Epilogue
The apron hanging beside Dane’s pantry was mine.
So was the olive oil in the cabinet, the extra pair of sandals by the back door, and the sweatshirt I’d forgotten on our last trip to Redmont and never bothered taking back to New York.
A year ago, I’d been hiding in the house next door and sneaking over here naked.
Things had improved.
I set my bag beside the kitchen island while Dane carried the rest of our luggage upstairs.
Late-afternoon sun poured through the windows, warming the pale wood cabinets and the counters where I’d once stood trying to convince myself that cooking for the intimidatingly large hockey player next door was a perfectly reasonable way to keep my lies intact.
Now the restaurant was open, Dane had finished his first season with the Foundry, and we had survived months of his travel schedule colliding with my restaurant hours without either of us deciding the other was too much trouble.
Some weeks, dinner together happened at an hour that technically qualified as breakfast.
We made it work.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Dane came back into the kitchen wearing a T-shirt and shorts, his dark hair a little longer than it had been when I first met him. The beard was still there.
I remained extremely grateful for the beard.
He crossed the room, slid an arm around my waist, and kissed the side of my head.
“You’re smiling.”
“I like it here.”
His arm tightened around me. “Good.”
I turned in his hold and looked up at him. “That sounded suspiciously pleased with yourself.”
“I built the place. I’m allowed to be pleased when you like it.”
There was the same calm certainty that had driven me insane the first weekend we met.
It still did.
The difference was that now I could kiss him whenever I wanted.
So I did.
Dane kissed me back until I forgot about unpacking, the long flight, and pretty much everything except the solid warmth of him against me. When he finally lifted his head, I stayed where I was.
“We should probably eat eventually,” I said.
“I learned enough from you to feed us.”
“You say that very confidently for a man standing in a kitchen with a chef who has been traveling all day.”
I smiled because, annoyingly, he had.
When we met, his refrigerator had been full of athlete basics and almost nothing I considered interesting. Now I could open it and find ingredients I actually wanted to cook with because Dane had learned what I kept around, what I reached for first, and what disappeared fastest when I was home.
Home had become a flexible word over the last year.
My apartment in New York was still mine. Dane had his place there for the season. We spent enough nights together that the distinction mostly mattered when one of us needed sleep and the other came home at an obscene hour.
Redmont was different.
Here, there was no schedule taped inside a locker, no reservation book waiting for me, no reason to decide which apartment made more sense that night.
There was just us.
I ran my fingers over the edge of the island as I passed it.
The first version of my restaurant plan had started right there on my laptop the morning after I finally told everyone the truth.
That document had grown into months of numbers, menu development, site visits, staffing decisions, contractor meetings, and enough revised projections to make me briefly consider running back to somebody else’s kitchen.
I hadn’t.
I’d chosen the space. I’d built the concept. I’d put my own money into it, chosen my team, and opened the contemporary New American restaurant I’d once been too afraid to admit I wanted.
My father had kept his promise too. He hadn’t made the calls or financed it.
When I eventually asked for his opinion on a few business decisions, he answered only those questions, which might have been the greatest demonstration of paternal restraint in recorded history.
Dane had waited too.
He helped when I had build-out questions because he knew construction and because I trusted him to tell me when something sounded overpriced or impractical. He never tried to make the restaurant his project.
By the time I asked whether he still wanted to invest, the plan was real, the site was mine, and I knew exactly what I needed.
We had lawyers put everything in writing.
I remained majority owner, executive chef, and the person making the operational and creative decisions. Dane took a minority position and stayed silent unless I wanted his input.
He claimed this was easy.
I suspected watching me spend money on kitchen equipment without offering an opinion had taken years off his life.
“You’re doing it again,” he said.
I knew exactly what he meant and went to him. “Fine. I was thinking about the restaurant and you.”
Dane kissed my forehead, then linked his fingers with mine. “Come out to the deck with me.”
I narrowed my eyes at the hot tub beyond the glass. I hadn’t even changed.
“We’re not getting in yet.”
That stopped me.
Dane’s expression hadn’t changed much, but something about the way he held my hand made me pay closer attention.
“What are you doing?”
Dane started toward the rear door instead of answering.
“I run a kitchen. Questions prevent disasters.”
His mouth moved like he was trying not to smile as he led me onto the deck.
The air had cooled since we arrived, though the day’s warmth still clung to the boards beneath my sandals. Beyond the railing, the evergreens moved softly in the breeze, and the distant ridge was washed in the last gold of the afternoon.
The hot tub sat a few yards away.
I looked at it, then at Dane.
“If this is an elaborate attempt to remind me about property rights, I would like to point out that my trespassing record has been spotless for almost a year.”
“I know. You ask permission now.”
“I’ve made excellent progress.”
He stopped beside me.
Then he reached into his pocket.
For once in my life, I had absolutely nothing to say.
Dane looked down at me, steady and calm, but I knew him well enough now to see the tension.
He took my left hand.
“A year ago, I came here because I wanted a place that was completely mine. Then I found you naked in my hot tub.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
His thumb moved over my fingers.
“I thought keeping people out was the same thing as having peace. Then you walked into my kitchen, took over my refrigerator, and somehow ended up in every part of my life I actually care about.”
My eyes stung.
Dane drew the ring from his pocket.
“I love our life in New York. I love coming back here with you. I love watching you run your restaurant, even when you come home too tired to form complete sentences.”
“I form sentences.”
“Sometimes.”
I laughed again, and a tear slipped down my cheek.
His expression softened.
“I want the seasons, the travel, the late nights, this place, New York, and whatever comes after all of it. I want it with you.”
Then Dane went down on one knee.
“Marry me, Chrishelle.”
One failed restaurant had sent me across the country because I couldn’t stand the thought of admitting I had no idea what came next.
Now I had a restaurant that belonged to me, a man who had never once tried to take over the choices that were mine to make, and a future I wanted badly enough to say yes before fear could get anywhere near it.
“Yes.”
Dane’s smile broke wide.
“Yes?”
“Yes. Of course I’ll marry you.”
He slid the ring onto my finger and stood, and I barely gave him time before I threw my arms around his shoulders.
His laugh disappeared into my kiss.
I kissed him until my cheeks hurt from smiling, then pulled back far enough to look at the ring.
“Well,” I said, “this is considerably better than the first time you found me on this deck. Nobody yelled.”
“You did most of the yelling last time.”
“That is not how I remember it.”
Dane laughed and kissed me again before the argument could improve with age.
A little while later, I came back downstairs in my swimsuit and robe and found Dane waiting with two glasses and a bottle of champagne.
He lifted the bottle. “Ready?”
I looked at the hot tub beyond him.
This time, I didn’t have to sneak through the trees, leave my clothes piled beside somebody else’s deck, or invent a legal theory about why an empty hot tub should belong to the person willing to use it.
I took one from him.
“Absolutely.”
We stepped into the water together.
Warmth closed around me as I settled beside Dane, and he poured the champagne before stretching an arm along the back of the tub behind me.
The ring on my finger still felt wonderfully unfamiliar.
I lifted my drink. “To the restaurant. And to surviving your first season in New York.”
Dane touched his to mine. “That was easier than surviving your opening week.”
“You were very brave.”
Dane laughed, and I leaned into him.
Then he raised his again. “To Redmont.”
I looked toward the house, warm light spilling through the windows onto the deck, and touched mine to his. “To Redmont.”
Dane met my gaze.
“And to us.”
That one didn’t need a joke.
“To us.”
We drank, and then I set my glass safely aside and moved into his arms.
Dane kissed me slowly while the water moved around us and the evening settled over the trees.
The first time I’d climbed into this hot tub, I’d been hiding from everything I thought I’d lost.
This time, I was here with my fiancé, my restaurant waiting for me in New York, and a life I had chosen for myself.
I kissed Dane again.
I wasn’t hiding anymore.
I was home.
***
Thank you so much for reading Oops I Fell For The Hockey Player Next Door.