Epilogue
The Vince Lombardi trophy was shinier than Lane had imagined it would be.
He gazed at it, on the stage above him. Could hardly believe that Aidan was holding it, though the Thunder had maintained at least a solid two-touchdown lead from the mid-second quarter through the end of the game.
The Seahawks had never had a chance, not from almost the beginning of the game, when Jordan had leaped in front of Darnold’s second pass, returning it for a touchdown.
Then Aidan and the offense had marched right down the field on their next possession, Mo scoring the touchdown from thirteen yards out.
Unlike their other playoff games, this had been remarkably low dramatics. No last-minute touchdown drives. No despairing and hushed halftime conferences where the Thunder tried to figure out how to right the ship.
Nope, they’d been pretty assured of winning for most of the game, and so maybe this was a little anticlimactic.
Good, but anticlimactic.
Trevor squeezed his hand as they gazed up at the stage.
Mark Justice, the owner of the Thunder, finished up his speech, and handed the trophy to Coach Robertson, their head coach, his white polo barely splashed with orange spots, because he’d had more time to figure out how to evade the Gatorade victory bath than most coaches did.
“Honestly, this is more speeches than I expected. More make-outs, less speeches, please,” Trevor said, leaning in and pressing another kiss against Lane’s mouth. His face was still lit up with joy. Lane could see that look on his face forever.
Would be seeing that look on his face forever, if he had anything to say about it.
“Didn’t you watch the Super Bowl before this?” Nate wondered from Lane’s other side.
“Well, yeah, sure, but by this point, I was usually a few drinks in, and we didn’t give a shit about the trophy, because we weren’t holding it.”
“We’re still not holding it,” Lane complained.
Trevor elbowed him in the side. “You’ll get there, babe, just be patient. The guys who pay us have to talk themselves up first.”
Nate laughed. “How about the guys who coach us?”
“I guess we could give them a part of the credit,” Lane allowed. “They can get their moment in the sun.”
Also about to get his moment in the sun was Mo, who’d gotten pulled aside early in the post-win celebrations, but then nobody was surprised that the guy had won the MVP. His stat line had been unreal: two touchdowns and almost two hundred yards.
The Seahawks hadn’t had anyone who could even remotely keep up with him, and Aidan had exploited that early and often.
Lane couldn’t say his stat line had been particularly special, but then it hadn’t needed to be. Neither he nor Trevor had even gotten a touchdown, but that was okay. They were getting rings. And even more importantly, they’d already gotten each other.
“Love you,” Trevor murmured under his breath.
“Love you more,” Lane murmured right back. “Winning with you is great.”
“Losing would be great, too,” Trevor added, tucking himself more firmly into Lane’s side.
Lane wound an arm around his waist and pulled him in the last inch.
Next to them, Jordan and Nate made synchronized gagging noises.
“Hey,” Lane retorted without much heat. “You’re not gonna tell me that you and Ramsey are gonna be equally gross?”
“Probably,” Nate said. “But we’re not gross. You’re gross.”
“Spoken like a true captain of this football team,” Jordan said, chuckling.
On the stage, Coach was still meandering through his victory speech, and behind him, Aidan was beaming at Levi, apparently not even caring that he’d not gotten his hands on the trophy yet.
Which, really, that said it all, didn’t it?
Aidan could do whatever he wanted, but Lane was big enough—and greedy, too—to admit that he wanted both. Trevor wound around him, a particularly clingy bit of ivy around his tree-trunk self, and that shiny fucking trophy in his hands.
“I feel like even though I watched this before, it’s not usually this long,” Jordan observed.
“We gave Coach too long to plan his speech,” Nate said. He grinned at Jordan. “Maybe you shouldn’t have had that sick pick six to kick off the game. Set the wrong kind of tone.”
Jordan just laughed back. “Oh, fuck off,” he said. “What about your sack?”
“What about Trevor’s key first down on that second offensive drive?” Lane added.
Trevor rolled his eyes, but he looked pleased.
“Why don’t we call it a team effort?” he said.
“And all those sick punts Cam did,” Nate said. “Pinning them all the way back each time.”
“And Dawson’s two field goals,” Jordan said.
“Yeah, we’re all fucking sick,” Lane agreed. “Not surprising we won the Super Bowl—”
“Yeah!” Trevor crowed. “We won the Super fucking Bowl, baby!”
“Have we even won the Super Bowl if I haven’t been within ten feet of the Lombardi yet?” Lane wondered.
“Shut up,” Nate retorted. “You sure fucking did.”
“Here, look, he’s finally wrapping it up,” Jordan called out. Coach finished his speech with something about a team that never gave up, and that started and ended with its leader.
Coach probably meant for Aidan to come to the microphone and the trophy by himself, but he had his hand clasped firmly around Levi’s and he tugged him up with him.
And after holding the trophy for a long second, eyes closed as his lips brushed its shiny surface, he handed it right over to Levi with another kiss, but this time it was Levi’s mouth and it was a hell of a lot longer.
When the cheers finally died down, Aidan turned to the crowd and to his team.
“Coach,” Aidan said, glancing over at Robertson, “I gotta tell you, it’s easy to be a leader when the team’s like this. And even easier to be a quarterback of a winning team when your offensive line is this goddamn good and always has your back.”
“Kinda think Levi’s got more than just your back,” Dawson called out and Aidan’s cheeks flushed pink but he didn’t deny it.
“For so long, I thought I had to be the best version of myself if I wanted us to have a chance in hell of winning this,” Aidan continued.
“But this year, I learned a much more important lesson. My brother, Riley, and my best friend, showed me the way but it wasn’t until Levi showed up in the offseason that I began to see the real truth.
You’re only as good as the team that surrounds you.
Doesn’t matter how perfect you are, if you don’t have the right guys around you, cheering you on and giving you reasons to get out of bed every morning, you’re never going to make it.
So this?” Aidan gestured towards where Levi held the trophy above his head.
“This is for our entire team. Come on up here, guys.”
Trevor leaned in and kissed Lane again. Lane wasn’t ever going to get tired of that, he could already tell. No matter how many noises Jordan and Nate made about their gross PDA. “You ready, babe?” Trevor murmured.
“Never been readier,” Lane said. “Let’s do this shit.”
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Don't miss Wes and Marcus' second chance romance, Rain or Shine, coming early 2027.
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