Epilogue
Three years. That’s how long it had been since I’d first pulled up to this cabin with Seth in the passenger seat, both of us pretending we weren’t terrified of what the trip meant.
Now, as I killed the engine and watched fresh snow dust the windshield, I wasn’t pretending anything. The fear had been replaced by something steadier, something that didn’t need to hide in the dark or whisper behind closed doors.
Seth unbuckled his seat belt and turned to me, snowflakes already catching in his hair from the open door. “You ready to relive our glory days, old man?”
“I’m not even twenty-four, asshole.”
“Ancient,” he said, grinning as he climbed out.
I grabbed our bags from the trunk and followed him up the path.
The cabin looked exactly as I remembered it, all dark logs and amber windows, smoke curling from the chimney like we’d just stepped into a dream.
Seth had the key, and he unlocked the door with the same expression he’d worn when he first stepped inside three years ago.
Wonder, mixed with something softer that made my chest tight.
The warmth hit us immediately. Fire crackled in the fireplace, the same string lights glowed along the walls, and the scent of cinnamon and orange peel wrapped around us like a welcome.
“God, I love this place,” Seth breathed, dropping his bag by the door.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t look away from him. “Me too.”
We settled on the sofa like we had that first night, bodies gravitating toward each other without thought. Seth pulled a deck of cards from his coat pocket and held them up with a triumphant smile.
“Please tell me we’re playing strip Go Fish,” I said.
“We’re fully clothed adults now, Pierce. We can handle a normal card game.”
“Speak for yourself.” But I was already grinning as he shuffled. Three years of playing this ridiculous game had made him annoyingly good at it.
As he dealt the cards, my mind wandered through the last two years.
The draft had been surreal, standing on that stage with cameras flashing and commentators analyzing every second of footage they could find.
The NHL was everything I’d worked for and nothing I’d expected.
Brutal schedules, constant travel, press conferences where I had to pretend I gave a damn about anything other than getting home.
Home. That was the real shift. Not Northwood campus, not the team house, but the apartment Seth and I shared just off campus.
I rented it the week after I signed my contract, texted him a photo of the keys, and asked if he wanted to move in.
His response had been immediate: “Only if you promise to stop leaving your underwear on the bathroom floor.”
I’d promised. I still failed regularly. In fact, I left them on the floor as a little surprise from time to time.
Seth had graduated with honors, which surprised exactly no one.
His master’s scholarship came with lab access that made him light up in ways I couldn’t compete with.
He’d tried explaining his research to me once, something about neural pathways in marine invertebrates, and I’d kissed him to shut him up.
“I love that you’re brilliant,” I’d said.
“But I also have no idea what you just said.”
“Philistine,” he’d muttered, but he’d been smiling.
The best parts were the small ones. Coming home after a brutal away game to find him asleep on the couch with a textbook on his chest. Making breakfast at three in the afternoon because neither of us had anywhere to be.
Learning that love wasn’t just the big gestures but the way he always remembered to buy my favorite granola, or how I’d started reading marine biology articles just to understand what made his eyes spark.
Even Nick had come around, eventually. It had taken a year of awkward silences and one very public fight after a Titans versus Breakers game, but we’d found our way to something resembling friendship.
He was still my fiercest rival on the ice, still the guy who’d slam me into the boards without hesitation, but off the ice, we could share a beer without wanting to kill each other. Progress.
“You’re cheating,” Seth said, pulling me back to the present.
“I haven’t even looked at my cards yet.”
“You’re thinking about cheating. I can see it on your face.”
“That’s just my face, Kane.”
He snorted and snagged a pair of aces, looking far too pleased with himself. “Got any sevens?”
“Go fish.”
The game continued, easy and familiar, and I kept stealing glances at him. The firelight caught the angles of his face, made his eyes gleam when he laughed at something stupid I said. Three years, and he still looked at me like I was worth the trouble.
“I’m making cocktails,” Seth announced after he won the third round. “Since you’re clearly distracted and useless.”
“Harsh.”
“Accurate.” He got up and headed to the kitchen, pulling ingredients from the bag we’d brought.
I followed him, leaning against the counter to watch. He moved with confidence, measuring rum and crushing herbs with the focus he brought to everything. It was one of the countless things I loved about him, that intensity, the way he committed fully to whatever he was doing.
“You know what I love about you?” I said.
Seth glanced up, one eyebrow raised. “My winning personality?”
“That you never make it easy. You could have just said yes when I asked you to come here the first time, but instead, you made me sweat for days.”
“Builds character.” He poured the mixture into glasses and added crushed ice. “What else?”
“That you read scientific papers for fun and then try to explain them to me, even though we both know I’m going to zone out halfway through.”
“You’re terrible.”
“That you still keep that broken compass on your desk, even though it’s completely useless.”
His hands stilled. “It’s not useless.”
“It has no needle, Seth.”
“It reminds me that some things are worth keeping, even when they don’t work the way they’re supposed to.” His voice went soft. “That sometimes broken things are the most important.”
My throat tightened. “Yeah. That too.” It had just been a joke. A broken compass, a vial of poison, a threatening letter made of newspaper cutouts. We had a whole box of memories that would make us perfect crime suspects if it fell into the wrong hands. But we found meaning in them.
He finished the drinks and turned around, leaning back against the counter.
Snowflakes piled against the window behind him, and the low lights made everything feel suspended, separate from the rest of the world.
He was beautiful. Radiant. Every inadequate word people used when they couldn’t describe how looking at someone made their chest cave in.
“I meant to do this later,” I said. The words came out rough. “Maybe in the afterglow or out in the snow. Maybe put it inside a snowball and launch it at you.”
Seth frowned. “What do you mean?”
The nervous laugh that wanted to escape died before it could form. This wasn’t scary. Nothing about Seth had ever been scary, not really. Even when I’d been terrified of what loving him meant, the feeling itself had been the safest thing I’d ever known.
“It’s just that I love you so much, Seth.” My voice steadied. “I can’t think of a life without you. What I imagine is no life at all if you’re not here.”
His eyes widened slightly, catching the light, and I could see the exact moment he understood what was happening.
“And it’s rather simple, then. You are my favorite person. You’ve always been my favorite person. The best friend, the best lover, the best man. There’s nothing more I could ask for.”
Seth’s lips parted, and he was nodding, small movements like he was trying to encourage me forward. Go on. Don’t let me wait too long, his eyes said.
“Except for one thing.”
I dropped to one knee, the tile cold even through my jeans, and pulled the box from my pocket. My hands didn’t shake. They should have, probably, but they were steady as I opened it to reveal the ring inside. Hammered gold, no stones, nothing flashy. Just solid and real and permanent.
“Yes,” he said, launching the word uncontrollably.
I barked a laugh. “Wait, let me ask.”
He wiped his hands against his pants and steadied himself, nodding.
“Seth,” I whispered, feeling his name on my lips.
“Yes. Yes,” he said.
“Wait,” I laughed.
“Right. Go on,” he said, biting his lip.
“Marry me,” I said. “Let me spend the rest of my life trying to make you laugh at terrible impressions. Let me come home to you after every game, every road trip, every day. Let me be the person who gets to love you, who gets to know all your weird habits and annoying perfectionism and that thing you do where you scrunch your nose when you’re thinking too hard. ”
Seth’s eyes were bright, his body almost shaking, and he pressed his lips together before speaking. “Ask the question already.” His voice crackled with excitement.
“Will you marry me, Seth Kane?”
“Yes.” The word came out hoarse. “Yes, you ridiculous man. Obviously yes.”
I stood up, slipping the ring onto his finger, and Seth pulled me in before I could say anything else.
His mouth met mine, hungry and sweet. He kissed me like he was trying to crawl inside my chest and make a home there, and I let him, my hands cupping his face, thumbs brushing away the dampness at the corners of his eyes.
When we finally broke apart, both breathless, he pressed his forehead to mine. “I hate that you made me cry.”
“Liar.”
“I really do.” But he was smiling, soft and genuine and completely himself. “You know I’m going to have to explain to everyone why we got engaged in a kitchen.”
“We can tell them it was in the snow under the stars. Very romantic.”
“We’re not starting our marriage with lies.”
“Our marriage,” I repeated, testing the words. They felt right, solid in a way nothing else ever had. “Sounds pretty good.”
“Better than good. Very good, indeed.” He kissed me again as I laughed, slower this time, deliberate and deep enough to make my knees weak. When he pulled back, his eyes were bright with mischief. “Though I still think you should have put it in a snowball.”
“Next time I propose, I’ll remember that.”
“There better not be a next time, Pierce, or I’m keeping the ring and the apartment.”
I laughed, pulling him close, and the warmth that spread through my chest had nothing to do with the fire crackling in the living room. This was what home felt like. Not a place but a person, not a moment but a choice made over and over again. A promise that never stopped.
“Come on,” Seth said, grabbing both cocktails. “Hot tub’s calling. And you’re going to tell me exactly how long you’ve been carrying that ring around.”
“Three months.”
“Three months?” He spun around, nearly sloshing the drinks. “You’ve been planning this for three months, and you decided to do it in the kitchen?”
“I told you, I was going to wait.”
“Terrible planning, fiancé.”
Fiancé. The word settled over me, warm and permanent and absolutely perfect.
“Yeah,” I said, following him toward the back door, snow already falling heavier outside. “But you said yes anyway.”
“Worst decision of my life,” Seth called back, but his laugh gave him away.
I watched him step out onto the deck, steam rising from the hot tub, snowflakes catching in his hair again. Three years ago, I’d brought him here, hoping for a few stolen days. Now I had forever, and it still didn’t feel like enough time.
But it was a start.
And with Seth, that had always been more than enough.
The End.