Epilogue
Noah
New York mornings always start with coffee. The city wakes up grumbling, the traffic below a restless ocean, and me barefoot in threadbare shorts and Damien’s rookie jersey, staring out over the skyline from the narrow kitchen window.
This apartment is average by Manhattan standards, but it feels huge compared to where I came from. There’s space for us here—space for my cameras, for Damien’s shoes lined up in the hall, for our mess, our quiet, our mornings.
The mug is chipped—one of Damien’s, stolen from his Blackthorne days, Thunderhawks mascot faded to a ghost. It’s become my favorite, even though we have a dozen slick new ones in the cupboard.
It’s been almost a year and a half since I left Blackthorne, since I left everything that nearly broke me.
I still have my routines, and there are still days I wake up expecting to feel empty and hollowed out from the inside.
But those days get fewer the longer I stay here—tucked into the corners of this apartment, far above the city, safe in a life that actually feels like it’s mine.
My hands still shake sometimes, my stomach still knots when I eat, but I do it. I do it anyway. The outpatient program I’m in runs three mornings a week, and sometimes I still hate the sound of my own voice in group, but it’s helped. God, it’s helped.
I don’t negotiate with the voice that used to run my life. I don’t bargain, and I don’t punish myself. I eat because my body needs fuel and because I want to stay alive. Healing is not a straight line, but I’ve stopped asking for it to be.
There’s a whiteboard on the fridge with my med reminders and mantras scrawled in crooked marker—eat when you’re hungry, rest when you’re tired, trust the process, you are not a project.
That still feels like a small miracle some days.
My mother texts sometimes, as if she suddenly woke up and remembered I exist. She sends selfies with her new boyfriend from Monaco, articles about mental health, and messages about “starting over.”
But it’s not love. It never was. She started trying when Damien got signed to the Manhattan Vipers last summer.
She started caring when the headlines used words like rookie phenom and future MVP, and the paycheck came with a number that could swallow her entire Milan penthouse.
Suddenly, I was valuable again. Not as Noah, not as her son. But as the one Damien Moore loved.
She can rot. I mean that in the calmest way possible. She can rot with her rosé and her curated Instagram stories of perfect white hydrangeas. I don’t have anything left to give her now. I’m learning that’s okay.
My father tried once a few months ago. He sent a letter—an actual letter, three pages of neat, blocky script.
It sits in my sock drawer, unread. Some wounds don’t scar; they just stay open.
Maybe I’ll look at it one day, just to see if the words line up with the man I remember.
For now, I let him be silent. I let myself heal.
Sometimes, after Damien leaves, I’ll spend hours editing photos.
Sometimes I just sit on the fire escape and let the noise of New York roll over me, coffee in hand, hoodie too big, safe in a place that doesn’t care who I am.
I call Sage or Nate or Ryan, text the Sin Bin group chat, send stupid TikToks to Killian, and… I exist. That’s enough.
Damien’s everywhere now. On billboards in Times Square, in highlight reels, in magazine spreads.
He was the third overall draft pick, rookie of the year frontrunner, and the youngest starter the Vipers have had in six years.
He came out as bi at his very first Vipers press conference when the reporters kept pushing him about ‘rumors’.
He didn’t freak out at all, he just stared down the cameras until nobody could meet his eyes.
The team’s head coach is queer, too, but the league is full of old money and older ideas, and the bias is real. They call him names behind closed doors, in press rooms, comments sections, locker rooms, and forums that still think queerness is something that weakens a man.
But Damien doesn’t fucking care. He plays with this stubborn kind of joy, a physical poetry that makes it clear to everyone watching that he’s not here to hide.
“You know what slurs mean when they can’t touch your stats?
” he told me once when I flinched at a headline.
“It means the fuckers are scared. Scared of somebody they can’t box in.
They can’t call me a pussy when I’m breaking records.
Can’t say I’m weak when I’m flooring their golden boy. Let ‘em talk.”
And they still talk, but Damien just drops forty points on them and walks off the court with his middle finger metaphorically raised. He doesn’t need to shout when his game does all the talking.
I envy his fearlessness.
I half expect to wake up and find out this was all a dream, that the tall, wild-haired boy who still calls me Babygirl is just a wish I made in another life. But he’s here, as real as the coffee in my hands, as constant as the sound of his voice behind every closed door.
I smile against the rim of the cup when I hear the sound of footsteps padding down the hallway.
There’s something about the way he walks now—more solid and sure—that makes me fall in love with him even more.
He’s louder when he enters a room, but only because he’s grown into the space he was always supposed to take up.
Damien slides up behind me, warm and half-draped in sleep, arms looping lazily around my waist. He folds himself into me, chin dropping onto my shoulder, face buried in my neck. His hands are big, callused from hours of ball, but he’s always gentle with me.
He’s shirtless—always is in the morning—and I feel the press of his chest as he breathes me in, all muscle and early heat and familiarity that never stops feeling new.
“Mm,” he grumbles, voice thick with sleep. “Why’re you up? It’s Saturday. Come back to bed.”
I set my mug down, sinking into his hold, letting him sway us gently. “You’re leaving tonight,” I remind him.
“Exactly why you should come back to bed. Make the most of what’s left.” He trails one hand up under my shirt, palm warm on my stomach. “Don’t make me beg, Babygirl. It’s way too early for that.”
“Are you really gonna pout your way through the rest of the day if I say no?”
“I’m already pouting. Can’t you feel it?” His mouth moves higher, brushing my jaw. “This is me, mid-pout. It’s very tragic. Might require sympathy sex.”
I huff a laugh and lean back into him. “Gotta get used to being lonely again, Mien.”
He groans, dragging his mouth along the slope of my neck like he’s trying to devour me without the effort of teeth. “I hate leaving you, Blue. The beds are cold without you next to me.”
I roll my eyes, smiling in spite of myself, and tilt my head back so he can kiss my jaw, the stubble on his chin rasping against my skin. “You were the one who signed with the Vipers, superstar. Go blame your coach.”
Damien snorts, nipping gently at my ear. “I blame you, actually. If you weren’t so pretty, I’d still be stuck in some college town and eating cup noodles with Ryan.”
“Liar,” I say, laughing. “You’d have been in the league either way.”
He hums, unbothered, swaying us side to side. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t be here, and none of it would matter.” He goes quiet, then, the kind of quiet that only means he’s thinking something too big for words. “Wish you’d come with me this time. Pre-season’s brutal without you.”
I twist in his grip, moving my hands up his chest to cup his face. “I’ll visit for a few days once you’re settled,” I say, lightly brushing my thumb over the Blue tattoo on his neck. “I have that shoot next week, and group on Wednesday. Plus, I actually have work now, so I’m busy.”
He pouts, but this time it’s exaggerated and boyish in that way only I get to see. Damien Moore—star of the Vipers, known for his ruthless defense and sharp elbows—literally whining because he’s feeling needy. “Busy. Bet I can change that.”
“You’re not seducing me at six in the morning.”
“Give me fifteen minutes and a flat surface, and I’ll change your mind.”
I roll my eyes again, but he makes a good argument when he presses his lips greedily to mine, hands sliding down to cup my hips. He tastes of toothpaste and sleep, all the things that feel like home.
When he pulls back, his eyes are bright, the gold flecks sharp against dark brown. “Let me have you for another hour. I’ll get us the good bagels later.”
“You don’t even like bagels,” I point out, pretending to protest as he drags me back toward the hall, coffee abandoned, my body already melting into his.
He just laughs. “Don’t care. I like you.”
I let him lead me back to the bedroom, where he crowds me onto the bed, sheets cool against my back as he leans over me, a grin pulling at his mouth. “How are you real?” he asks, quiet now, as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist. “How the hell did I get so lucky?”
I let him settle over me, the weight of him grounding, his hands tracing gentle lines down my sides. “Maybe you were just due for some good luck,” I say, pulling him down for another kiss. “God knows you earned it.”
He nuzzles my neck, smiling against my skin. “You’re the only thing I care about, Blue. They can call me whatever they want. I get to come home to you.”
I slide my hands up his back, feeling the tension there, the constant coil he carries even when he’s half asleep. “You don’t have to be brave all the time,” I murmur. “You know that, right?”
“Only with you,” he says. “Everyone else gets the highlight reel version. You get… all of it.”
“That’s because I saw you before the cameras,” I say softly. “Before the noise.”