Epilogue
TEN YEARS LATER
Paloma
“Nice shot, Gabby!”
Gabrielle Huston smiles, front teeth missing as she trips forward on her skates toward me. She’s seven and the best one on the team, popular with the other girls and always smiling.
“Thanks, Coach P.”
I tap her helmet as she zooms over to the bench for water.
Coach P. I grin, still a little overwhelmed by exactly how much I love my job coaching the local girls club hockey team.
I started it myself, with the help of Adam Reiner and the First Line Foundation—Max Koteskiy’s skating charity.
I’ve been the head coach for two years now, after training under one appointed to start the team.
I love these girls. I love this game.
I’m happy.
“Huddle up,” I call, before handing my clipboard to one of my teenage assistant coaches, letting her take the lead today since I’m no longer allowed to skate—doctor’s orders. And if she hadn’t ordered it, I’m sure my beautiful, intense husband, currently seated on the steel bleachers, would have.
Bennett doesn’t like to be far away from me, pregnant or not. However, now he’s got an assistant worrier.
Annie, two perfect braids down her back beneath a beanie, sits in the stands right next to her dad. She’d been nervous about me leaving today—mostly due to how much time we spend together regularly—but sticking close to Bennett seems to have relaxed her somewhat.
She’s always been like that with her dad—finding him the soothing presence he’s always been for me.
“Hey,” a deep, low voice speaks. “Shhh, you’re okay.”
Hiding around the corner, I peek carefully into the living room, still half asleep. A baby cries, but the previous wailing fades off into little chuffs and sniffles as she settles against the mass of her father’s warm chest.
Because she knows she’s safe in Bennett’s arms. Just like I’ve always been.
He recites Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day” quietly, voice low as she slowly falls back asleep. He’s read the same poem to her since before she left my belly.
This is their morning routine—though it’s the middle of the night now, unusual because Annie is good at sleeping through the night.
My sleepy girl. I’m usually always awake before her.
In the mornings, Bennett wakes up first. He makes the coffee and then leaves a poem for me on the fridge with our word magnets.
Sometimes it’s romantic and beautiful. Sometimes it’s witty and clever.
Sometimes I write one back.
He wants me to read it when I’m alone, always blushing as he walks into the kitchen to see me standing in front of the fridge and gazing at his words.
I like to be awake to see him leave for his job as a professor of poetry and literature.
Mostly because he’s dressed near to pornographic—brown pressed trousers, collared shirt, and tweed jacket.
One day, he’d worn a sweater vest over his button-down and I’d tackled him in the kitchen, making him take me as the sun rose over the oak wood table, his hands in my hair. It might have been the day he got me pregnant, but who knows.
At night, he’s always softer. We shower together—so often that he’s had a bigger one made during the remodel. But now when he washes my hair, I can feel his wedding band snag on my curls. Because he refuses to take it off.
Every tug from it is a comfort.
“Hey, P,” he breathes, quiet as I settle onto the couch next to him. I tuck in close, temple pressed to his shoulder as I look down at our daughter.
“She’s really perfect, huh?”
Bennett nods with a glimmering smile. “She looks just like you.”
He’s said it before; a phrase that haunted me as a kid into adulthood now feels warm and soothing. I’d talked with my therapist about it the first time he innocently muttered it and I’d locked myself in the bathroom to cry.
Now, I let it fill me with pride to chase away any lingering fears.
But I do worry. About being a good mom. We hadn’t intended to get pregnant. I wasn’t sure I wanted children. So it had been a decision I needed to make faster than I planned. Bennett had supported me no matter my choice.
Now, with the moonlight streaming in through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows of Speyside, the sound of the water outside, I couldn’t be more grateful for the life I’ve managed to achieve. The family that I have.
It’s the same now as I rest my hand on my low stomach where I’ve just started to show. Deep gratefulness for this family we’ve created. I’m on the bench—not even in skates. Still, my two little worriers watch over me.
Something warm that lives permanently in my chest with the two of them around me flares brightly, illuminated by their care.
A life and love I’ve fought for.
I graduated with flying colors. I testified against Ethan and helped to lengthen his sentence by appearing to read my victim impact statement alongside the other girls he’d hurt.
And then I continued to take the power of my life back.
I’d gotten offers for four different internships, but stayed relatively local for my first year so I could spend time in the Reiner house with Bennett and Adam.
And Alessia, who I’d seen next to Adam more often than not.
She’d blushed when I first asked her about it, but I knew she had her own issues, things that made her the way that she was. I also knew Adam was one of the most patient men in existence, second only to his son.
They’d been on their own timeline. But she’s living with him now, slowly healing each day.
I’d worked for two ECHL teams as the first woman assistant coach for both, before I started working for all women’s hockey teams. Then youth—where I really felt passionate.
And now, in our small, cold coastal town, I’ve found my place.
I let my assistant coach know I’m headed out for the day, calling toward the girls to rest up for their games this weekend before heading through the tunnel exit where I know my husband and daughter will meet me.
Annie runs right for me, grasping me in her little arms, while Bennett stands behind her in a beautiful blue peacoat and fancy slacks, a pleased smile across his bearded face. He gets more handsome with every year together.
“Ready to go home, loves?”
I grin and so does Annie. And for a moment, I can see it touch the light in Bennett’s eyes, our faces side by side. My little mini-me I love more than life itself.
“Ready,” we say in unison, stepping closer so he can cover us both in his arms.
Every breath. Every moment. He’s been here through every moment. And he’ll never leave me.
The shore to my rolling, calmed tide.
Bennett
“Daddy?”
I’m working a little later than usual tonight—which means I didn’t get to shower with or bathe my wife, which means my mood is irritated at best. But the sound of our daughter’s little voice is enough to make my frustrations completely disappear.
My face breaks into a gentle smile and I turn, spotting Annie with a messy blond braid that tells me she just woke up. She sleeps like her mom—rough, tossing around, but deep. In her hands, I spot a familiar stuffed rabbit.
Seven slowly trails behind her, the gray around his ears and muzzle growing by the day. Just like me, my loyal dog always sticks close to my girls.
“Hey, seashell,” I say, opening my arms for her to come to me. She climbs up onto my lap. I reach around her and scratch Seven’s ears as he sits by my thigh. “Did you have a nightmare?”
“No.” She rubs her eyes again. “Mommy’s sick again.”
My stomach hollows a little and I have to clamp down on the anxiety.
Paloma being pregnant is . . . a lot for me.
Mostly because it plays with every single one of my emotions—joy, at having another child with her.
But also fear at knowing exactly how many things can go wrong.
Her pregnancy with Annie was smooth sailing, but she was pregnant at the same time as Sadie, who had one of the hardest pregnancies I’ve seen.
I was worried Rhys would chain himself to her arm and quit hockey after that. Or never have sex with her for fear of ever getting her pregnant again. I’d reminded him that a vasectomy was much easier.
“Okay, seashell. Why don’t I get you back in bed and I’ll take care of Mommy.” I stand, hoisting her easily into one arm. “Did you two fall asleep in Mommy and Daddy’s room?”
She nods and yawns again. “We made a fort.”
I grin, shaking my head as I carry my daughter to her bright-pink princess room, tucking her in—though she’s already half-asleep, eyes closed. After shutting the door carefully, I head to the master bedroom, nearly tripping over the remnants of said “fort.”
Paloma Blake is an incredible mother. And a far better parent that I am, though she’ll never admit it.
She’d been terrified when we decided to have Annie.
We’d fought endlessly, angry and tired and constantly frustrated.
Her, because motherhood terrified her, convinced she’d somehow ruin our baby, even with her want of a child.
For me, the frustration was that she couldn’t see herself properly.
But healing is never linear. And that’s okay.
My love for her will never falter, never cage—it can only grow.
I’d started attending therapy sessions with Paloma so I could figure out how to help her through her fear of motherhood.
Mostly, we’d worked through it. But even now, Paloma doesn’t understand the way Annie looks at her with stars in her eyes. Ask my daughter her favorite person, princess, or magical creature—“My mom” will be her answer for them all.
Seven stands in front of the bathroom, pacing anxiously, moving quicker than he usually does these days. He whines a bit and pushes his nose against the door.
“I know, bud,” I whisper, petting his head.
“P?” I call, knocking lightly on the door before letting myself into our large bathroom. She’s sitting by the toilet, back against the wall, face damp as she looks up at me.
“Hey.”
“Damn it, love,” I mutter, running a cloth under the water with shaking hands. I bring the cool damp towel to her, resting it beneath the tangled mess of her hair. “I told you to call me if you felt sick.”
“It came on real fast,” she mutters. “Do you think Speyside is too isolated?”
I step over to the shower, turning it to a bearable warmth for her. “What?”
“Speyside? Do you think it’s too isolated for Annie and Benjamin?”
I shake my head, cheeks coloring as she calls our baby that again. “We’ll call him Ben, after you,” she’d told me weeks ago, when we first discovered we were pregnant again—we’d been trying this time.
“I told you, we don’t even know if it’s a boy.”
“I can feel it,” she mumbles, letting me pull her to standing and slowly undress her. “But that wasn’t my question.”
“What do you mean isolated?”
“For Annie and Ben to grow up here?”
My brow furrows. “Sadie and Rhys bought the house next door.” Though it’s miles away because of the secluded nature of the area. “They’ll be here for the summers and offseason.”
Paloma nods but puts her hands on my biceps before I can usher her into the shower. “I know but . . .” She trails off and pauses.
“What is it, love?” I ask, cupping her face in my palms. “Tell me what’s really going on.”
“I don’t want Annie to feel alone. I don’t want them to not have friends.”
Stomach caving, I pull her naked body fully into mine, kissing her temple, her hair, anything I can touch. My beautiful wife. My soulmate.
“Never, P. I promise. Besides, Annie starts school soon, yeah? So we can figure it out. If it’s too small here, we can always move, right?”
“And we’ll always keep the beach house?”
This house is where I fell in love with Paloma Blake fully—over and over. It was her safe haven, and mine. We spent birthdays here. I lost my virginity to the girl I love here. Pieces of our souls are scattered across every inch of this house.
“You were meant to be near the water,” I breathe, pressing a kiss to her neck as I dip my head down. “We’ll always have this place.”
And we’ll always have each other.
“Take me wave by wave,” I whisper, watching as she steps into the water, like the ocean coming alive. “Curl your currents into my body. Love me, love me, love me.”
I always knew it would be this way.
The love of my goddamn life.
The constant shore to her tumbling, lovely, alive and vibrant sea.