shoulders, her attention fixated on the paperback spread open on top of the table, so completely lost in whatever she’s reading that she didn’t even hear the bell when I walked in.
She knew I was almost here, but I know that all it takes is a few pages, and my girl is sucked into another world.
I can’t tell you how many nights in the last six months that I’ve lain beside her, just watching her read, watching as her eyes fluttered closed with one cheek pressed against the worn pages of her book, running my fingers through her silky hair until her breathing was soft and even.
Six months of waking up beside her every day.
Six months of sharing breakfast and a shower before she goes to class, while I had to figure out what I’m doing with my life.
Six months of happiness I never imagined was possible, until I met her.
Six months of learning and growing, trying to be a better man than I was before her.
Six months since I resigned from OU and everything in my life essentially fucking imploded all at once.
Parts of it were unexpected, but most… was a long time coming.
Things I had pushed down and refused to acknowledge, and once that powder keg went off, it was impossible to stop it.
My mother. My career. My future. My past. The present.
All of it connected, even if I didn’t realize it back then.
Despite all of the shit that happened at once, I’d do it again.
And again.
And again.
Without question.
If in the end, I got my sunshine girl. If in the end, I’m right here with her by my side.
After my resignation and my mother following through on something for the first time in her life by selling our story to the news, everything seemed to happen at once.
Shit got crazy, fast.
Gossip sites picked up on the story, and it spread through both the city and campus like a fire that couldn’t be contained, and Maisie had to deal with the brunt of it since she was still attending classes.
I fucking hated every goddamn second of it. It was pure agony.
The fact that it was my fault this was happening to her.
Because they weren’t just focused on the fact that our relationship fell into some forbidden student/coach cliché, but they were also fixated on the more salacious parts of my past. My reckless, volatile nature. The fighting, being kicked out of the league. The women I’d hooked up with in the past.
National media painted a picture of shit that wasn’t remotely true, like she was na?ve, and I manipulated her into falling into a secret hookup because I’m nothing but a playboy, and I know that it was hard for Maisie to see and hear.
It was hard for her to walk through campus with her chin held high, defending our relationship.
But she did.
She never let them get through her skin. She continued on like nothing was even happening, like she was unbothered, until the stories eventually died down some and we weren’t the center of attention any longer.
I was in constant awe of her strength and resilience, her maturity in the face of it all.
Thirteen years between us, and I’m fairly sure she’s still the more mature one of the two of us.
I wanted to beat the shit out of every person who dared open their mouth about her, but she was there playing devil’s advocate despite the hurtful shit that was being said. Giving people grace they didn’t deserve, as always.
Yeah, I’m not there yet, but maybe one day.
I hated that all the headlines and stupid gossip overshadowed the good she continued to do with the literacy program.
And it also overshadowed the team’s great season.
I might not have wanted to become a coach at OU, nor ever had any intention of staying outside of that season, but I didn’t want to see it negatively impact them.
They didn’t deserve to have any fallout from it.
And neither did Maisie.
But somehow, she took it in stride. She ended up stepping back from being LLI’s liaison to the team so that all press didn’t hinder the partnership, but she has started working on another project with LLI in its place.
I hated that she had to make a sacrifice too, especially given how hard she worked on the LLI-Hellcats partnership, but she’s as stubborn as she is strong, and ultimately, it was her decision.
And she’s loving the new project they have her working on since it involves sustaining local libraries.
Maisie finally looks up as I approach the table, those bright blue eyes locking with mine, and a wide, happy smile spreads on her glossy lips before she catches the bottom one between her teeth.
“This seat taken?”
Her giggle seeps into my skin, through my rib cage, and wraps around my heart. Her rightful place. She’s woven into the muscle like she’s always been a part of it.
“That… depends.”
“Yeah?” When she nods, I add, “On what?”
Maisie shrugs again, a cute-as-fuck little grin pulling at her lips as she reaches up and twirls a piece of hair around her finger. “Mmmm, I guess if you’re going to buy me a milkshake?”
“Don’t I always?”
Her eyes glint playfully.
Sliding into the booth, I take my usual spot beside her, slipping my arm over her shoulder and tugging her into my side.
“Hi, baby.”
Her chin tilts, and she gazes up at me. “Hi, Coach.”
My fingers trail along the edge of her jaw, curving around her face as I bring my lips to hers and kiss her.
Immediately, she melts into me, her hands moving to the front of my shirt, fisting in the fabric, pulling me even closer.
I didn’t realize how much I needed this until right now.
It feels like I’m finally taking my first full breath since walking into the office earlier.
“Well, if it isn’t my two favorite people,” a familiar voice interrupts, and we both pull back to see Doris standing over us, wearing a warm smile, a pitcher of sweet tea in her hand.
We’ve become regular patrons at Big Easy over the last couple of months.
It used to be a place that held bad memories of the past, memories of my mother that I wasn’t equipped to handle, but then it changed after the night I spent there with Maisie, sharing greasy fries and that damn milkshake.
A milkshake that no longer feels like a relic of what was but is now something that is just mine and Maisie’s.
We came here after my first therapy session, and then the second…
And now it’s become our thing.
We end up here, cuddled together on the same side of a booth, talking about life and our future, and also the normal boring shit that I’m guessing most couples discuss.
Sometimes we talk about my past or what happened in therapy that day, but Maisie never pushes. She never makes me feel like I have to do anything but just… exist with her.
It’s a balm to my soul, soothing wounds that are constantly threatening to burst back open. Wounds that are finally beginning to heal.
“Doris!” Maisie beams. “Thank you for the tea. How is your grandson?”