EPILOGUE
Four Years Later
He found her making butternut squash muffins—one of their favorite recipes from early in their relationship.
"Special occasion?" Jake asked.
"Wednesday. Figured I'd make pork buns and muffins. The classics."
At 8:17, they walked to The Bread Basket. Their Wednesday tradition, maintained for four years now.
Sarah greeted them with a smile. "The usual?"
"The usual."
They sat at their corner table, and Jake looked around. So much had changed in four years. They'd gone from strangers to friends to partners to spouses. From uncertain futures to this—solid, real, committed.
Margaret's had expanded after all, but slowly, carefully. A second location in Burlington, run by Daniel. A catering business that Mae managed. A cookbook that had come out last year to glowing reviews.
The coaching academy had grown too. Jake and Tommy's book had been published. They ran clinics year-round now, training coaches from across North America.
"What are you thinking about?" Lucy asked.
"Just—everything. How far we've come."
"We've come pretty far."
"Do you ever think about Paris? About what your life would have been if you'd stayed?"
Lucy thought about it. "Sometimes. But Jake—I don't regret coming home. Not for a second. Paris was important. I needed it to figure out who I was. But this—" she gestured around the bakery, at Timber Falls, at their life, "—this is where I was meant to be."
"No doubts?"
"No doubts. You?"
"No doubts. Though I do think about Nashville sometimes. Wonder what would have happened if I'd taken that first contract."
"Would you change it? If you could go back?"
"Not a chance. Every choice led here. To you, to us, to this life. I wouldn't change any of it."
They finished their pork buns, and Jake paid the bill.
Walking home through Timber Falls, holding hands, Lucy said: "Jake Morrison, remember when we were terrified of commitment?"
"Vaguely. That was a different lifetime ago."
"What changed?"
"We did. We grew up. We learned that commitment isn't scary—it's just choosing the same person over and over until that choice becomes who you are."
"Very philosophical for a Wednesday morning."
"I'm a philosophical guy."
They reached their house—the house that had been Uncle Walter's, then theirs, now full of their life together. Photos on the walls, both their names on the mailbox, a home they'd built from nothing.
"Lucy?" Jake said at the door.
"Yeah?"
"I love you. Today, tomorrow, every Wednesday morning for the rest of our lives. I love you."
"I love you too. Today, tomorrow, all of it."
They went inside, and Lucy started prepping for her afternoon at the restaurant. Jake reviewed notes for tomorrow's coaching clinic. Separate but together, ambitious but balanced, building their dreams while building their life.
This was it. This was everything they'd fought for. Everything they'd risked for. Everything they'd chosen.
Love and ambition. Career and commitment. Dreams and partnership.
Not perfect. Not easy. But real.
And real was what mattered.
Real was what lasted.
Real was what they'd built, what they'd keep building, for all the Wednesday mornings to come.
THE END
Four years, seven months, and countless pork buns later, Jake Morrison and Lucy Chen-Morrison were exactly where they were meant to be.
Home.