Epilogue #2
So I do. I climb out of the car and walk up the hill.
I pull my coat a little tighter around my shoulders.
It was warmer earlier today, in the upper fifties, but it feels colder now.
I expected Georgia winters to be similar to LA, but the Southern humidity means the chill in Atlanta comes with a bite.
I pause at the top of the hill, my eyes scanning in front of me, trying to figure out why I’m here and what I’m supposed to see.
The park is mostly dark, but I see a path winding around the perimeter, lit by streetlamps.
Those lamps cast just enough light for me to finally spot a truck parked at the base of the hill.
A truck … with a man leaning against it.
I can immediately tell it’s Theo—of course it’s Theo, my friends wouldn’t have abandoned me to anyone else—and I hurry toward him. But then I notice the truck looks familiar.
This isn’t just any truck. It’s the same truck he drove in high school. It’s ancient—baby blue with a stripe of white running down the side. I can’t believe it. Theo loved this truck. He wrote poems about this truck.
“What on earth?” I ask as I finally reach him.
He wraps his arms around me, picking me up in an enormous hug. “Hi,” he says as he sets me back on the ground.
“Hi,” I say, a little breathless. “Theo, what is this? Where did you get this truck? Is it the same one?”
“Not the same one,” he says, moving to the tailgate. “Same make and model. Just a lot nicer.”
It really is nice. It looks brand new, which is impossible since it has to be at least thirty years old. Maybe older.
I run my hand along the gleaming paint. “It’s really pretty,” I say. “You bought it?”
“Once I found it, it felt like I had to,” he says. He lowers the tailgate. “Interested in a little stargazing? It’s a nice night.”
I step around him so I can see into the bed, and a wave of déjà vu washes over me. The bed of Theo’s truck is full of pillows and blankets.
We’ve done this before. This is Theo’s ideal date.
My heart squeezes in my chest as I slip an arm around Theo’s waist, nestling into his side. “I would love to,” I say.
He helps me into the truck, then climbs in behind me, and we settle ourselves into the nest of blankets.
The experience has been slightly upgraded from what it was in high school.
The blankets are nicer, the pillows a little fluffier, and there’s some kind of memory foam mattress lining the bed of the truck.
But otherwise, everything feels the same.
Right down to the Thermos sitting on top of the wheel well.
“Some hot chocolate for later,” Theo says motioning toward it before he tugs a blanket over us. “Did you have fun with your friends?”
“I did,” I say. “But it took a while. At first, I was just annoyed I didn’t get to wait for you.” I sit up so I can turn to look at him. “Speaking of which, you were amazing tonight. I forgot how much I love to watch you play.”
He smiles, his expression humbler than it might have been had I said the same thing back in high school. “Thank you.”
“How did it feel?”
“Pretty amazing, I won’t lie.”
I lean forward and press a long kiss to his mouth. “I am so proud of you.”
“I liked knowing you were there,” he says. “That you were cheering for me.”
“Always,” I say. “But come on, man. A hat trick? You’d better tone it down. You’re gonna make the other defensemen feel bad.”
Finally, a touch of his youthful cockiness returns, and he grins. “I think they’ll manage.”
I tuck myself back into his side, and he takes a long and slow breath, his fingers grazing up and down my arm. “It’s not quite as big as the Texas sky, but it’s not bad,” he says, and I turn to look up at the stars. So far, I’ve only been looking at him.
“There’s Orion,” I say, pointing just over the horizon.
He nods. “And that’s Taurus the bull, yeah?”
“No clue,” I say. “I’ve never been able to find Taurus.”
“Um, yes you did,” he says. “You found it all the time, and then you’d always laugh at me when I could never see it.”
I look up at him, eyes wide. “Did I really do that?” I ask, biting my lip. “I must have wanted to impress someone.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Okay, well, I studied because I really did want to impress someone, so I can pretty confidently say, right there, above that tree, is Taurus.”
Warmth spreads across my chest, the love I feel for Theo so suddenly intense, I’m not sure what to do with it all. “You studied?”
“Of course I studied. I wanted tonight to be perfect.”
I lean up and kiss him again. “Any night with you is perfect.”
He lifts a hand to my cheek. “Did you happen to watch the post-game presser tonight?”
“I did not,” I say. “My friends wanted me to be present and stay off my phone.”
“They took their responsibility to kidnap you very seriously.”
“They did,” I say. “How was it? Were you interviewed?”
He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Maybe just watch this one little part?”
I take his phone, holding it while he reaches over and pushes play. Theo is sitting at a table between Coach Kimzey and Miles. His hair is shower-damp, his face flushed, his eyes bright. He looks so handsome, and another pulse of pride pushes through my chest.
A reporter asks him a question about the game, about how it felt to be back on the ice.
He answers with all the eloquence I expect, but then he leans over to his coach and whispers something the microphone doesn’t pick up.
His coach nods and smiles, then Theo leans back to the microphone.
“Thanks, everyone. No more questions for me. I’ve got somewhere I need to be. ”
“Where are you headed, Theo?” someone calls from the audience of reporters.
He pauses, half-lifted out of his chair, and says, “There’s a woman I need to ask to marry me.”
The clip ends, and I slowly raise my gaze to Theo as I take in a stuttering breath. He’s pushed up on his elbow, eyes trained on me, and there’s a ring box sitting on the blanket between us.
“I know it hasn’t been that long,” he says. “But I don’t want to wait anymore, Bec. I knew back then that I wanted to marry you. I knew four months ago that I wanted to marry you. And I know right now that I want to marry you.”
I close my eyes, tears spilling over and sliding down my cheeks.
“What do you say? Will you marry me? Be my wife. Let me be your husband?”
I nod and lean forward, taking his face in my hands, and press my lips to his. “Yes, please,” I whisper against his mouth. “I can’t think of anything I’d love to do more.”
We wait until summer. When the season has ended and we have plenty of time for a wedding and a honeymoon.
Naturally, we head back to Anna Maria Island. Without our mothers.
We play pickleball and swim with dolphins and eat papaya paradise at Reba’s.
We lounge around and sleep late and make love in the middle of the afternoon.
We kiss in the pool and play Scrabble and watch movies and spend a lot of time marveling that after all this time, life somehow brought us back together.
In some ways it feels like a miracle. That I came to Atlanta. That I was working the night of his surgery. That Indigo’s condo is only two blocks away from where Theo has lived since he moved to Georgia.
In other ways, it hardly feels like a miracle at all. Because of course we’re together. We have always been inevitable, always on a path leading us to our first love—our only love.
Leading us to each other.
I hope you enjoyed Theo and Becca’s story!