Epilogue
TYLER
Four Months Later
“Were you guys planning on helping out here or nah?” I call from my position at the top of a ladder, strings of twinkle lights hanging from one arm and the other stretched out above my head, trying to reach a tree branch.
“Nah,” Cam, Drew, Jack, and Oliver all say together from across my parents’ backyard where they’re tossing a football back and forth.
“You look like you’ve got it all covered,” Drew calls back, winging the ball to Cam in such a sloppy excuse for a spiral I scoff. Wide receivers. Always thinking they can throw the football. He should really stick to catching.
“Do I?” I ask, whipping my head around so fast I almost go careening off the ladder.
I catch myself just in time, thank fuck.
I really don’t need a broken head today.
Or arm. Or leg. All bones and important body parts need to remain fully intact for the most important day of my entire life.
“Like, does it really look like I have it all covered? I only have four strands of twinkle lights hung, and Sophie loves twinkle lights so I need at least ten—ideally more. And the Sheetz soda fountain was broken. When is a gas station soda fountain ever broken? That’s the one thing you can always rely on, and I could have gone to Speedway but their syrup to CO2 ratio is fucked and see again—must be perfect.
The peanut butter frosting didn’t pipe right, and my sourdough came out flatter than normal, which means the grilled cheese won’t be perfect, and it has to be perfect.
Everything has to be perfect,” I say again, my voice an octave higher than normal.
“I told you that you over-proofed it,” Drew says, sauntering over and looking up at me, arms crossed over his chest. “Or your starter is weak. Did it double by hour six after you fed it? Did you even try the float test I told you about?” He looks at me skeptically.
“Sourdough might not be for you, dude. It requires a level of patience I’m not quite sure you’re well enough acquainted with. ”
I stare at him, insult alive in my chest. “Fuck right off with all that.” I climb down the ladder and face him down.
“My twenty-three-hour cold proof is legendary, and Yeast Mode is a team fucking player. I make sure of it, and if there’s anything wrong with it, it’s your fault, not mine, because I got the starter from you. ”
It turns out, Drew is a secret sourdough savant.
Unbelievable right? After I mentioned making sourdough offhand when Sophie and I were in San Francisco, it was all I could think about.
Since my offseason project was finished and I had a bunch of time on my hands before training camp, I started doing research, immediately falling straight down an internet sourdough rabbit hole.
I told Drew and Cam about it one day, and instead of making fun of me for my new obsession, Drew asked if I wanted some of his starter.
I tried to press him on why he had sourdough starter and what, exactly, he did with it since he didn’t seem like the baking type, but he clammed up instantly and refused to say another word.
He’s an enigma, that one.
But his air of mystery is my gain because I kill at sourdough.
I pin him with a glare before I continue.
“Also, my patience is immaculate. Did you not notice how long I held onto the ball today waiting for you to get your ass downfield? You were slow as shit, old man, and it was just me and the ball, waiting a hundred years for you to get open. Me and the ball and these fingers,” I say, wiggling my black sparkly painted nails in his direction.
My sister added glitter to my pregame manicure for my first pre-season game, and I think it had magical powers.
That, and the fact that it was the first game I’ve played with Sophie in the stands wearing my jersey not just as my best friend, but as the person I love more than anyone or anything in the world.
I felt like I could fly.
“You held onto the ball for so long because my offensive line was on fire.” Cam saunters over to stand next to Drew.
“Oh look, we’re doing the athlete dick-measuring contest again,” Jack says, rolling his eyes.
As the only non-athlete among us who could not give one single shit about pro sports, he regularly loses patience with our shenanigans, and honestly, half the time I do shit just to get on his nerves because he’s fun when he’s annoyed.
Not today, though. Today I’m singularly focused.
Fully centered. Tyler Hansley is a proposal prepping machine.
“Just them.” Oliver jogs over with the football under one arm, gesturing to Cam, Drew, and me. “Everyone knows hockey is the superior athletic endeavor, so I already won.”
“No,” I say, pointing at all of them. “This is what we’re not doing today.
Go measure your dicks somewhere else if you need to, but leave me out of it because in less than half an hour, Sophie will be here so I can ask her to marry me, and nothing is fucking ready.
She’s the love of my damn life and she deserves the most perfect proposal of all time, but I can’t give it to her if my grilled cheese sucks and there aren’t enough fucking twinkle lights. ”
I grip my hair, spinning around as I survey the yard, but it’s not anxiety I feel.
Instead, it’s a nervous anticipation, and the deepest desire to make everything perfect for Sophie because that’s what she deserves.
We officially moved into her newly renovated house the day after I showed it to her, so in every way that counts, we’ve already started our life together.
I know a ring and a signed piece of paper don’t fundamentally change anything about us, but I want them anyway.
Badly. I want to make that part of our life official.
I want to be her husband, and I want her to be my wife.
I want to stand up in front of everyone we care about and pledge our love and have a kickass party celebrating the fact that we get to belong to each other in this most sacred way.
I want to start a family and be together forever and give each other everything.
I want everything for both of us.
So no, I’m not anxious. Not today. And not all that much for the last couple months, actually.
I’ve been seeing a therapist twice a week since a week or so after San Francisco.
It’s been…well, it’s been a revelation, honestly.
I didn’t realize how locked into damage control mode I’ve been for so long when it came to my anxiety.
My therapist has helped me learn how to manage it much better in my day-to-day life, and she and Maddy have both worked with me to come up with a game day strategy so my brain doesn’t treat the hour before every game—and any downtime during the game—like an emergency.
If today’s first pre-season game was a kind of preview of what’s to come, it’s working, and the relief is enormous.
“It’ll be perfect,” Drew says quietly, gripping my shoulder and squeezing.
One of the other things I did after California was tell my friends about the ways I struggle sometimes, and coming clean to them was a weight off my shoulders I didn’t realize I was carrying.
Everyone was amazing, but Drew seemed to understand me on a different level.
He’s checked in a lot since I told everyone—big brother energy, in the good way.
I blow out a breath, dropping my hands from my hair.
“You don’t think I should have gone bigger?
I thought about doing it at the lake house,” I say, referring to my grandparents’ lake house where we spend a couple weeks every summer.
We’re all going next week, and I thought about proposing there out on the dock where we spent so much of our time as kids and teenagers.
“Then I considered the stadium, and also my high school football field, but I kept coming back to this.”
“This is perfect.” Cam picks up the strands of twinkle lights I dropped to the floor, looping them around his own arm.
“I get it, Ty. When I proposed to Maddy a couple months ago, I thought about writing it in the sky or involving some sort of hot air balloon situation.” He laughs, shaking his head.
“It turns out a blanket fort in the living room and waffles I made myself were perfect because it was us, and that’s all it needed to be.
This is the place that means the most to both of you.
The place that has been a part of you for all your lives.
It doesn’t have to be big and loud or the grandest gesture.
It has to be you. There is nothing and no place that means more to you and Sophie than this place right here.
And you have plenty of twinkle lights, so stop climbing up on that damn ladder. You’re going to break your neck.”
“He’s right,” Jack says, bending to straighten the blanket and fluff the pillows I laid out. “Soph doesn’t need fancy shit or massive gestures. She only needs you.”
“You’re amazing together, you know.” Oliver jogs up to the deck and grabs the cupcake I brought, setting it on the blanket for me. “I’m glad you finally figured out what the rest of us always knew.”
“Shut it,” I mutter, but there’s no heat behind it.
My family has been ribbing me for months about finally figuring out Sophie and I were always meant to be.
I don’t really mind it though, because they’re right.
I should have realized sooner, but I also wouldn’t change our story for the world.
Our love grew over decades of family and friendship.
It has become something more beautiful than I ever could have imagined, and now I get to ask my best friend—my favorite person—to be mine forever.
I am the luckiest fucking guy in the world.
“You really think it’s good?”
“It’s better than good.” Jack surveys the yard. “It’s perfect.”
“You guys still good to hang inside? The girls are bringing Soph here and they’re staying too.”